by Lyla Payne
That makes me laugh. “True enough.”
We’re quiet for a few seconds, but it’s not confrontational this time. After the waitress refills our coffees, Travis sighs and sits forward, putting his elbows on the table like he was born in a barn. “Well, I guess we might as well start this talk you want to have. I could probably guess at least one topic of discussion, but why don’t you bring me up to speed and save us both some time.”
I take a breath or two to organize my thoughts before spilling them all over him. “I want to talk about you, mostly. What you can do. When you found out. Whether you’re more like me or more like Frank, and how much power you have over the ghosts.”
He stares at me, his eyes wide and maybe a little bit scared. I remember what he said a few days ago, when he told Amelia and me that he’d never admitted out loud that he could see ghosts, and feel the slightest bit bad for pushing him. But I have to know.
“Where should I start?” he asks, carefully. It’s as if he senses all of these questions stem from a larger question—my request for help.
“How about at the beginning? How old were you when you first saw a ghost?”
“Twelve. It was a kid who had gone missing a few weeks earlier. We went to school together, but I didn’t know him that well. So when he popped up in my room on a Saturday morning, bleeding all over my carpet, it pretty much freaked me out.”
My heart hurts at the image. At what that must have been like. Anne Bonny nearly sent me over the edge when I saw her last year, and I was a grown woman of twenty-six. Not to mention that I didn’t know her personally. “Oh, God.”
“Yeah, I pissed myself,” he says with a nostalgic grimace. “Threw up. Went into hysterics so bad my parents dragged me to different shrinks for the next six years of my life. But when he didn’t stop showing up, I eventually calmed down and let him tell me what happened.”
“And what happened?”
“His stepfather killed him. Buried him in the woods. I found the body, and that was the first time the cops suspected me of murder.” He shakes his head, pressing his lips together until they’re white as the waitress returns and sets down our food. We thank her, and once she’s gone, he meets my eyes. “My parents thought I was some kind of budding serial killer. They gave our dog away.”
“So finding dead people…that’s kind of your thing?”
“Yeah. I don’t see old ghosts like you do, and I can’t control them like Frank. No one asks me to find their will or their diary, Graciela. They only come to me when they need someone to find their bodies.” He picks at the edges of his eggs, but I can tell he’s lost his appetite.
I look down at my own plate, digesting what he’s told me as my breakfast grows cold. The butter congeals on the toast. Grease dries on my bacon. I push away the plate, my stomach the last thing on my mind.
The idea I’m nursing isn’t the most sensitive thing in the world given what he’s just told me, but if Travis isn’t going to be able to help me with Frank…what about Lucy? “Can you, I don’t know, summon these missing dead people? Is that how you solved the case in Arkansas?”
It seems too convenient that the subject of one of Travis’s investigations would show up randomly to lead him to her body.
“I think so. The murdered girl, the one my buddies thought I’d killed…she came because I was obsessed with finding her. I’m pretty sure.”
“And you haven’t tried again since?”
He shakes his head. “That almost ruined my career, Graciela. Since I’ve been in Heron Creek, you’ve solved most of my hard cases for me, remember?”
That makes me smile, even if it’s not technically true. Or at least, I didn’t do it on purpose. “Would you help me find someone who’s missing?”
Confusion twists his face. “I thought you were going to ask me to talk to Frank. Try to find out what happened to him.”
Now I’m confused. “He’s not missing. You said only spirits whose bodies are missing talk to you.”
“Right. So who’s missing?”
I shake off the weird niggle in the back of my mind, the question of whether I should talk to him about Lucy before clearing it with the Drayton kids first. Even though she’s haunting my bedroom, in many ways, she’s their ghost.
“A woman who was an aid worker in the Middle East. She went missing years ago, but her ghost showed up recently and has been bugging me to help her. The Draytons are sending someone over there to start looking. If you could get her to tell you where she is, though, that would help.” I pause, my brain working through the request I just made. “They talk to you? Like, with words?”
“No. They…sort of put pictures in my mind, I guess. Of how they died, and where.” The words are strained, as if he doesn’t want to say them.
The way he’s describing it makes me think of the few times my ghosts have shown me their deaths, and my empathy for my half-brother increases. How awful for his only way to connect with the spirits to be a forced reliving of horrific events.
“So if you met Lucy’s spirit, you might be able to see where she died,” I clarify, trying my best to shut off my heart. God knows I’ve had to do my own fair share of difficult shit in order to appease the ghosts that seek me out.
If the Carlotta diaries are any indication, that’s just how it works for us Fourniers.
I don’t say any such thing to Travis. Don’t tell him what I’ve read in those pages so far. I don’t know why, except that maybe I’m not ready to share just yet. Not until I know what it all means.
“Yes. And if you want me to, I’ll do it. On one condition.”
My gaze snaps to his, my brain immediately throwing up resistance. “Which is?”
“First of all, you tell me the next time Clete comes asking for one of his favors.” Travis waits until I nod my agreement. I have no issue with agreeing to that, at least not at the moment. Clete didn’t want Travis in a position of power, and my half-brother claims he has no desire to lead the PD here in Heron Creek again. Problem solved. “Second, you help me find out what happened to Frank.”
