Okay, slow and easy, Detra Ann. Slow and easy.
I picked up the pace and went back down I-65 toward the turnoff that would lead me to Mr. Glass’ warehouse. The place wasn’t hard to find. In fact, I’d driven past this location many times before. It’s just that I didn’t know what was in here. I pulled into the gravel drive and spotted his truck. No, I didn’t like the guy—but if he had any sense about him, he would not try to manhandle me. I’d been taking Muay Thai, and I was a human lie detector.
Yes, I could handle this dude if I needed to. Getting stronger was one of my New Year’s resolutions, and I’d achieved it. I’d become stronger and more limber. I did feel empowered by my new skills, and I hoped my sore muscles would pay off if and when I needed to use my swanky go-to moves.
Why was I feeling like this? I went from aggressive to sick back to aggressive. I put the car in park, got out and locked my purse in the trunk. As I walked toward the front door, I took a deep breath. Nobody answered the doorbell, but I remembered that Mr. Glass had left instructions for Aggie to go to the rear when she arrived, so I did the same. I guess the old man didn’t know I was there because he was talking to himself. Or talking to somebody. Oops. I didn’t want to be caught eavesdropping.
He had a kind of weird, raspy voice that was a little high-pitched when he got excited. It was off-putting. Everything about this man was off-putting. But Henri was right that if we could rescue the statues, it would be worth it—I hoped.
“Mr. Glass?” I said, hoping he would notice me before I walked up on him. I hadn’t seen him yet, but I could hear him talking. Talking to someone rather animatedly too.
“No, she doesn’t know anything. Will you stop badgering me? I’m not… I tell you I won’t! Quit asking!”
Okay, this situation was going to get weird if I didn’t step out and show myself. I might regret it later if he didn’t know I was here. I called out a bit louder this time. “Mr. Glass? Hi! It’s me, Detra Ann Devecheaux. Are you here?” Of course, I knew he was, but I might as well play along.
“What are you doing here? Didn’t your girl make it back to the shop okay? If she didn’t, I had nothing to do with that. What’s going on? We signed an agreement.”
Okay, so he wasn’t above lying to my face. I knew we hadn’t signed the final agreement because I was the one who drew up the contracts.
I shot him my best polished smile. “I just have a few questions on the tallest statues you have. I might have an interested buyer.” That wasn’t entirely a lie. Mrs. Phyllis Green had reached out to me earlier this week about the statuary. Apparently, the word was out. Devecheaux Antiques trafficked cemetery art. Great. I suddenly hated everything about this. I was regretting ever telling my sweet husband that I was interested in these things.
I looked around but didn’t see anyone else. Who in the world could Mr. Glass be talking to? “Was I interrupting a call? I am so sorry,” I said in my most syrupy-sweet voice. Yep, that pageant training came in handy. Thanks, Mother.
“What call? Did you call?” Clearly, Mr. Glass was about as smart as a bag of hammers.
“Oh, I’m sorry. I thought you were on the phone. I heard you talking to someone.”
He frowned even deeper. “I don’t use those gadgets—they will fry your brain. Look, do whatever you want, but don’t steal anything. I’ve had enough surprise visitors for the day. I’d like it if you just sent your flunky back.”
My hand went to my hip. “Excuse me? I’m the lady who signs the checks. Remember? I don’t have flunkies, and I sure don’t steal. I own Devecheaux Antiques. I’m pretty strong but not strong enough to lug out a concrete or marble statue.”
“Huh, oh, I remember you now. You’re the one married to the black man.”
You rotten old bigot. Way to proclaim your ignorance. Bite your tongue, Detra Ann, or go ahead and renew the lawyer’s retainer. Ooh, I’d love to come up doing the helicopter on this jerkface!
“Aggie didn’t do a great job of capturing photos of the larger statues. It will only take a few minutes to get new pictures.” Wow, lying wasn’t as easy as some people made it look. But I had to have a reason to be here, besides the fact he was a creep and I suspected something fishy was going on.
