Allegra's Shadow

by Dana Sanders Hill

  Kevin faltered, his face dimming with something Mariah couldn’t describe. “No, but I knew she was going to Nassau.”

  Mariah was glad her sunglasses hid the surprise in her eyes. He and Allegra checked on Gran D often, which meant they would have bumped into each other at some point in time. Then there was the look on his face…

  Something wasn’t right.

  Maybe she read too much into his reaction, Mariah reasoned. People grieved, she told herself. There was no reason to be suspicious.

  #

  The next two days were a whirlwind. Mariah didn’t sleep much and ate very little, leaving her drained and hollow. Today, she stayed behind to prepare for Allegra’s wake, which would be a small gathering at Gran D’s, while Kevin took her mother and Gran D back to the funeral home one last time.

  Mariah drove to a nearby supermarket for more refreshments. She’d already cleaned the bathrooms, the kitchen, vacuumed the living room and hallways more than once. Cleaning was the way she managed stress.

  Her apprehension increased after the authorities had informed the family that Allegra’s body was found at the bottom of the stairs and she had been dead for nearly twelve hours. She suffered a broken neck and ankle due to a fall. Her death was ruled an accident.

  Yesterday, Gran D gave Mariah her spare key to Allegra’s house. She was going there to meet a service team that specialized in cleaning up after the dead. Kevin went with her for support, but when they arrived, the realization that Allegra was gone hit Mariah with unexpected force.

  Overcome, Mariah stumbled a few feet and threw up in the bushes.

  Afterwards, Kevin helped her into the car.

  When the cleaning service was finished, he locked up the house and drove Mariah back to Gran D’s…

  Mariah shook off the unpleasant memory and yanked her mind back to Allegra’s wake as she turned into Gran D’s driveway. Her thoughts came to a crashing halt when she saw a blue metallic Chevy Equinox parked out front.

  #

  Using her spare key, Mariah unlocked the front door. She noticed that Anthony had set up some extra folding chairs in the living room and was thankful that he had left her one less thing to worry about.

  Anthony came out of the kitchen, making a sound. A steel-grey T-shirt settled around his broad shoulders and pewter cargo pants emphasized his long legs.

  “Hi,” he rasped. His tawny gaze searched Mariah’s face.

  “Hi,” she replied, regarding him with grave curiosity. It slowly dawned on her that Gran D must’ve given him an extra key, too.

  “I’ve got these.” Before she could respond, Anthony moved forward and took the two plastic bags filled with soda out of her hands.

  “Uh, thanks,” she murmured to his back as he walked to the kitchen and placed the bags on the table.

  When he returned to the living room, Mariah was still by the front door. Her eyes closed and her legs wobbled. The black purse slipped from her fingers, landing on the floor with a light thump.

  In a lightning-fast motion Anthony dashed across the living room, wrapping one muscular arm around her back. The flat of one hand pressed against her waist while the other encircled her wrist, preventing any further descent. He led her to the couch and guided her down, his arm still surrounding her with heat.

  Mariah was too upset to feel offended by his touch; it was solid and comforting. “I –I’m fine.”

  The line of Anthony’s mouth tightened a fraction, and his grainy voice rolled over her like warm sand. “You’re tired,” he empathized.

  He released her wrist and caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, lifting it until their eyes met.

  His touch was light, but Mariah still felt branded. “I bet you haven’t been eating much. I was the same way when my Grandma Lilly died. I couldn’t eat or sleep.”

  Mariah nodded, and then exhaled. “I think I’ll lie down.”

  When Anthony tried to assist her as she climbed to her feet, she waved him off. “I’m fine.”

  Anthony stepped away to retrieve her purse and the heat went with him.

  Slightly unsteady, Mariah grabbed the handle of her purse, walked into her room and closed the door.

  As she stared up at the ceiling, she heard a sudden knock. Her stomach was queasy and her head throbbed from lack of sleep. She sat up, swinging her bare feet off the bed to answer the door.

  “Yes?” Astonishment touched her face when she saw Anthony on the other side. She had assumed that he had left the house.

