Devil’s Haunting (31 Days of Trick or Treat: Biker & Mobster #1)

CHAPTER 1

LAIKEN

The moment I pull off the highway, the scenery around me changes.

It no longer feels like I’m on a road which could be practically anywhere.

Maybe it’s just me, but the long, flowing roads of the interstate don’t have any character or personality.

It’s only the signs that tell me I’m somewhere worth knowing about.

But on the streets?

It’s where the charm of the city can be really felt. It’s where people flow and music can be heard. You can finally see the lights and understand the rhythm.

Every place I’ve ever visited had a natural rhythm to it.

A sway. A movement. A heartbeat. It was as much a part of the place as the people and the color you find there.

I think it’s one of the reasons I started to paint landscapes.

I wanted to capture that movement, that intrinsic quality which is almost out of reach and feels like it can’t be seized.

I’ve tried, and maybe I haven’t always been successful, but I like to believe I’ve created something worth looking at twice.

And if that isn’t a raving endorsement for my art, I’m not sure what is.

After all the places I’ve visited, and all the people I’ve met along the way, it feels strange to be driving into New Orleans and considering putting down roots.

I’m not holding my breath, but this will be the first time I have a place to call my own, free and clear, which makes an enormous difference.

I’ve never even had the option of that before, except for when I lived with Adelaide, my grandmother, my Didi. She’s always given me a place to land, a place to belong. She’s the reason I am who I am today.

If she hadn’t seen a love for art in me and encouraged me to run it down until it became my life, I don’t know who I would be right now. Then she kept showing up for me and my passion. Hell, she bought the first piece of my art that was ever put into a gallery for a student show.

I tried to give it to her, but she refused.

She squared her shoulders and huffed out, “No, I want to be able to track how much value it has because of the demand people start making for your work. The only way I can do that is if I buy it.” She leaned toward me then, her eyes sparkling with mischief, “We’ve never been women of charity and I’m not starting now, Laiken. ”

She sure as hell wasn’t wrong. Even after I was basically dropped at her doorstep by her daughter, my mother who didn’t want me, nothing about the life we built together was about charity.

It was about survival. It was about passion.

It was about thriving in the little glimmers of life we could find, like a cat finding a sunray on the floor the minute the clouds break on a dreary day.

And thrive we fucking did.

Together.

Always together.

When I went off to art school, it was with the knowledge that I would find my way back to Didi and the love she always folded me in like my favorite throw blanket.

What I had no idea about at the time was the years I would spend traveling and exploring.

It was like the heartbeat of the Earth was calling to me and I had no choice but to find out what mattered with each thump, with each strike of the stick against the drum.

It took me years, but I did make it back to Didi and I had so many stories to tell her.

I remember the day I pulled up to her house, one which used to be mine too.

I hadn’t told her I was coming because I wanted it to be a surprise.

Or perhaps I was afraid she would tell me not to come, even though it wouldn’t have happened.

I hadn’t even turned off the car yet, but there was Didi ripping through the front door like the woman wasn’t in her eighties and didn’t already have one hip replacement under her belt. She hugged me with everything she had the moment I got out and almost knocked me right back into my car.

“I knew you’d come home eventually,” she breathed without a hint of judgement or anger in her words. She pushed me away from her as I blinked at her a few times while taking in the huge smile on her face. “Now, you can tell me all about your travels and show me the art you’ve been creating.”

The warmth I had gone home in search of was blooming in my chest and flowing through my veins to give me life again. It had felt like my heart was becoming sluggish and the connection to who I am was becoming strung too tight. Going home was just what I needed.

I spent a few months with her, telling her about everything I saw and all the people I had met, but then I got the strangest phone call about a month ago.

Since I didn’t recognize the number, I almost didn’t answer; but something told me not to ignore the call.

After I greeted the caller, an eerie silence settled over me as the man on the other end of the line was all business.

“My name is Mr. Black. Am I speaking to Ms. Weber?”

I answered hesitantly, “Yes? Is there something I can help you with, Mr. Black?”

“I’m a lawyer in New Orleans,” he began. His words already threw me for a loop for a lot of reasons, but the man didn’t give me a chance to get my bearings. “While I understand this may come as a shock to you, I’m sorry to inform you of the death of Mrs. Marilyn Landry.”

My voice rose an octave, “The death of Mrs. Marilyn Landry?”

I sounded confused because I was. I had never heard of a Marilyn Landry, but when I looked up at Didi, she was standing across the room staring at me with wide, shock-filled eyes. I couldn’t tear my eyes off her as Mr. Black continued.

“Yes,” he insisted, “Mrs. Landry. She was your great aunt.” I was floored and my mouth dropped open in surprise while a look of sadness, and a little guilt, crossed Didi’s face.

We never talked much about her side of the family, and I was starting to wonder why.

I just didn’t wonder why soon enough, apparently.

“There is the matter of her estate,” Mr. Black gently prodded me.

“Her estate?” My voice was shrill and far too high pitched to be considered normal.

Mr. Black tried to hide his chuckle, but I could still hear it, which only ramped up the weird feeling of being off kilter.

“Yes,” he placated me, which had me clenching my jaw, “your great aunt Marilyn had quite the estate which she inherited from her husband’s side of the family.

He was quite rich and there was a time when his family was very influential here in New Orleans.

