Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
The journal feels heavier in my lap than it should later that night, as if Whitney’s secrets have weight to them, something dense and physical that presses into my thighs and anchors me in place.
The leather binding carries that faint, sharp scent I’ve come to associate with her now, something worn and intimate, something that feels almost alive.
I turn the pages slowly, my fingers tracing the softened edges, absorbing fragments of her thoughts without really seeing them, as if the act itself might bring me closer to whatever she was trying to leave behind.
My thumb catches on something.
I still, the smallest resistance enough to send a ripple of awareness through me. It’s subtle, almost imperceptible, but it’s there. I shift the journal slightly, pressing along the back cover until I feel it again, a hidden seam tucked neatly into the lining.
A pocket.
My pulse quickens as I pry it open, careful at first, then less so as anticipation takes over. Something slides free and drops into my palm.
A card.
It’s heavier than I expect, thick and glossy, the kind of deliberate design that wants to be noticed. Black, with ornate gold lettering curling across the surface in looping, embellished script.
Madam LaRoux – Medium & Psychic Counselor
Unveil the secrets of the beyond.
A Miami address sits beneath it, along with a phone number.
I stare at it, my mind struggling to reconcile what I’m holding with everything I know about Whitney.
She was practical to a fault, grounded in logic, the kind of woman who would laugh outright at the idea of a psychic.
I can hear her voice clearly in my head, sharp and amused, slicing through the absurdity of it.
A medium? What’s next, tarot cards and crystal balls?
And yet.
She kept this.
Not tucked loosely into a purse or forgotten in a drawer, but hidden. Preserved. Close.
Why?
The question settles heavily, expanding outward, attaching itself to everything else I don’t understand.
I reach for my phone before I can talk myself out of it, the movement instinctive, urgent. My fingers tremble slightly as I dial the number, the sound of the ringing line stretching longer than it should, each second sharpening my awareness of what I’m doing.
On the second ring, someone answers.
“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 accent that 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.
I slide the card into my purse, then glance back at the journal, still open on my lap. It feels different now. Not just a record of her thoughts, but a map of choices I don’t yet understand, decisions she made in the quiet spaces of her life that never made it into conversation.
She didn’t believe in things like this.
But she believed in survival.
The thought settles deep, unsettling in its implication.
Maybe she was afraid.
More afraid than she ever let me see.
A chill moves through me, slow and deliberate, but I push it aside, closing the journal with more force than necessary and setting it beside me.
Tomorrow night, I’ll drive to Miami.
I’ll sit across from a woman who claims to see what others can’t.
I don’t know what I’ll find there, or if any of it will make sense.
But I do know this.
I’m not stopping now.