Lowcountry Mysteries (Boxed Set #1)

by Lyla Payne

  “If you have what you need, let’s get out of here. I still have to make the rounds through the government buildings and the bank before I can call it a night.”

  “Sure, Leo.” I pause. “But could we go out the side door?”

  The look he shoots over his shoulder overflows with suspicion, but he changes his path through the stacks without pause. To his credit, no follow-up questions slip out. It’s unthinkable to me to talk about the threats I’ve received with a second person within a couple of hours, but they’re the reason for avoiding the front door.

  Maybe if one person had to know, it should have been Leo and not Beau. The thought surprises me, but once it settles in, it makes sense. Leo knows me. We’d solved a few mysteries in Heron Creek, even if it was just who made out in the seven minutes in heaven closet and who just made whispered pacts to never tell that they didn’t. He’s different than Beau.

  Leo’s more like me—not willing to let adulthood body snatch us yet. Not in total. Together, we’d be more likely to turn over stones that don’t include official reports and policemen.

  He pauses after unlocking the glass door that leads into the alley between the library and the post office. When he turns toward me, there something shimmering on his face that’s never been there before, not in my presence. Nerves. “Gracie, I’d really like to get together sometime. Have dinner, catch up.”

  My heart stutters, and his nerves dance off him and tango around me, little army men intent on causing me discomfort with their tiny pellets and miniature bayonets. It’s my nature to be gentle in these situations—when they can’t be avoided entirely—but too many people are trying to infringe on my self-imposed solitude since arriving in Heron Creek. Too many people determined to make me feel things, and only a small percentage of those feelings are good.

  “I’d like to catch up, Leo, but I have to be honest—I’m not looking to date anyone.”

  One eyebrow shoots up. “Who in tarnation says I want to date you, Graciela Harper? I just thought…well, you’re short on friends these days, and so am I, if you don’t count the siblings. It’d be nice to chat with someone who knows all my secrets, that’s all.”

  “Oh.” Embarrassment singes, so hot I can almost smell my burned hair. “That’d be nice.”

  He lets me out into the evening with a snort, leaving me looking forward to seeing him again. But if Leo Boone thinks he ever knew all of my secrets, or that he’s going to get access to them now, he’s got another think coming. It’d be stupid to think he doesn’t feel the exact same way.

  I get about three steps onto the sidewalk before my name bleeds from the semidarkness for the second time in less than half an hour. This time, it makes me jump sideways, turning my ankle in the process.

  “Jesus, Gracie, what happened to your face?”

  Will. Will Gayle, the once love of my life, stealer of my virginity in every possible connotation of the word. He’s as handsome as ever, hair tousled and blowing in the slight breeze, arms stretching the limits of his worn Clemson University T-shirt.

  I hate that my heart still reacts to him with a leap and twirl, as though he’s the greatest thing in the world, or as though it’s been waiting a lifetime for him to come home. It makes me frown, and I wave him away. “It’s nothing. I tripped and hit my face on a cart at work today.”

  “You look like ten miles of bad road.”

  “I’m sure. Well, it was nice to see you.”

  I quicken my pace, but he does the same, and given that he and Mel no longer live in the old neighborhood, it seems suspect that we’re walking the same direction.

  “So, you’re working at the library, huh?” He waits, but when silence greets his question, soldiers on. “What are you doing out so late?”

  “It’s, like, nine o’clock. How old are you?”

  “How is Gramps getting on? Grant misses hanging out with him.”

  A twinge somewhere in my chest tries to force me to be nice, to stop and chat with him, tell him they can come by anytime. It’s the right thing to do, because I’m sure that Gramps loves spending time with the little boy, too—he’s always loved children—and if I’m being honest, he’s always loved Will, too. My presence is squashing his happiness, and maybe in another couple of days the maturity to call and invite the Gayles to dinner will find its way into my heart. “He’s about the same. Putting on a good face, like you said.”

