Page 81 of Stalked By Shadows
“Let me have someone walk you home. Get some rest.”
I pulled away and stumbled to my feet, feeling a little unsteady still from the panic attack. “Maybe he got by us somehow and went home?”
“I already sent officers that way to see if he was there, and I have his cameras linked to my phone, remember? So do you.” Lukas reminded me.
I nodded and backed away. “I’m going to go check.”
Lukas frowned at me. “Alex…”
“It’s okay. I’m going to check his house and head home.”
“Promise me,” Lukas demanded. “His place and then home. I’ll send cops around to check on you.”
“Sure,” I said, not really promising anything.
“Alex,” Lukas called after me.
“I’m fine.”
“I need you safe.”
But I was safe. Something had taken Micah and probably Sarah, leaving me behind. It was Micah who wasn’t safe. “I’m going to Micah’s. I might wait for him there.” I walked away from Lukas, ignoring his protests and pulled up the video on my phone. I headed down toward the Quarter. It was a bit of a walk, but not horrible. It gave me time to search the cameras’ past feed for any sign of anything odd. I watched the video of Micah from last night. How he sat in the garden, tense with fear, while nothing happened. He seemed angry with himself when he finally went inside.
Then from the past few hours I saw us leave on camera, but nothing afterward, not even the orange tabby that had been visiting his yard previously. No sign of Micah. I didn’t head toward his house or even Lukas’s. Jared’s words replayed in my head. All this over some stupid ring. What the fuck were they even thinking? Would the police even know what to search for in Mary’s shop? Her place had been filled with clutter; how would they even know?
I turned in that direction instead and wondered how I would know if I found it. Would it glow? Was there even a ring? And why would a dead person care? They couldn’t take money with them to the other side. Maybe it was some sort of magic thing. Was magic real or simply a state of mind? I wasn’t qualified to make those philosophical leaps, though my brain did try.
A few blocks away I saw smoke and my stomach lurched in worry. For a moment I thought it might be from the LaLaurie mansion again. Only it was the wrong direction. The flashing of lights as I neared pushed me to run. Fire poured from a row of shops, centered on Mary’s Voodoo place, but spreading outward. The man who owned the shop next door to Mary’s stood there looking heartbroken as he spoke to a police officer. Firefighters worked on the blaze trying to keep it from spreading further.
I noticed another woman standing away from the crowd of gawkers, and vaguely remembered her from that first day in the shop. Abigail. I made a beeline for her. She barely glanced my way before I planted myself in front of her, and unlike the man who owned the shop next door, she didn’t look upset by the blaze.
“Was the ring in there? Or whatever your aunt took from that grave?” I demanded of her.
She frowned at me. “Who are you?”
“Alexis Caine. I work with Micah. I need that ring.”
She waved her hand at the blaze. “Everything is gone.”
“Did you set the fire?”
“Fires happen a lot here,” was all she said. “I’m not sorry to see it go, though I do feel bad for the neighbors.”
I could have strangled her at the very thought of it. Was the chance to get Micah back burning to ash right that second? “What did they do at the grave?”
Abigail shrugged. “It never worked. I knew it wouldn’t work. That was why I didn’t go. AuntMary, that wasn’t her real name, wanted proof that she was related to the last remaining LaLaurie. She wanted the Mansion to use it as a tourist attraction.”
I tried to make sense of that. “Wait, so the woman that died was a LaLaurie?” The name hadn’t been the same. And from what I remembered of the cemetery there wasn’t a tomb that was specific to the LaLauries. Or maybe that had been to keep the vandalism down.
“Married half a dozen times and tried to bury her lineage. Mary and I were supposedly related too, but I don’t need that legacy, thanks. Bunch of psychos. She thought if they could prove lineage then they could go to court and get the mansion. Strong Catholic woman didn’t believe in cremation, but if they left her in the grave long enough the heat would do it for her. Marc thought if they could get DNA they could test. They thought it would make them rich. Mary requested a DNA test lots of times, but that old bitch wasn’t having it. Now that she’s dead, they figured they could take it.”
I gaped at her. “What the fuck is wrong with you people?”
Abigail shrugged. “Not me. I didn’t want it. That family is cursed and I want no part of it.”
“So there’s no ring?” I clarified. “They took a bone or something from the grave?” How gross was that. That they would take something from a newly dead body for a DNA test. The entire thing made me seethe with anger. Sarah and Micah were missing because someone wanted control over a haunted house? “All of this over a fucking house?”
“That place makes the new owners a fortune. And I don’t know what ring they’d be talking about. I know they wanted to open a portal to a guide that would help them get back the rights or something. It was always some mystic bullshit with them. Spirit guides and portals. I hate this city and its paranormal crap.” Abigail looked away. “Mary said she’d give Marc a cut of the earnings. Not me, of course, because I was her niece and she expected me to help. Except I didn’t show up for their little ceremony killing chickens and squirrels.” She glared into the flames. “I’m done with all of this. The mystical bullshit, death, ghosts, and all of it. I want a normal life. Let it all burn.”