Natalie's Legacy [sequel to Natalie's Diary]

[14] Chance

[14] CHANCE

"This should be it." Bia looked up from her phone, burying her face into her scarf a little.

Incendiary Inc. kept a deceptively plain building, not unlike most of the bricked buildings of Salem. It did not promise ghosts or secrets. It did not promise goosebumps from its exterior.

Maybe that was what unsettled me anyway. I had met monsters that played the part of ordinary.

I waited for Rhys to point out that it wasn't in the colonial style at all, but an architectural revival spawned by builders hanging on the past. It wasn't shabby enough to be original, with its decorative corners, brick protruding in a pattern to give the place character. Thin ledges ran the width of the building under the row of windows, both rectangular in shape and both arched at the top.

The silence chilled me the wrong way, making me pull my jacket tighter around me. No one was there to tell me the names for the style of window frame or the jutted out, decorative adornment around the top of the building. Columns held up the roof of the veranda spanning the front of the building.

Incendiary Inc. simply did not carry the same intrinsic horror as a cemetery at night or even the uneasiness of the Museum Place Mall's claustrophobic low ceilings and sense of abandonment.

"It doesn't look like a florist to me," Bia said, muffled through her scarf.

"It doesn't look like a lot of anything." I double checked the address on the business card, clutching it like the wind would whip it right from my hand.

Bia eyed it, her forehead creasing ever so slightly, but she didn't speak.

"Come on," I said, glancing up and down the street like I was always instructed to do before crossing. Instead of speeding trucks or white vans offering candy, the gnawing fear of a trailing champagne Buick concerned me. Bia's boots clicked behind me against the asphalt and onto the sidewalk on the other side.

Getting closer revealed no more secrets, but did confirm that it was exactly where I meant for us to be. A sign bore the same logo as the business card.

The front of the building was too obvious, a poor place to investigate incognito. Besides, the front door and windows were all frosted, a steep departure from the historical style of the place. I saw nothing but shadows moving beyond the glass.

"Around back," I whispered, tugging Bia with me. There had to be more windows or a back door where smokers lingered around. There had to be something.

I followed the pavement around it, beyond the parking lot where it curved around back. While there were buildings on either side of the lot, towering maple trees along the perimeter obscured the view and it backed onto a fenced green lot.

"What are you planning on doing?" Bia hissed.

That implied I had a plan. There wasn't one. There was just a business card and a nudge in the right direction and knowledge that somewhere, Rhys was working on separate goals.

DEAD.

"Uhm." In an incredibly unconvincing manner, I squinted at the back of the building. There was a door leading out back to the dumpster and a cardboard recycling bin. The back lacked the veranda of the street-facing side, but two sturdy columns supported an awning over the back door.

Unlike the front window, not all the rear windows were frosted. That didn't mean a lot, though, not when the majority of them had the blinds drawn inside.

A few windows on the second floor looked more welcoming. Blinds didn't conceal them.

"I'm just going to do some investigating. Just a little. See what I see." The brick in the corner was arranged in such a way, protruding just enough to be a half decent foothold. The ledge running the width at approximately the height of the second floor looked substantial enough that I could potentially follow it to one particular open window.