That takes me by surprise. I think my jaw even falls open a little. “What?”
“Don’t tell me you’re not already thinking about it, Graciela. The feds are looking at you, and probably at me, and maybe they’ll look into Frank’s past. But you know they haven’t done a great job of that so far.” He pauses, glancing around, and then lowers his voice to almost a whisper. “I’m going to look into his past, his known associates, things like that. I want your help.”
“What can I do?”
“Read everything with me. See if anything jumps out at you.” Another pause, this one longer. “Tell me if you hear anything from the FBI, Clete, or even one of your ghosts.”
I get the sense that there’s something he’s not saying, but his request makes sense. Of course he wants to find out what happened to our father. He might have barely known Frank, but he was counting on our father to help make some sense out of his life. Maybe Travis thinks learning more about Frank, about who killed him and why, will lead to the answers he craves.
There’s no way to say whether that’s true, but with my own ass on the line with the FBI, there’s nothing to do but agree. So I nod.
“Deal.”
He smiles. “So tell me about this ghost of yours...”
Chapter Sixteen
Amelia has the day off on Thursday, so I ask LeighAnn to cover for me so the two of us can go to the Charleston FBI office together. There’s strength in numbers, after all, plus we felt bad about asking Brick to escort us there individually. We can’t afford to pay him and Birdie, and while they know and accept that, neither of us is happy about it.
Amelia hates asking for favors. That goes double for asking them from Brick, since he’s got plenty of money and she has some bizarre idea that people are going to assume that’s what their friendship is all about
Maybe the worry isn’t so bizarre, consi
dering her mother is probably hoping Millie will snag him for that reason alone.
Well, that and his family name, which is also worth quite a lot in our state. Apparently Aunt Karen didn’t learn her lesson after Millie’s first marriage to a man whose family name was as impressive as his soul was black.
Anyone who knows Amelia can’t think she’s after any such thing. Brick knows it, too, but that doesn’t mean I like taking advantage of the Draytons, either. My own concerns about taking advantage of my relationship with Beau have never been far from my heart.
“Well, you ready?” she asks me now from the passenger seat of her SUV. Her face is a little pale, the light in her eyes a tad dim. It’s partly because even a twenty-minute car ride has gotten uncomfortable for her.
“Sure. Brick’s here?”
“He texted and said he’s waiting for us in the lobby.”
“Okay, hold on.” I grab my bag, climb out, and run around to the passenger side to help her out of the car. It takes a few minutes of exertion and tugging, but we accomplish the feat.
The walk inside is short; we found a spot designated for pregnant women. Usually, my cousin sneers at such things, but not today. Not when she’s cold, nervous, and only partly paying attention to what’s going on outside her own head
I can’t blame her. I’ve thumbed my nose at the local cops, both here and in Heron Creek, but this feels different. This feels big, like something I won’t be able to joke or finagle my way out of with a smile and a little sleight of hand.
Brick is in the lobby, as promised, and leaps to his feet off a bench when he spots us going through the metal detectors. “Hey. Good, you’re early.”
I loop my arm through Amelia’s, feeling better today than I did the other night. Whatever is happening, it’s not my fault. I have to find a way to believe that, to remember that I’ve given up things for her, too. Because I love her, and she loves me, and we’re family. Guilt might go part and parcel with that, but I don’t have to let it overtake me.
“Amelia is keeping me in line.”
“Trying, anyway.”
“I’m grateful. The FBI aren’t the sort of people who take kindly to being kept waiting.” Brick puts an arm behind Amelia and guides her toward the elevator bank, and I trail behind, slipping through the doors without any space to spare.
“Remember, don’t answer any questions until you check with me. Give them blood or a cheek swab, and fingerprints, but nothing else. Got it?”
“Got it,” Millie says.
I salute him, which earns me a frown from Brick but amuses both Amelia and me, which makes it totally worth it. The doors ding and slide open, and the laughter dies on our lips.
The inside of an FBI office looks pretty much like every other police station I’ve ever been to, which is oddly disappointing. I don’t know if I wanted it to have more bells and whistles, or to be extra scary, but I guess I should be glad that neither seems to be the case.
We check in at a reception desk, letting Brick do the talking. Warren doesn’t keep us waiting long, which is nice, but I think I’d rather see Chaney. They’ve probably got some kind of good cop-bad cop thing going on that I need to devote more time to figuring out.
“Miss Harper. Miss Cooper.” He eyes Brick, holding out a friendly hand. “I’m Agent Warren.”
“Brick Drayton. I’m the attorney representing both of these ladies.”
“Very good. Shall we?” The agent waves a manila envelope in his hand toward a long hallway, then waits for us to go ahead of him. The envelope bothers me, as if there’s a whiff of trouble attached to it.
Warren guides the three of us into a conference room. It’s not an interrogation room, or at least it doesn’t look like one—the walls are painted, the table is wooden and heavy, and the chairs ringing it are comfortable office chairs. Nothing is sparse or drab, and all of these factors combined relaxes some of the tension humming in the air. Which is probably the point.