  “Mel’s pregnant again. She told me at dinner.”

  I wonder if that’s the reason for his solitary late-night walk but can’t see why. What I told Mel the other morning is true, that he seems happy. No one can doubt his love for that little boy, and responsibility has long been the biggest difference between Will and me.

  “Yeah, I know.” I keep walking, because even though the predominant feeling among my jumble is peace with this whole thing, it’s not a situation on the top of my “dissect every nuance of” list.

  “How do you know?”

  “We had coffee the other morning. It was delightful, even if her threats and my subsequent promises not to seduce you away didn’t pair all that well with my sugar-free latte.” I pause, sliding a glance his direction. The shock on his face appears genuine, and discomfort tugs at my gut. That was a breach of girl code, and if he mentions it at home, will set back whatever Mel and I patched over the other day. “In fact, I’m pretty sure we shouldn’t be seen alone together, and you know the Creek’s streets have ears and eyes.”

  “What? Mel said that?”

  I stop walking, and he does the same. Staring at his face, feeling the familiar intensity of those gorgeous blue eyes, isn’t doing anything to make me feel better. I hug the historical documents relating to Anne Bonny and William Cormac to my chest, a sensation of loss running like a fissure through my soul. It will never heal, never fill. It’s the hole left behind by the tearing apart of Will and me, two people who were like one, and the scar has only faded, not disappeared.

  “It’s no big deal, Will. She’s a mama bear now, and we both know Mel’s never backed down from a challenge, real or perceived.” He startles at my smile, which appears from some part of me still able to love him—and her—and not fall apart in the process. “I’m not mad. I kind of hoped that we could find a way to be friends again, even if it can’t be like it was, but it’s going to take time, Will.”

  “I miss you, Gracie. I know Melanie does, too.”

  The confession spears my heart, leaves it wriggling and wounded. “I miss you guys, too.”

  Even though we’re as alone as we’ll ever be, even though those unspoken words from seven years ago surround us like a swarm of bees, we say nothing. They make no noise, as though our past, and the people we were inside it, live on the other side of a glass curtain.

  In another dimension, relegated to an alternate reality, perhaps.

  “I appreciate everything you’ve done for Gramps, Will. I do.”

  He lets me go this time when I walk away, my eyes on the clouds assembling on the horizon. Maybe he’s choking on the same sweet sadness that’s drowning me. It’s nice to imagine that he is, for some reason. It makes what we had seem solid. Not a dream.

  As much as it hurts, having the past disappear altogether would be so much worse.

  Chapter Ten

  It’s later than I meant it to be by the time I get home, having been waylaid by not one, but two ghosts of Creek past. When Gramps’s snores greet me in the foyer, relief drops my shoulders from their tense position around my ears. The sound breaks off before I make it into the living room, though, and his sleep-hazed eyes poke me with reproach. It changes to concern in a blink, reminding me of the state of my face.

  “It’s okay, Gramps. I tripped and caught the edge of a cart, that’s all.”

  “Always were clumsy. Get that from your mother. That girl couldn’t go half a day without breaking something in the house or on her body. Cost me a bloody fortune.” He pulls his thoughts from the past and points at his watch. “Been worr
ied, Gracie-baby.”

  I lean over and kiss his papery cheek, then put my arms around his neck and lay my head on his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I felt like a walk after that meatloaf, that’s all. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “Leave me a note next time, please.” His smile is wry. “I know you’re not a little girl anymore but humor an old man.”

  “Okay, Gramps.” I kiss him again, press my ear to his hearing aid, then pull away with a grin. “You want some ice cream?”

  It’s a silly question. Ice cream is never a bad call, and I dish up two bowls of Neapolitan. There’s extra strawberry in Gramps’s, not enough that he’ll call me out for cheating but enough to make him happy. The baseball games are wrapped up for the night, so we eat our bedtime snack to the quiet cadence of the local news. I’ve heard that in big cities the news is depressing, all about murders and violence and missing kids, but in towns like Iowa City and Heron Creek, it’s about people taking food to the flood victims up the coast or the guy determined to open a farm and fill it with abused rescue animals, with the occasional scary story ripped from national headlines.