  Anthony didn’t say anything. He just handed her a plate of crackers and a glass of warm ginger ale.

  Mariah’s eyes expanded and her lips parted as she took the plate. “Thank you,” she said, her voice low.

  He nodded and turned away.

  Mariah peered around the doorway. As she watched him return to the living room and then stop to look out the window, she couldn’t control the fluttering in her breast. The way he stood, with his straight back, and the confidence that emanated from his pores, reminded her of a sentinel.

  I barely know this man; why does he have this kind of effect on me?

  Since Gran D depended on Anthony so much, Mariah saw him over the next few days, and despite the circumstances, she found her thoughts centering on him. They did not have any personal conversations between them, but Mariah felt confused by the internal war within her. Current experience told her that Anthony wasn’t a bad man, that he was considerate. Besides, Gran D was a good judge of character and she adored him. But past experience with her ex-husband, Terry taught her that acts of kindness could be deceiving. Terry was thoughtful… in the beginning, and things didn’t turn out well in the end.

  #

  The sky was clear and brilliant, the winds calm and the air dry as the people exited the church. Some were distant cousins, others Allegra’s co-workers. Her last wishes specified that she wanted a burial, not cremation. Mariah could only assume that the only one reason her sister wanted a grave was so that people could shower her final resting place with beautiful flowers on a regular basis. Cremation reduced a body to ashes, something kept in an urn or scattered over the water.

  Mariah’s mouth twisted as the mahogany casket lowered into the ground.

  Allegra always craved attention.

  While her family and Anthony waited in the limo and everyone else departed, Mariah remained by the gravesite. A black hat protected her from the sun’s rays and the arid breeze shifted the hem of her black dress against her knees.

  Mariah stared at Allegra’s picture attached to the headstone, musing on some private memories until a movement out of the corner of her right eye caught her attention. A thin man of average height in a black suit and white shirt approached, his steps slowing as he closed the distance between them. In his hand was an assortment of flowers wrapped in clear plastic. He was in his early twenties and thin, with close-shaven dark hair and prominent dark eyes framed by a sensitive, dark brown face that still retained hint of late adolescence. A few beads of sweat dotted his brow.

  “Sorry. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

  Mariah shook her head. “It’s fine. How…how did you know my sister?”

  “I was Allegra’s intern. My name’s Jake Barton and because of her letter of recommendation, I got my first real job. I went by the office to thank her and they told me….” He sighed and laid flowers down. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  Alone at the gravesite once again, Mariah whispered a prayer and turned to leave. Allegra’s final resting place was located near a thick oak tree on top of a small, grassy hill, so Mariah had to descend it.

  Halfway down the hill, Mariah sensed a presence. She pivoted her head and saw a dark-haired man. From a distance, he appeared to be around her age. He held a flower and placed it on the ground. When he saw Mariah watching him, he froze. Caught, he turned, skirted around the tree and disappeared.

  His furtive behavior made Mariah wary. Why would he wait until everyone was gone to pay his respects? H
e wouldn’t, Mariah thought, unless he was Allegra’s secret lover, or worse, a stalker. The latter possibility gave Mariah a chill, and she decided not to tell anyone about Allegra’s mystery man.

  A few hours later, after meeting with Allegra’s lawyer, Mariah and her family sat around Gran D’s kitchen table.

  “I still can’t believe Allegra put me in charge of her estate, but didn’t say why,” Mariah marveled. She looked at her mother and Gran D with wide eyes. “I just knew it would be one of you.”

  During the reading of Allegra’s living trust, her closest surviving relatives discovered that Allegra made Gran D and Anna the beneficiaries of her 401K. She also left her house to Gran D and her car to Mariah.

  Mariah knew Allegra’s house and car were paid in full. Allegra made great money as a marketing director. In addition, she had the money from selling the land in Smithfield left by their father, which Mariah suspected was a couple of hundred grand. She remembered how Allegra called her and their mother the day she bought the house and her first Lexus. “With the money I made from selling the land Daddy left me, I didn’t have to finance a thing,” she boasted. “Not many people can make two major purchases in cash in one day.”