“That shop girl of yours is kind of out there. You should really do a better job of screening who you hire. If you don’t mind me saying so.”
“What do you mean? Aggie is our best employee. We couldn’t do this without her,” I said defensively. An awkward silence passed between us. “One quick question, though: is there something I should know, Mr. Glass? Maybe details about these antiques that you failed to mention?”
You rotten old bastard.
“What do you mean? These aren’t stolen, if that’s what you’re insinuating. You’ve got your wires crossed if you think I stole anything. I wouldn’t be trucking in stolen goods. That’ll get you locked up. These horrible things are my inheritance. Pretty rich, isn’t it? What a great gift my family left me. I am ready to sell them, get them out of my warehouse. Out of my life. The whispering…it’s too much. Your girl heard it too, I think. Did she tell you?”
“Look, Mr. Glass…” I almost forgot the guy’s last name. I wanted to say something else, an unladylike word without the G and L. “I just want to get a few more pictures for potential buyers, okay? Is there any harm in that?”
“Suit yourself. I’ve got things to do. See yourself out when you’re done.”
“Sure, not a problem.” As he walked away, I breathed a sigh of relief. Aggie was right, this guy was a jerk. An A-number-one jerk. I snapped a few photos just for appearances’ sake, and that’s when I heard the voice.
A child’s voice.
He keeps us here...he won’t let us out.
“Hello?”
He keeps us here…he hurt us...let us out. Please…
All the chills I have ever experienced returned to my body. And that was a heck of a lot. They rolled up and down my back, and I really wanted to throw up. I took a few more pictures, ran to my car and took off without so much as a goodbye.
And now I had an even worse feeling. That was no living child’s voice I heard. Mr. Glass’ whispers were real. Very real. I heard them all at once, piling into my brain. Filling my ears with anxious, mournful pleas. Oh, God! I can’t do this!
These were the voices of the dead. Lost children trapped in this horrible place.
I went home and cried my eyes out.
Chapter Three—Aggie
Whirring sounds of cars passing by the shop were about the only noise or evidence of the outside world that I encountered today. To say the activity in the shop was as slow as molasses would be an understatement. Having no customers for hours was my signal to vacate. It had been a long day of nothing. The silence made me go inside my own head, which was not a good thing for me. I did not go there often lately. Phoenix had broken my heart. His silence added to the boredom and just about drove me insane.
I pressed the all-too-familiar numbers on my phone with the same response I had been getting for the past week. No answer on the other end. The pit of my stomach twisted. Why was Phoenix ignoring me? If he’d moved on, the polite thing would be to let me know. My head throbbed as I went over all the things I might have said or done that pushed him away.
I was good at that.
Pushing people away came with the territory. Keeping people at arm’s length was better than letting them in. Letting them too close to me. If I did that, I might reveal all the twists and turns of my undeniable quirkiness. I thought Phoenix was different—I thought he could handle it.
Okay, I hoped was more like it. Obviously not.
The keys to the shop dangled in my hand as I clicked the lock shut. Meeting up with Patrice for a good slice of fattening pizza would be just the thing to get my mind off my nonexistent love life.
Phoenix hadn’t really wanted to talk about the whole ‘Mrs. Parnell and cursed radio thing’ since it all happened. Maybe that’s what was fre
aking him out? Who knows what was going on in Phoenix’s head? Ugh, why am I obsessing over a guy? I have enough trouble keeping up with my own anxieties and issues. The few coffee dates we had, we didn’t really discuss anything paranormal, and I didn’t bring that event up.
Being different is, well, enough to make you want to go underground.
Phoenix tended to turn toward music. I couldn’t follow him down that path because the shop and school kept my plate full. Besides, it didn’t seem like he wanted me there anyway. I enjoyed being with him, but the feeling didn’t always seem to be mutual. Phoenix was MIA for now and I just needed to come to terms with that and move on. Checking the door more than once was part of my OCD. I knew I locked it, but these habits of mine were hard to break. I ceremoniously jiggled the doorknob back and forth, but I was interrupted by a weird clunk coming from inside of the shop.