  On really good days, we’ll get an awesome story about a local hillbilly getting drunk on his own moonshine and giving the cops hell during an arrest.

  “Haven’t seen William for a while. You two aren’t going to let an old romance ruin a fifteen-year friendship, are you?”

  Fifteen years is an exaggeration, but it’s a different way of looking at things. Will and I were friends longer than were a couple, and if I’m being honest with myself, it’s his level head and commonsense advice that I’m missing the most. Have missed the most, since we said good-bye.

  David was never particularly interested in my problems, or in reigning in my wild side with any kind of patience or love. Will adored my tendency to play the daredevil, even as he tried to point out the obvious downsides to my misadventures. David tended to favor disdain and the liberal use of the word stupid.

  “We’re going to be okay, Gramps. If you want to see him and Grant, I’ll invite them over for a game. Or maybe a picnic? I was thinking it might be fun to traipse down to the docks for lunch on Sunday.”

  “Fun, maybe, but you’re not getting these old legs through the swamp.”

  “It’s a marsh, and you leave that to me.” I take his bowl and mine into the kitchen, rinsing them out and wondering if Will’s parents still have a smart car. They’d let me borrow it to get Gramps around, for sure.

  He holds up a hand when I get back to the living room, letting me haul him to his feet. His weight, or lack thereof, saddens me as I support him easily into the hallway and up the stairs, then run back to bring his walker while he’s in the bathroom.

  My face aches and throbs, the three Advil I popped in the kitchen doing little to take the edge off. I’m going to try Aleve next time, and maybe wash it down with some vodka. I think I deserve it, but despite the pain, my eyes are heavy. It’s been a long day, and as much as reading over the files from the archives in good light appeals to me, sleep sounds better.

  Then a smell drifts into the hallway, leaving no doubt that there’s a visitor in my room who might have other ideas. It doesn’t startle me like it has in the past, given the warning, but it does wake me all the way up.

  Inside my room, the sight of Anne’s ghost perched on the edge of my clean, soft, blue-and-cream down heaven pisses me off.

  I close the door and cross my arms over my chest, letting my anger build unchecked. I’ve already smashed my face and gotten busted trespassing in the service of her wild-goose chase tonight, and now she’s funkifying my favorite place in the world.

  “What do you want, woman? You can’t just pop in and stink up my life whenever you feel like it. I mean, maybe you think I don’t have much of a life to begin with, and you might be right but at least I’m not dead.” Guilt twists my stomach, even though she’s a stupid ghost and whether or not she even had feelings while she was alive is up for debate. And she is dead. “I mean, I’m just saying I could use a little help here. If you’re showing up just to cuddle and point fingers, I’ll pass.”

  It’s nice to talk to her in a normal tone of voice instead of a whisper—or in this case, a louder than normal tone of voice—without fear of being overheard. When she climbs off the bed and lumbers silently toward me, a bolt of uncertainty makes me wish I hadn’t yelled. Or insulted her. Or basically acted as though she’s everything that’s wrong with my nonlife, when in truth she’s only a small percentage.

  My body shrinks back, not bothering to ask if I’d like to go out of the world cowering like a little bitch, until the doorknob jabs into my spine. The ghost doesn’t take her watery gaze off my face and bares her cracked, yellowed teeth at my obvious fear. She’s part woman, part animal, all instinct, and leaves no doubt in my mind that in life, Anne Bonny must have been a fearsome creature.

  She stops a foot away, the smell of unwashed skin and salty rope gathering in my nose and on my tongue. My stomach begs to rid itself of dinner and ice cream but gets distracted when she unclasps her hands from behind her back and swings them around to the front. It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell her that if she plans on more pointing, I’d rather she go ahead and torture me, but the last scraps of my sass dry up at the sight of my car keys dangling from her fingers.