“I’m going to send y’all back to the forensics lab one at a time to get your fingerprints done and give a DNA swab,” Warren drawls. “In the meantime, can I get y’all anything to drink? Coffee?”
“I’ll have a coffee,” Brick requests, looking alert but not panicked. The guy might have a fault here and there, but his skills as an attorney are unassailable, or so everyone says.
“Water, please,” Amelia croaks, appearing less calm than our lawyer. Brick reaches under the table and squeezes her knee.
“Sure. Miss Harper, would you like to come on back first?”
“Okay.” I’m trying not to show weakness, so I shoot him a smile on my way to the door. “Lead the way.”
He does, his gait purposeful and that damn folder still swinging from his fingertips. We wind our way through the halls, until the carpeted floors give way to peeling linoleum and I can imagine that this is where the scary interrogation rooms are kept.
We end up in a room that resembles a blood collection lab in a doctor’s office—a counter, cabinets, one chair that’s there for blood draws, and a couple of computers. A twenty-something guy with mussed brown hair and a silver lip ring types away at one of them, a tattoo ringing one finger and a white lab coat covering what appears to be an all-black wardrobe.
“Hi,” he greets us, not taking his eyes off the screen. “One second.”
“While we’re waiting, I was thinking you might like an update on your father’s case,” Warren says, laying the dreaded envelope on the top of the counter and flipping it open.
“Sure,” I tell him, reminding myself to listen and not talk, lest Brick throttle me to death before whoever’s out to get me has the chance.
“There is more than one set of fingerprints on the bags of drugs. One of them belongs to your father, but the other two aren’t in our database. The shovel also has two sets of unidentified prints.”
“Interesting,” I say when he pauses and looks my direction, obviously waiting for some kind of response.
“Yes, we thought so. There was other trace evidence on the scene, as well.”
“Which makes sense, since we live there,” I blurt before remembering that I’m not supposed to be talking.
“Of course. No one is accusing you of anything.” He peers closer, then flips the file shut when the forensic tech spins around on his whirly stool with a flourish.
“All right. You must be Miss Harper?”
“Yes.”
“Very good. I’m going to swab the inside of your cheek with a big Q-Tip, and then Warren here will haul you back to the fingerprinting desk. No pain, no worries.”
“Sounds good.”
“Great.” He pulls a sterile test tube with a yellow cap from a tray and unscrews the top, then tears open a paper package that resembles the ones that hold disposable chopsticks to extract the cotton swab. “Open up for me?”
I do as he asks, and the swab is in and out of my mouth, then safely inside the re-capped tube, before I can blink. I suppose the whole DNA test with Travis should have taught me that the process of extracting a person’s basic building blocks is stupidly simple.
The fingerprinting bit is just as painless, like the lab tech promised, and I find myself back in the conference room with Brick, Amelia gone, before I know what happened.
“Did he ask you anything?”
“No. He told me they’d found DNA evidence under the house, and two sets of unidentified fingerprints were on the drugs and the shovel.”
“You didn’t say anything, right?”
“Not really.”
“Gracie…”
“I said ‘interesting’ to the first bit of information, and about the DNA, I said ‘well, people live in the house, so I guess that’s not weird.’”
“That’s all?”
“Yes. I’m not an idiot.”
Brick sighs. “I don’t think you’re an idiot, Graciela. Quite the opposite. I do think that you have a tendency to trust people a lit
tle too much, and because you’re extremely likable, it typically works out in your favor. But one of these days it’s not going to, and my brother is never going to forgive me if that day comes on my watch.”
The words take a second to sink in, and even then, it takes me several moments to process them. I think Brick just gave me a compliment. “I’ll do my best not to get you in trouble with your brother. If you tell me exactly what’s going on between you and my cousin.”
“I don’t make deals with clients.” He makes a face at me, then glances nervously at the door like a teenager who’s afraid his crush might overhear him talking about her. “And nothing is going on. I like her. I care about her leveling out from her depression, and she cares about my recovery from alcohol abuse. It’s nice.”
I barely stop myself from clarifying the “like” statement with a but do you like like her question. I don’t think Brick Drayton and I would have been friends in junior high.
“I agree. It’s nice.” I eye him. “I just don’t know why you blush every time I ask.”
“I do not blush.”
We’re at a standoff, then, waiting for Millie to come back and save us. It shouldn’t be long, based on the speed of my own processing. Now that my concerns about accidentally admitting something to Agent Warren have lifted, my mind turns to the other, at least equally interesting, portion of our visit a few nights ago.
“So, did Mallory get off to Pakistan okay?”
The question seems to surprise Brick, based on the way his eyes widen and his head snaps up from whatever he’s been reading on his phone. “What? Oh, yeah. I guess.”
“What is her deal, anyway?”
He sighs. “Just what Birdie told you. She’s got this ability—it’s an obsession, really, and in my opinion not at all healthy—that lets her find the things she’s looking for. Anything and everything. If she wants to find it, she does.”
“How is that possible, though?” I hold up a hand as Brick opens his mouth, a smartass response no doubt on the tip of his tongue. “And don’t come back at me with something about how seeing ghosts is possible, because we’ve already been down that road.”