  “Congratulations,” Mariah muttered. Allegra’s egotism and disregard for others dug under her skin like a tick. It cut that their father did not leave so much as a spoon to Mariah, a fact Allegra knew too well. Whenever she wanted to show her superiority, she would mention that hurtful fact.

  #

  “Are ya crazy, girl?” were the first words out of Gran D’s mouth when Mariah revealed her plans after she dropped Anna off at the airport the next morning. When she told her mother about her plans, Anna was not thrilled about them either.

  Though Mariah braced herself for Gran D’s emphatic reaction, she still struggled to maintain an even tone. “No. Packing Allegra’s things will be arduous enough. Staying at her place is easier than going back and forth between here and there.”

  “Stayin’ by yaself is foolhardy.”

  “You can come with me.” She clutched Gran D’s hand as they sat on her bed. “She left the house to you.”

  Her grandmother wagged her head. “I’ve got my own home. I’m turnin’ her house over to ya. I couldn’t stay there when she was livin’, and I won’t when her ghost is walkin’ ‘round.”

  Gran D believed in the afterlife and supernatural, and came from a generation that believed pictures captured a person’s essence, an idea handed down by a slave ancestor of West Indian descent. She believed that if a person had a photograph of someone, they possessed the spirit of that individual. That’s why she didn’t have any in her house. The few photos Mariah had of Gran D were taken without her knowledge.

  An hour later, Mariah made her way to Allegra’s North Hills address, a world away from Gran D’s neighborhood in Southeast Raleigh, a.k.a. “the hood.” North Hills didn’t have older sections that dated back to the end of the Civil War and wasn’t a diverse area that ranged from spanking new suburban developments to poor inner-city neighborhoods. North Hills was already in demand, whereas places like Chavis Heights in Southeast Raleigh would take a few more years to become “hip”, especially after gentrification.

  Gran D, born and raised in Smithfield, North Carolina until she made Southeast Raleigh her home at twenty-two, believed that gentrification was “nothin’ but a nice way to say the upper class is kickin’ out folks – mostly poor blacks – that had been livin’ there for generations because it’s close to downtown Raleigh and they want an easy drive to work.”

  She was probably right.

  Mariah made a turn into the driveway of Allegra’s house, which sat a good distance away from the street, amongst a row of trees – some with green leaves, others with pink or white blossoms – on each side.

  A well-kept lawn on each side of the driveway highlighted the two-story Georgian made of brick.

  Mariah pulled up near Allegra’s garage and pressed the remote. The white door rose, revealing her sister’s newest car, a Matador Red Mica Lexus, and the realization that Allegra wasn’t coming back hit her again, like a quarterback getting sacked by a lineman.

  Mariah closed the garage door, leaving her car in the driveway.

  The day before, Mariah got the number for Allegra’s maid from Gran D and met with the woman to give her a final paycheck, and to retrieve Allegra’s car keys. The distressed middle-aged woman held onto them after she found Allegra’s body. She told Mariah that she would not attend the funeral, that finding Allegra’s body made her realize how much she missed her family, and that she was moving to Dallas to be with her daughter and grandkids.

  Mariah wished her well.

  Turning off the Nissan, Mariah looked up at the sky, deep purple morphing into midnight, and a cold finger touched her spine. She was still unsettled that Allegra’s front door was unlocked when the maid found her body and considered going back to Gran D’s, but responsibility and the need to prove she wasn’t weak won out in the end. Mariah alighted from the car, retrieved her suitcase from the back, and headed toward the front door.

  The place was dark and cool, thanks to central air, when Mariah entered. She stepped inside and realized the alarm didn’t go off. Then she remembered it hadn’t been turned on since Allegra died. With a shake of her head, Mariah recalled that she forgot to ask Gran D for the code, and how to reactivate it.

  When Mariah flipped on the light switch next to the door, her eyes darted to the area at the bottom of the stairs – Allegra’s death spot.

  She shuddered.