Of course, times change, and the storm changed a lot of things including the dynamics in the city.

Still, Marilyn stayed here and tried to keep up with the house as best she could. ”

“The storm?” I whispered the question in pure disbelief because he couldn’t possibly mean the massive hurricane which almost took the city out. Right?

“Katrina was such an unfortunate event,” he responded drolly.

I blinked and shook my head while trying to wrap my head around everything I was learning. “Why would she leave anything to me? I never even met her,” I pointed out, not being at all helpful.

Didi let out a little huff and turned away from me while muttering under her breath, your guess would be as good as mine as far as what she was saying. I rolled my eyes in her direction, thankfully she wasn’t looking at me.

“You’re some of the only family she had left, Ms. Weber,” Mr. Black informed me.

I looked at my Didi sharply, but she was turned away from me.

It didn’t stop her shoulders from going up to her ears like she knew I was looking right at her.

“She wanted the estate to stay with her family, and she thought you would appreciate the home given your artistic career.”

I was stunned, but we managed to set up a time for a video conference to go over everything more thoroughly.

Once we did that, I didn’t have a lot of details about the property I was inheriting, but the money was laid out very clearly.

Did I ask myself why? Not really, I just didn’t want to rock the boat and find out the whole inheritance thing was some fever dream.

It was only after a plan was made for when I would travel down to see the place and sign necessary documents that Didi’s grumbling became a little easier to understand.

“That Marilyn,” she snarled. “I should have known she’d try to do something to take you away from me.

She didn’t even try when she was alive, but now that she’s dead?

” She huffed and shook her head ruefully.

“Marilyn always did have a flair for the dramatic and always had to have the final word on things.”

I took a chance and asked, “Why have I never even heard of her before, Didi? She was your sister,” I almost couldn’t believe the words I was saying, my tone affronted.

Didi let out the longest, most pathetic filled-with-suffering sigh I had ever heard.

“It was her husband,” she admitted with her lip curled.

“He wasn’t a good man, but he was a rich man, and it was all Marilyn cared about.

She wanted luxury, not love. And it is exactly what she got.

The price she paid was losing her family and never seeing us again because we weren’t going to stand idly by and let a man be a prick to her and everyone else around him. ”

I choked on air when Didi called the man a prick since she wasn’t one for name calling. Sure, she could curse with the best of them, but she never directed such language toward a person. She always said it was beneath her, and I appreciated the lesson more as I got older.

“You lost years with your sister because of a man?” I’m sure my disbelief showed all over my face.

Didi looked away in shame. This was the same woman who always told me how important family was.

The same woman who encouraged me to let go of the resentment toward my mom; not for her, but for me.

The same woman who reminded me how blood couldn’t be changed, even if family could be so much more than the ties woven by biology.

And she was the same woman who walked away from her own sister. Because of a man.

“I’m not proud of it, Laiken,” she murmured, “but we all warned her about the type of man he was. We only wanted the best for her. We wanted her to find love. We wanted her to be happy, but all she wanted was status. Well, she got the status,” her voice was all sass.

Then her shoulders dropped. “And I lost my sister and a part of my soul.”

“Oh, Didi,” I lamented and gripped her hand tightly, hoping to ground her, hoping to help her find her footing in a situation which has clearly caused her pain for so long.

“I don’t have many regrets in this life,” she whispered, “but turning my back on Marilyn is one of them. Now it’s too late to change anything and make it right.” Her voice cracked, “I didn’t even know she died.”

Sadness swirled around us for a few minutes, and we simply sat with it because, frankly, there wasn’t anything else for us to do but live in the moment.

Then Didi’s shoulders straightened and her eyes hardened.

“You best be careful, though,” she warned me.

“I might have regrets when it comes to Marilyn, but that doesn’t mean I trust the woman.

She had issues, like we all do, and we don’t know what hers turned her into or how that man twisted her up.

” She shook her head, finishing the conversation on the entire situation by saying, “She’s up to something, even in death. Be careful Laiken.”

I shake off the warning in my grandmother’s words as I make the last turn and head down a surprisingly long driveway. The land around me is overgrown making it feel like it’s encroaching on my car, almost reaching for me. It’s creepy and not a great omen for how this is going to go.

When I follow the bend and a huge house comes into view, it’s obvious it has seen better days. No, it’s seen better decades, maybe even centuries.

Dilapidated is a kind word to use to describe this place. It’s also huge and, if you can look past all the work it needs, gorgeous. With some love this place could be a dream home.

A car is already waiting on the circular part of the driveway near the front door.

I’m not surprised considering Mr. Black was to meet me here to finalize everything.

I’m grateful he suggested it, but now I wonder if it was to give me an opportunity to run in the opposite direction.

It’s tempting, but I’ve never turned my back on a challenge, and I won’t start now.

In this town, with all its history, there must be some construction companies who can take on this kind of work and turn this teardown back into the jewel it had to have been at one point. It’s too grand to be lost to the land and it would be a shame to allow it to happen.

The moment I step out of my vehicle, the front door of the other car opens. Just as I turn toward the sound, I swear I see movement in one of the windows in the house. But that can’t be right.

I shake it off as I smile at Mr. Black and close the distance between us, my hand outstretched, and my lips forming a greeting. It’s time to find out what this next chapter in my life is all about. Creepy house and all.