What in the world could that be? A rodent knocking something over?
I peeked inside through the window, scanning the area for any little creature that could have caused the racket. Nothing. Until the small statue that I had saved from the clutches of old Mr. Glass caught my eye.
Holy frick!
The cheeks of the tiny little cherub looked moist. No, not moist. Streaming tears. Were my eyes playing tricks on me?
That can’t be right. Statues don’t cry. Only in the movies, bad horror movies that never ended well.
It had to be odd shadows cast onto its face. My mind and eyes were playing tricks on me. Maybe the moisture in the air had gotten to it? Surely that was the cause of the tear-stained statue. I had almost convinced myself, until a new stream of water sprouted from the carved, cold eyes of this little angel.
As I backed away from the door to escape the possibility of what this meant, my emotions got the better of me. Sorrow overtook me and fear rose in my throat, closing it off from the scream that I wanted to release. Coldness swept over me even in the heat of the night.
This can’t be happening. What was that?
No, I wasn’t going back in. I had to get away! I raced toward my tiny car. As I drove toward our favorite little pizza shop on Dauphin Street, I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was still being watched by that weeping little angel. I didn’t feel alone. Should I let Henri and Detra Ann know?
After the way Detra Ann had reacted to the statue before, I couldn’t take the chance of making a mountain out of a molehill. Maybe I was only tired and aggravated at Phoenix.
Yeah, that has to be it. I’ll just keep this to myself.
I’d think about it later, and of course I’d have to investigate it. There had to be a rational explanation. Crying angels?
Not everything in this world is haunted, is it?
*****
“Aggie!” Patrice waved her arms at me from a corner table. I could barely see her in the dimly lit room with walls of exposed brick. The light fixtures were made of various industrial-looking remnants from a long-lost steel manufacturing business. Dark steel rods hung from the aged wooden beams that crossed the vast expanse of the building.
“You don’t have to scream at me,” I said as I lowered my head, embarrassed.
“Aggie, you’re so extra. I was just letting you know where I was sitting. You know you’re late, right? I’m the one who should be fussing,” Patrice said with an unhappy scowl.
I plopped down in the vibrant yellow chair. “Sorry.”
Patrice leaned to the side, tilting her head in that disapproving way only she can do. “Sorry? Really? That’s all you have to say. I’ve been here for like thirty minutes already. The waitress thinks I’m looney tunes or something because I’ve been telling her to hold off on our order until you got here. She was probably starting to think you were an imaginary friend.”
“Maybe I am.” I chuckled playfully as I reviewed the menu halfheartedly.
Patrice studied hers as well, even though I’m sure she’d had it memorized by now. “Not a chance. My imaginary friends are always on time.”
I pushed my hair behind my ear. “Hey! Look, I said I’m sorry.” Geesh, that stung a little.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re late, or am I going to have to guess? Ooh, no, let me guess. Phoenix came to the shop! Did you two get back together?”
“No,” I said a bit too quickly. “We never broke up, and we were never together. Not like that. I had to lock up. It just took me a little longer than usual.” I didn’t want to let Patrice know what happened with the weeping angel. Answering her questions and hearing her scold me for not telling anyone was not exactly how I wanted to spend my night. She would want me to tell the Devecheauxs, and now I wasn’t even really sure what I witnessed.
Patrice squinted, and I knew it was about to hit the fan. “Okay, so what really happened? You’re acting weirder than normal.”
Was I that obvious? My face always got me into trouble. “Nothing happened. Can we just drop it? I’m starving. Those wontons sound good, right? I never thought I’d see wontons on a pizza shop menu.”
Patrice looked over toward a couple who were in a deep, heated conversation. Neither of the women looked happy at the moment. Whatever they were discussing was probably way more important than anything either one of us had to say, or at least that was the vibe they gave off.
