Catacomb by Madeleine Roux Page A

dampened.
    The sun hung low behind a hazy stream of clouds. Following Steve, Dan let himself be buoyed along by the crowds surging toward the outdoor market. He spotted a long stretch of tents set up in the street, which was wide enough to be a square. Cop cars and wooden blockades kept traffic from turning directly onto the strip where the market buzzed.
    The four of them dodged into the shade of the tents, vendors hemming them in on both sides. Counters to buy fresh or cooked seafood sprang up, and stands to buy sandwiches, oysters, lobster. . . . Dan didn’t know how it was possible to be hungry again after wolfing down so many pastries, but the smells were intoxicating.
    Abby snapped pictures of some of the stranger stands. One selling taxidermied alligator parts interested her in particular.The shop next door sold a vast array of Mardi Gras masks, from the two-buck plastic junk to handmade masterpieces embellished with beads, crystals, and ostrich plumes.

    “Hey, Steve,” Dan said, nodding toward the masks. “There’s a picture hanging on your stairs of some people in weird masks. And I saw masks like them before, at a library in Shreveport. Is that a thing down here?”
    “Oh, those creepy old things.” Uncle Steve laughed and smoothed back the gray hair from his forehead. “Back in the day that was the tradition for Mardi Gras. They didn’t much use the more ornate Venetian style you see around now. Myself, I found those pictures at a flea market a few years back, thought they fit the house.”
    That certainly made the masks less creepy, Dan thought, flicking the chin of one of the sparkly, grinning faces that hung from the booth.
    Abby lowered her camera, letting it swing by its strap. She shouldered up next to him, her bare, brown arms glistening from the heat.
    “What is it with us and masks?” she asked.
    “I know. Masks and hoods and motorcycle helmets. Maybe we should buy some of these and see what we’re missing,” he said. “I saw some of your photos uploading. They look good.”
    “Thanks.” Abby beamed up at him, a tiny spot of powdered sugar stuck to her chin. Dan was about to reach up and wipe it away for her when he felt his phone vibrating in his pocket.
    Please be Sandy texting , he silently begged.
    He drew out his cell phone. He could already feel his stomach tightening.
    Not this again.
    Abby read his expression. “It’s him, isn’t it?”
    “Yes,” Dan said. “But it’s basically blank. Just a few ellipses.”
    “Can you block the profile? This is getting ridiculous.”
    Dan agreed, but hadn’t this Micah impersonator warned him the other night of the visitors to their tent? He looked up, wondering if maybe this was another warning. Scanning the fringes of the square, he looked for motorcycles, someone photographing them—anything at all suspicious or out of place. But that was just about everything in New Orleans, he decided, seeing two half-dressed women drunkenly grinding against each other outside of a sports bar.
    But wait . . .
    His eyes focused behind them, and there, sitting on the hood of a red vintage muscle car, were a young man and woman.
    It was them—it had to be. Without a second thought, Dan took off running. And this time, he wasn’t going to stop until he got some answers.



“W hy are you following us?” Dan shouted as he ran, startling the drunk, dancing girls and a cluster of pigeons out of his way. He hopped the wooden barricade protecting the square from traffic, barreling toward the red car.
    “Why?” he yelled again.
    Already the guy and girl were scrambling to get inside the car. Dan reached the car, sweating hard and out of breath, just as the boy slammed the driver-side door shut. But his window was open and Dan latched on to the edge. A dark-haired guy who looked to be in his twenties stared back, his eyes blazing.
    “Who are you?” Dan clung to the window even as the guy turned the key in the ignition. “Why were you photographing me