“You have reached Madam LaRoux, seeker of truths and guide to the unseen. How may I assist you?”
The voice is theatrical, exaggerated, wrapped in an accentthat feels more performed than natural. For a second, it almost breaks the tension, something in me recoiling at the obvious artifice of it.
“Hi,” I say, caught between skepticism and something closer to desperation. “I’d like to book an appointment.”
“I am very sought-after,” she replies immediately, her tone rich with practiced importance. “I am currently booked for the next six weeks.”
Six weeks?
I almost laugh. The absurdity of it presses up against the edges of my patience, the idea that this woman could be so in demand for something so clearly constructed. But the feeling doesn’t last. It’s swallowed quickly by something heavier, something more urgent.
Whitney is dead.
Nothing about this is absurd anymore.
“Please,” I say, and my voice softens despite my best effort to keep it steady. “My friend died. Recently. Under… circumstances that don’t make sense. I found your card in her journal, and I need to understand why she had it. I need answers.”
Silence.
Not the casual kind, but something deliberate, weighted. I can hear my own breathing in the space between us, uneven and too loud.
Then, quieter now, the voice shifts.
“You found my card in her journal?”
The accent slips, just slightly.
“Yes.” My grip tightens on the phone. “She wouldn’t have kept it for no reason. That’s what I’m trying to understand.”
Another pause, shorter this time.
Then, measured, “I can see you tomorrow night. After hours. Ten o’clock. You will need to come to me. In Miami.”
Miami.
I glance at the clock automatically, calculating the distance, the timing, the late hour. Two hours each way. Dark roads. Empty stretches of highway. A flicker of hesitation moves through me, quiet but insistent.
Then I think of the noose.
Of the jar.
Of the feeling that something is closing in, tightening, waiting for me to slow down.
“Okay,” I say, the word steadier than I feel. “I’ll be there.”
“Good.” The accent returns, though it’s less exaggerated now, more contained. “Bring something of hers. Something personal. It will help.”
The line goes dead before I can respond.
For a moment, I just sit there, staring at my phone, the silence in the room settling around me again, heavier than before. The card rests against my palm, its edges sharp, real.
I don’t know if this is a mistake.
I don’t know if I’m chasing something that isn’t there, grasping at anything that might explain what’s happening.
But Whitney kept this.
And Whitney didn’t do anything without a reason.