Customer service was lacking here, but their pizza and appetizers were the best in town. Patrice politely waved at the waitress, but the blonde didn’t bother to come over. Instead, she shot Patrice an annoyed look. Talk about a bad attitude. Eventually she stomped over like Godzilla bearing down on Tokyo.
“You ready now?” the waitress huffed from her cheap berry-stained lipstick. Her hair fell slightly in front of one blue eye as she glared at us and cracked her gum.
“Thanks for waiting. Yeah, we’re ready.”
We ordered a medium pizza to share and an order of wontons with two iced teas. The waitress didn’t even thank us or promise she’d be back soon. Patrice turned back toward me now with a determined look on her face.
“Spill the beans. I know something happened.”
I pressed my lips together, not wanting to go there, but I knew she wasn’t going to let up until I told her. “Fine. Yes, something did happen at the shop. Maybe. I’m not really sure.”
“What do you mean maybe, Aggie? It’s not like you to be so uncertain.” Patrice propped herself up on one elbow, placing her hand on her right cheek. It was then that I noticed she had faint dark circles under her eyes. She’d been restless at night. I knew that because I lived with her.
“I’m not sure what I saw, sis. It could be nothing.” I hoped the annoyed waitress would return to save me from the inquisition, but no such luck. No iced teas made their way to our table.
“Okay, so what do you think you saw?”
Man, she was not letting this go. I breathed in deeply. “You remember how I was telling you about the statues that Boss Lady sent me to go check out? Over off Claiborne Street? That dusty old warehouse?”
“Yeah. The statues that came from the weird old guy. The ones from the lost cemetery. I remember.” Patrice’s raised eyebrow was proof that she was curious.
“That’s the one. Well...when I was locking up tonight, I think one of the statues...well, I think it was crying.”
Patrice pursed her lips. “Crying? Statues don’t typically cry. Unless they are like those religious statues. Like Mary or one of the saints. People do have life-changing experiences when encountering those kinds of objects.”
“Do you believe that? I mean, about the religious statues?” I cautiously inquired.
“I believe there are miracles that happen around us every day and something like that could happen.”
My sister had a way of surprising me. She had embraced her natural abilities and come to terms with them quicker than I had ever imagined, but her acceptance of this other world was a welcome surprise. I never in a million years thought that Patrice—my perky sister and the head cheerleader—would have ever dived headfirst in
to the world of the supernatural like she did. She amazed me.
“Really? I didn’t think you would be the type to think that religious stuff was real.”
Patrice reached across the table and grabbed my hand. “Aggie, remember, you aren’t the only one with this unnatural tap into the realm of the supernatural. I’ve realized there are things that just can’t be explained. You taught me that.”
I returned the squeeze. “Thanks for that. But I don’t think this creepy statue will change anyone’s life. Not in a good way. It’s plain weird.”
“Now that we’ve got that out of the way, tell me what you think it means,” Patrice replied, letting go of my hand. “Why would a statue cry? I mean, if it wasn’t a trick of the light.”
Ah...back to the inquisition. “I’m not really sure. It could be anything. I was just too shook up to go back in there and investigate. Even someone like me doesn’t see crying statues every day. I’ll check it out tomorrow when I’m not so tired.”
The waitress made her way to our table and slid the pizza onto the metal stand.
“Here you go. Enjoy.” She forgot all about the dang wontons. At least she brought us sodas…even though we had ordered iced teas. I sure wasn’t going to point that out. She might spit in my drink.
I was starving and didn’t care what I ate at this point. Poor Patrice seemed even hungrier. Nevertheless, this wreck of a waitress would know how I felt when she saw the tip I left her.
Patrice didn’t budge from her questions even as she gobbled down a slice of pizza. Between bites, she asked, “You think it’s another haunted object?”
I sank my teeth into the gooey cheese too. Man, it was hot and delicious. “Hold on,” I replied through the goodness of the piping-hot slice.
A Watch of Weeping Angels (Devecheaux Antiques & Haunted Things Book 3) Page 2
