This Wicked Game by Michelle Zink Read Free Book Online

weirder.
    Claire made her way through the aisles, marble tombs rising on either side. She could hear trumpets and trombones playing faintly in the distance. Other than that, it was unusually quiet.
    She made her way past a tall white tomb, a red rosebush growing incongruously out of the tiny swath of grass in its shadow, and continued past the McClellan plot.
    Eventually she came to the place she’d been heading for all along. For once, no one else was in front of the site, though there was the usual assortment of offerings left by strangers. Wilted flowers, half-burned candles, strings of beads, and a powdery residue whose composition Claire could only guess.
    She lowered herself to the ground, leaning against the tomb, the marble cold against her back. She didn’t know why she’d come. She’d decided long ago that her great-great-grandmother, like most legends, hadn’t even resembled the portrait painted of her by history. At best, she was probably some half-baked, wannabe psychic.
    At worst, a fake.
    Claire thought absently of her camera and realized she had no desire to take pictures today. She took it out anyway and took a few shots of the tomb next to Marie’s. A cheap plastic Virgin Mary figurine had tipped over on its side, and a half-crushed energy drink can lay crumpled on the ground in front of the marker. The composition was interesting, but Claire’s heart wasn’t in it. She put her camera away and pulled out the candy bar. Tearing it open and taking a bite, she thought about everything that had happened.
    She and Xander hadn’t talked about what to do next, but she knew he would want her to fork over the receipt with Eugenia’s address to the Guild. After that, they would take care of the woman and whatever plan she had for the panther blood, and Xander wouldn’t dream about her being in danger again.
    So why did Claire feel like something still had to be done? Like all at once, there was a ticking time bomb under her life that she couldn’t ignore?
    Polishing off the candy bar and stuffing the wrapper into her bag, she shook her head. She needed to get a grip, that’s all.
    When she stood up and checked her phone, she was relieved to see that it had only been an hour since she’d left Myrtle’s. She was slipping it back into the pocket of her shorts when the tiny hairs on the back of her neck stood up.
    Claire looked around. No one was there, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching her. She resisted the urge to break into a run and started walking.
    She tried to hurry without seeming like she was afraid. She reached the entrance to the cemetery and hurried along the sidewalks, past the grand old homes, wanting nothing more than to get back to Jackson Street.
    Ten minutes later, she did. She continued on toward Myrtle’s, looking around one last time as she reached the door.
    Her gaze was drawn to a man crossing the street. She knew who it was right away. It was more than his fitted slacks and the tight T-shirt, an almost-exact replica of what he’d been wearing yesterday when he’d left the house on Dauphine. It was the bend of his neck and the way she could tell, even behind the reflective lenses of his sunglasses, that he was watching her.
    His head was turned in her direction, but he didn’t seem concerned that she had seen him. It was unnerving, and as she pulled open the door to Myrtle’s, she wondered if this was the first time she’d been followed.



SEVEN
    T he lights from the Toussaint house were visible even from the road. The ball itself wasn’t a secret, but the purpose of the association that sponsored it—the Guild—was. Claire had once asked her mother about the neighbors. Didn’t they wonder what was going on the one night a year when the Toussaints’ was suddenly flooded with expensive cars, men in tuxedos, and women in gowns and feathered headpieces?
    “New Orleans is overrun with historical societies and organizations, Claire,” her mother