  To dispel the darkness and her fear, Mariah turned on most of the lights in the house, except the one in Allegra’s room. She wasn’t ready to go in there yet. After talking to her best friend Solé, who also conveyed her concern about Mariah staying at Allegra’s alone, Mariah called Gran D. She held the silver cordless phone to her ear as she paced in the third guest bedroom. “I’m fine. I need the alarm code.”

  “Hold on.” Gran D returned about thirty seconds later and recited it. “I’m auth’rized on Allegra’s security account, and I put ya on it. The alarm people should come by the day after tomorrow to show ya how to work it, because I can’t. Ya know me and these new-fangled machines. Since Kevin’s gotta work, I’ll send Anthony to check on ya ev’ry day.”

  “If I call you every day, there’s no need for him to come.”

  “If I ask, he won’t mind.”

  “No.”

  “Why? What’s wrong with him?”

  Mariah had the perfect response, under her breath. “When he’s around my libido awakens like Rip Van Winkle. Horny women do stupid things.”

  “What was that?”

  Mariah fumbled for a plausible excuse and spoke up. “He’s a-a stranger.”

  “Not to me.”

  “I’ll be fine, Gran D.”

  “I know ya will, cause he’s gonna check on ya. By the way, did ya have dinner yet? Ya need to eat and keep up ya strength.”

  “No,” Mariah admitted. She didn’t have much of an appetite, but Gran D was right. Mariah headed toward the stairs. She reminded herself to call her boss in the morning and request more time off. Then she noticed that her grandmother fell silent. “Gran D?”

  “Mariah,” she whispered after a few more intervals of stillness, “I’ve got a bad feelin’ ‘bout ya stayin’ there alone.”

  #

  Fury lingered in Allegra’s dark room, watching the woman as she walked toward the stairs.

  But the woman didn’t feel it. She was too busy chatting on the phone.

  She was an intruder, and she needed to go.

  Loathing bubbled up and found a new focus…

  #

  Whenever Gran D got a ‘bad feeling’, she was usually spot-on.

  Icy fear warped around Mariah’s heart. “I’ll be fine,” she reassured Gran D, just as she thought she saw a movement in Allegra’s room, out of the corner of her eye.

  She turned her head to the left ju
st as her right foot hit the next step from the top, but she misjudged the distance and twisted her ankle. The pain, sudden and severe, shot up her leg, catching her off guard and she screamed, dropping the phone.

  The receiver hit the steps and bounced until it reached the bottom of the landing with a loud clap.

  Mariah pitched forward and scrambled for a hold on the banister, her fingernails scraping at the wood, but was unsuccessful. She struck her head on the way down, landing at the bottom of the stairs, not far from the phone.

  “Mariah, what happened? Mariah.”

  Chapter 3

  Fury waited until the woman was unconscious for over a minute before slowly descending the stairs. At the bottom of the steps, Fury stopped and knelt down beside her.

  Allegra’s death compelled Fury to be in the house.

  In fact, Fury had a right to be here.

  This woman did not.

  #

  “Wake up, Two-Tone.”

  Mariah’s eyes flew open to find Allegra kneeling over her, jet-black eyes regarding her with interest. Allegra’s silvery-blue dress and night-dark hair moved faintly, as if a soft wind blew, but it was a breeze Mariah couldn’t feel. “Allegra?” She tried to focus her gaze and sit up, but couldn’t move. Horror spiked through her like adrenaline. “Am I…dead?”

  Allegra shook her head. “You’ve got a concussion. A mild one. You’re lucky you didn’t end up like me.”

  “Why are…you… here?”

  “I need you to find the truth.”

  “The truth?” Mariah frowned. “About what?”

  “You’re the questioner,” Allegra went on, “the investigator. You always have been. Remember that puzzle Mom gave you when you were eight. You disappeared into your room for hours until you solved it. When the cat went missing, you searched for a whole day until you found her. You need to ask questions now. I know you’ll find the answer.”

  Something caught Allegra’s attention and she transferred her stare from Mariah’s face to a spot above her head. “Wake up.”