Page 45 of Marked By Shadows
“I did, if you could spare a few minutes. A few things popped up when I pulled up your names.”
Fuck. I sucked in air. Alex wrapped his arm around my waist, but nodded to the detective. “I’ve had an interesting few months.”
“Interesting for sure. Called the NOPD, and there are a still a lot of questions about your disappearance and return,” Detective Manning said.
“For me as well,” Alex agreed. “But I’ve answered everything to the best of my ability.”
“And Mr. Richards,” Detective Manning said, “A bit of history with you as well.”
“Years ago,” I muttered.
“You both mentioned neither of you knew Miss Byrony Cartwright well.” He said.
Alex shook his head. “Never even officially met her. One group meal and then an evening of noise which woke us up. That’s all I know of her or her boyfriend. The evening meal, I admit I was pretty tired from the day’s drive over, so I didn’t pay much attention to her. And all I know of her trek out into the woods is that they were playing with a Ouija board and Freya asked them to take the game to the craft room instead of the dining room. My impression was that she’d encouraged the rest of the group to do a ghost hunt. But you’d have to ask them. Micah and I went to bed.”
“It looks like you’ve had some trouble with her in the past?” The detective looked at me. “We have a social media expert who can give us a lot more information nowadays than a simple background check. There was some bad blood between you two?”
“Years ago. She stole some costume designs from me. It’s a bit like stealing a painting and putting your own name on it. Bad form,” I said. “I don’t do design like that anymore. Got tired of people stealing from me and copying my ideas.”
“Her friend Melissa seemed to think you were pretty angry about it.”
“Melissa wasn’t even around when it happened. As I said, it was years ago,” I said. “I haven’t spoken to Byrony in over two years.” I shook my head. “I didn’t even know she was going to be here. If I had, I might have found somewhere else to stay.”
“Because you were so upset with her?”
“Because,” I corrected, “she has a way of stirring up trouble and making things all about her. Did it at every retreat we had prior, and at least a dozen conventions that I know of. It’s a part of her brand, I believe. Last I heard,” actually MaryAnn had been talking about it while we sewed, “she had a way of starting fights with other vloggers to get more attention. I don’t vlog. I barely cosplay anymore. My focus is my shop and my tours.”
“But you came for this retreat. The others made it sound like you were getting back into the trade? That would put you at odds again.”
“I came for a break from work and to go to the textile convention with a few people I know,” I said.
“You’re not getting back into the trade? Your host indicated she was helping you with some designs,” the detective pushed back.
“Freyaishelping with some designs, but not for cosplay purpose. The stuff I make is to sell in the shop I run. Though we do costumed tours sometimes as well. I currently have no plans to vlog or even blog my current designs.” It was the first time I’d said it out loud. I hadn’t told anyone yet. Not Alex or Lukas or Sky or even Freya that I had no desire to return to the influencer glory days I’d once had. Simply Crafty was my life now. And I really loved that silly little shop. Investing time and emotion into being an online doll for people to mock and shame? That was not anything I wanted to return to.
“Is this something you’ve discussed with the group? The others seemed to view your return as competition.”
I waved my hand at the idea of it. “It’s not happening. I don’t want that spotlight anymore. Some of them want it too much. Being in that battle of who’s better because they had more fans was never something I enjoyed. Byrony never understood that. It’s why she kept attacking me. Even joined my Facebook group once, the one I use for my ghost tours. Started crap there. I had to block her and ban her.”
“Wow, I didn’t know that,” Alex said.
“It was over a year ago. I tried to ignore her at first. You know I don’t monitor that group a lot. But she had the admins up in arms.”
“For someone who says he doesn’t know her well, you seem to have a lot of information on her,” the detective pointed out.
“Superficially. I’ve heard a lot of stories. Not sure they are all true, but plenty I’ve experienced firsthand to know some of them are. Do I know her? No. I didn’t even know her last name was Cartwright. She went by Hayes online. I think she’s from Oklahoma somewhere, but I’m not sure. Didn’t know she was dating anyone. And really never even got introduced to Joe. She wasn’t someone I thought about outside of this group. You know how you cut people out sometimes to focus on other things. That’s what she was to me. Unimportant. Not a part of my life. Like someone you once worked with who always took credit for your work. Once you leave the job it doesn’t matter anymore. She was never close enough to me for me to really put an effort into how we knew each other.” I shook my head. “We had arrived not long before they went out to play games in the woods.”
“And Melissa Umbridge? How well do you know her?”
“She’s new to the group. Only been part of the cosplay thing a year or so?” I thought about it. “I honestly couldn’t tell you what she cosplays as I’ve never seen her do it, only seen her name pop up in our online chats sometimes. I met her at a convention or two in the past year. Usually we’d have a group dinner or something as I don’t cosplay much anymore. But other than that, I don’t know much about her.”
“Have you found them?” Alex asked. “Freya made it sound like the area is pretty small. I know where we were searching, we could still hear the road. So the woods can’t be that big.”
“They aren’t. A couple acres in each direction before it hits someone’s land or house. They could meander a couple miles by sticking to the woods and zigzagging a bit, but that’s not what people normally do when they are lost. We aren’t positive this is even a missing person’s case yet. We are checking hotels and hospitals,” Detective Manning admitted. “Joseph Dante was from here. So while Ms. Umbridge says Miss Cartwright’s car is here, we have not yet located Mr. Dante’s vehicle. He’s not at home and had the week off.”
“So they could be anywhere,” Alex said. “Perhaps ditching a friend who wouldn’t give them alone time?”
“Perhaps,” the detective said, not looking happy about that idea.
