V - part three

I graced Ian’s declaration with no more than a muttered ‘sure’ before I pulled myself free, opening the door to the backroom. My eyes needed a moment to get used to the fluorescent lighting.

The place looked like a cantina of sorts, plastic chairs and a dirty, old kitchen taking up most of the space inside. The linoleum on the floor was worn to the point that the concrete below was visible at some spots. In the middle of the room, there stood a table, and at it sat two women who looked at me with a mixture of shock and suspicion.

“Emma? Agnese?”

I grimaced at the image of my long-lost aunts, their faces a lot more wrinkled, and – in Emma’s case, dolled up – than the last time I’d seen them, at least ten years ago. Chante stood leaning against the wall behind them, a fat cigar dangling from his lips. It was clear I’d interrupted their conversation.

“Why are they…”, I swallowed away my surprise and frowned. “Chante, what the hell is this?”

The sane part of me said to turn around, but Ian had taken up position in the doorway, that same rueful expression that he’d taken on earlier still painting his features. When I locked eyes with him he shook his head.

He’d known they’d be here.

And he hadn’t warned me. Asshole.

“Finley”, Chante acknowledged me with a nod of his head, moving to reach for the only empty chair that was left. The noise of plastic scraping over the floor filled the small space. He dropped it next to my aunts with a thud, but instead of sitting down himself, he gestured for me to take the seat. “Ian. You two are late, but no bother. It gave us a chance to catch up. Let’s get this over with, then, shall we?”

I wanted to ask what ‘this’ was, but the man’s attention was on Ian – that last question obviously aimed towards his son. Ian eyed him back from below lowered eyebrows, his expression relaying something I obviously wasn’t supposed to understand. When he moved to lock the door a shiver crept down my back.

“My, my, if it isn’t my mother’s bitch…”

I turned my head back towards Emma, her high-pitched voice instantly ticking something off inside me. Much to my annoyance, she was glaring at me, too, as if I were the reason she’d been dragged to this warehouse in the middle of her evening.

“I suppose it’s no surprise you’re here”, she scoffed from between petunia-painted lips. “Came to finally find out what all the fuss is about? Or did the hag not tell you before she kicked the oxygen habit? Tell me, do you even know what I am talking about?”

Although, dragged?

I hadn’t considered it before, but there was a chance that one or both of my aunts were the reason Ian and Chante had wanted that necklace so badly. They were the only two people I could think of that valued it as much as I did. Was it possible they had hired them, somehow?

If so, I was definitely going to need a lawyer.

Not to mention a new boyfriend.

Emma laughed at my confusion, but Agnese spat before I could respond. She had a much lower tone of voice – one that resembled my grandmother’s so much so that it startled me. And unlike her sister, she didn’t seem to be even the tiniest bit interested in me. “Oh screw that old thing, Em, and screw the girl. I didn’t come here for mere trinkets. If you want those shares Chante, I’m going to need something good, like the deeds to the houses, and I’m going to need it soon. Don’t waste my time here.”

The way she glared Chante down even as she was sitting and he was standing was nothing short of impressive, and wildly familiar. I half expected the man to turn red. I didn’t expect him to smile as he did, moving to the other side of the table until he was positioned right beside me.

He gestured for me to sit down again, and this time, I obeyed, if only because I wanted to hear exactly what was going on here.

Shares? Deeds? I didn’t know anything about any of that, but I would be lying if I said it didn’t peak my interest.

“Ladies, neither of you need to worry”, Chante’s voice was a velvety lull as he laid his hands down flat on the table. He altered his gaze between the tree of us. “You will both get what you want. As will you, cherie. There is just something we need to do first. Ian?”

He glared over his shoulder, and I watched as Ian pulled a small pouch from his pocket, looking for all the world as if it pained him to do so. I recognized the fabric as the bag he’d used to pick the necklace up from the car’s floor, right after smacking it from my hands and before warning me to not take it out of the pouch again.

