Page 21 of Cursed (Decorah Security 2.0, #14)

While she’d been inside, someone had slashed her left rear tire with a knife. And she’d be willing to bet—from the way that Jacques Malvaux had glanced out the window—that he’d seen the perp.

She’d turned in response, but whoever was out there had already ducked down so that the car hid him. Then he could have crawled away like a yellow-bellied gator.

She grimaced. Was the tire slashing malicious fallout from the campaign against Andre? Or was someone interested in seeing how the little lady librarian handled a flat tire?

Opening the trunk, she checked the tool kit and was relieved to find a jack, which she dragged out and set under the bumper.

It took her under half an hour to get the ruined tire off and the new one onto the wheel.

After that, she wanted to drive straight back to Belle Vista.

Because that would leave her without a spare, she drove to the gas station, sure that everyone in town was peering out from behind their curtains, watching her.

And Bob Mansard gave her a satisfied look as she stopped in the service area, making her wonder if he was the one who had slashed the tire.

“Problems?” Bubba asked helpfully, like he already knew what had happened.

“A flat. I’m pretty sure it’s beyond repair. I’m hoping you have a replacement. She gave him the number, then waited while he checked his stock.

When he produced a substitute, she put it into the trunk herself, figuring she wasn’t going to give him another crack at screwing up the vehicle.

As she headed out of town, she looked in the rearview mirror to make sure no one was behind her.

Then she pulled onto the shoulder, retrieved the Glock from the shopping bag and loaded it.

One thing she liked about the weapon was the safety system.

The only way it could fire was if your finger were on the trigger, which made her feel okay about slipping a loaded gun into her purse.

When she reached the house, neither Janet nor Andre was around. But there was a new pile of cut and split wood near the back door.

Thinking that luck was with her for once, Morgan walked quietly inside and into the library.

The book where the maps had been concealed was in the same place.

After a glance over her shoulder, she put the sheets back where she’d found them, then breathed out a little sigh before going up to her room to leave the carry bag.

Since the incident with the alligator and the log, she’d vowed that she wasn’t going to go tramping around the estate armed with just a kitchen knife.

So, she kept her purse strap slung over her shoulder as she hurried downstairs and outside again.

When she heard the saw buzzing again, she set off across the lawn, heading toward the sound—thinking Andre had cut enough wood for one day.

She hadn’t been to this part of the grounds before.

At the edge of the lawn, she came to a slate path that led under the trees and followed it to a three-foot-tall wrought iron fence.

Beyond it were several white horizontal objects.

As she drew closer, they resolved themselves into above-ground crypts.

Apparently, she’d stumbled across the family graveyard. To her eyes, the coffin-shaped burial chambers looked strange. But she remembered that down here, they were the norm.

As she walked slowly forward, it registered somewhere in her consciousness that the sound of the saw had stopped, leaving her in a bubble of silence.

The cemetery plot was not as well tended as the rest of the grounds. Weeds poked up through the dark earth, a climbing rose straggled along one side of the fence, and leaves were scattered across the graying tops of the crypts.

A small inner voice warned her to walk away from this place.

Instead Morgan pushed at the gate. The hinges squeaked, grating on her nerve endings.

The moment she entered the enclosure, it felt like the temperature had dropped ten degrees, and as she looked down, fingers of fog began rising from the ground.

Fog. Only here?

She wanted to escape this patch of ground. But somehow the mist twisted around her ankles and held her, the way something had held her at the scene of the flood, she thought with a shudder.

Run. Get away , a voice in her head warned. Instead she kept moving forward.

She could hear a noise in the background now. Not the saw. Was it more like the beating of a drum? Wrapping her hands over her arms, she rubbed her chilled skin. It felt as though she had stepped into a supernatural place. Or some supernatural force had taken over the graveyard. Taken over her.

Shadows flickered, creating the illusion that the little cemetery was haunted by the ghosts from the past. And something from the present too—a force that pressed against her, making it hard to breathe.

She looked up, seeing the tree branches overhead, swaying in the wind, shifting the patterns of light and dark around her, blurring her vision.

Someone called her name, a ghostly sound carried away by the wind.

She straightened her shoulders, struggling to put the idea of specters out of her head as she moved reluctantly toward the nearest crypt.

Brushing away the leaves, she saw that the name was almost completely worn away, but as she squinted at the carved letters, she saw that a Margot Gascon was buried here.

Who was the woman? Morgan didn’t know. But she understood that it was important to look at the other names. One name in particular. She must find it.

She was moving frantically now, hurrying through the cemetery. A grave at the back drew her. That was the one. Yes. She knew it, even though she couldn’t see the name yet.

Leaning over the flat top of the crypt, she brushed frantically at the leaves, then tried to read the worn letters.

At first, she couldn’t make any sense of the words.

With a shaking hand, she traced the carving.

The stone felt like ice against her fingertips.

When the name came into focus, she gasped.

It said Andre Gascon.

Instinctively, she leaped back, then bumped into something that hadn’t been there before.

Not something. Someone.

Two separate and distinct thoughts vied for prominence in her madly scrambling mind. The men from town had followed her to this isolated location and were going to finish what they’d started on the road. Or one of the ghosts she’d sensed in this place of death had snuck up behind her.

If the men were after her, her next act might have been rational. Fumbling in her purse, she pulled out the gun she’d just bought and slipped her finger through the trigger guard as she whirled around—prepared to shoot the enemy.

Her heart leaped into her throat when she found herself facing Andre.

He was wearing a tee shirt, jeans and muddy work boots. His face and shirt were streaked with perspiration, and he was staring at her with an expression that mirrored her own shock.

“Put down the gun,” he said in a steady voice.

“You’re dead,” she gasped, backing away from him, bumping into another crypt. Somewhere in her brain, she knew she wasn’t thinking rationally. Andre was standing in front of her—alive and well. He had been out in the bayou working. And he had followed her into the cemetery.

But she kept seeing the white burial chamber imposed on his image. And she kept the gun pointed at him, the weight of the weapon reassuring.

“No. I’m very much alive.”

“But … your name.” Without lowering the weapon, she gestured toward the crypt.

“That’s my grandfather.”

“Your grandfather,” she repeated. Suddenly she felt dizzy. Closing her eyes, she pressed her free hand to her temple. “Andre. What just happened to me?” she whispered.

He answered with his own question. “Where did you get that gun?”

“In town,” she said, lowering the weapon, feeling now like it was weighing down her hand.

“Put it away, before somebody gets hurt.”

“Right.” As she eased her finger away from the trigger and carefully put the weapon back in her purse, realization slammed into her.

“I could have shot you,” she wheezed.

“You didn’t.”

“What’s happening to me?” she asked again, pressing her fingers to her temple.

“I don’t know.”

Suddenly it was important to explain why she had been so startled. “There are no dates on the gravestone,” she whispered.

He kept his voice even. “They’re at the foot of each marker.” He moved past her, brushed away leaves and pointed.

She made out the dates. Andre’s grandfather had been born in the late eighteen hundreds, died in the nineteen eighties.”

“You knew him?”

“When I was a boy. He was pretty old when I was born,” Andre said, then cleared his throat. “Let’s get out of here.”

“Yes.” She wanted to get as far away as she could from this place. When he took her hand and led her to the gate, she followed willingly. But something glistening on the ground made her stop short, a strangled sound bubbling in her throat.