He was touching it now as he moved to empty it on the table. To my surprise, a bit of dirt came falling out with it. That definitely hadn’t been there before.

Emma smirked the second she’d laid eyes on it, but it was Agnese’s expression that interested me more, her lip pulling up as if she was looking at a big, fat worm instead of a delicate chain.

Just a stupid trinket, I fought the urge to snatch it away from both of them, taking Agnese’s earlier words to heart. Not worth the drama.

“Don’t—” Chante warned when Ian reached to untangle it, but he had already taken precautions, the piece of cloth wrapped around his fingers as he moved. The step back that he took was almost reverend.

“I’ll take it the grave has been returned to its former glory?” Chante spoke as casually as if he was talking about doing the groceries.

“Robert’s still working on that. By the time he’s done, no one will know we’ve ever touched it”, Ian’s response was similarly callous.

I received a nod as if that should be the end of a discussion. My eyebrows rose at the blatant lie, but Ian didn’t look my way again, nothing on his face betraying the bullshit he was spouting.

I wasn’t about to open the can of worms myself. If Chante found out I’d lied to them, I’d no doubt receive a long and tedious lecture about family, and this was neither the place nor the time. Nowhere and never were. I was happy to keep my mouth shut.

“Very well. Ladies, please stand.”

The fake cheer drained from Chante’s voice, and the serosity that replaced it sparked something in my stomach – something anxious that halted me from moving straight away.

I’d thought I wanted to know what my family drama was about, but now that the moment seemed to be nearing…

I couldn’t quite explain it, but as soon as the necklace had been freed from its pouch, I’d felt the temperature inside the room drop. The hollow pit inside me grew. It wasn’t that the air was actually colder, now, but the warmth was being drawn from my surroundings all the same, even the lights loosing what little yellow they had in them.

It had to be a cognitive reaction to the necklace – a sentiment I was projecting to what I saw and felt because quite frankly, I was tired and stressed, and I was slightly losing my shit today.

“Let me do it. It will probably choose me, anyway.”

Emma was already on her feet, the woman’s plump frame partially blocking my view as she hovered over the table. There was a smile on her lips that reminded me of a spoiled kid claiming a new toy for themselves. Agnese and I remained seated, looking at our sister/aunt with a mixture of suspicion and confusion – not the least bit because of that weird remark.

I wasn’t the type to believe things happen for a reason, but if I had thought the necklace had come to us, somehow, I highly doubted it would choose to get lost between the folds of Emma’s sweaty, spray-tanned neck.

“Do what, exactly?”

I’d angled my face towards Ian again, but my question got overruled by Agnese clicking her tongue, the woman shaking her head in disgust. She even had Annetta’s disappointed expression nailed down to a T. “I don’t care how much you offer, Chante”, she talked over me as if she hadn’t heard me at all. “I will not touch that thing in a thousand years. And neither should any of you. Emma, do you not remember what it did to Helen?”

There was sorrow in the look she gave her sister, but not nearly as much as there was disdain. I wouldn’t have recognized the touch of fear hidden beneath if I hadn’t known her mother.

But it wasn’t enough to put some doubt into Emma’s eyes. Instead of at us, she looked at Chante, who simply gestured for her to continue.

Whoever this Helen person was, he did not seem too concerned.

“This time it’s different, Nes. She truly is dead, right?” Emma’s hand hovered mid-air, and I realized she was talking about Annetta. I bit back the remark that she would’ve known that if she’d showed up at the funeral.

“Had to tear this thing off her rotting corpse”, Chante confirmed content as someone who’d achieved something great and was about reap the rewards.

The woman took a deep breath, and then her expression hardened, something inside her visibly shifting. The nasty smirk she plastered on her face was entirely meant for me as she turned her head to the side. Her hand slammed down hard.

And then she let out the most blood curdling scream I had ever heard in my entire life.