  What the hey?

  Despite my moment of dumbfounded shock at the revelation that my ghost can pick up inanimate objects, it’s clear what she wants. And I am so not on board.

  “Oh, no. I’m not going anywhere with you.” I eye her, managing to ease off the doorknob and relieve the knot in my back. “I have a feeling you’ve not exactly a reliable GPS.”

  She ignores me, and I don’t reach out to take the keys. My lack of movement relates partially to the idea of accidentally touching her, the memory of the last time chilling my bones all over again. We’re at a stalemate, but she moves her chess piece first. The ghost gives me a shrug, as though telling me she doesn’t care what I say or do, then walks through the door, each body part disappearing as it touches the flimsy wood. With my keys.

  I open it and peer out in time to see her white-gray figure stomp noiselessly down the hall, then float over the top step and out of sight. I have no idea what she’ll do if I don’t follow, but seeing as she lived in the eighteen hundreds, I doubt she’s going anywhere with my car.

  Even so, the inaction of the past couple of weeks and the lack of obvious answers at the library tonight taunts me. There’s too much inaction in my life, too little of the old, impulsive Graciela. I wonder what Will would say if I told him I’m considering hopping in the car for a ghostly road trip. I feel sure David would throw me in a straightjacket and lock me away forever, which is the thought that sends me hustling after her.

  It’s not as though I have anything better to do, unless I count sleeping or drinking. Sad, but true.

  By the time I reach the foyer, Anne’s out the front door. Through the front door, whatever. Trepidation and common sense try to urge me back to my room, but the reality is that Anne’s not going to leave me alone until we figure out what exactly she wants my help with—and if I can figure out why she’s so keen on it being my help in the process, so much the better.

  The wind has picked up since I got home from my little breaking and entering excursion. It blows strands of hair from my haphazard bun into my smashed-up face as the fronds of the palmetto trees rustle a loud greeting to the approaching storm. The electric scent in the air obscures Anne’s briny odor until I climb into the car.

  She’s in the backseat. I meet her impatient, sorrowful gaze in the rearview mirror, wondering if she’d let me stay home if I asked. So far she’s been insistent but not forceful. There’s no way to know what she’s capable of, or if the inclinations of our living bodies follow us into death. If so, a visit from a quiet Southern belle would be preferable to a deadly pirate.

  “You know, you can sit up front if you want. I don’t even have a chauffeur l
icense.” She doesn’t reply, and I know she won’t, but the nerves bouncing around inside me have control of my tongue. “Are you afraid someone would see you? Can other people see you? Am I crazy?”

  Her eyes gleam bright like a cat’s but hold nothing in the way of a reply. Part of me is glad she’s unable to answer that last one, and I know the answer to the second. Other people have seen her, or at least claim they have. Never heard of her stalking anyone else, though. Graciela Anne Harper, the Heron Creek stalker magnet.

  I sigh. “So, where are we going?”

  She leans forward and points to the passenger seat. The plastic bag of documents I took from the archives lies on the stained cloth, which is weird because it was on the dresser in my bedroom.

  “You’re getting a tad bold, ghost lady.” I put the packet gingerly on my lap, worried all over again about taking them out of the temperature-regulated environment. She watches as I pull the documents out one at a time, holding them up for her perusal before getting a tight shake of the head. “This sure would be simpler if you could talk, you know. Or knew sign language. Then again, I don’t know sign language.”

  Her big green eyes pop open at a particular piece of paper, the deed and land survey detailing her father’s original property.

  “This? You want to go home? That’s pretty cheesy.” I poke some coordinates into Google Earth, then glance at Anne while a map of Charleston pulls up on my cell phone. “Especially for someone who burned her home down and ran away.”

  The look she gives me could curdle milk, but then again, not one of these documents, or any of the online histories, suggests she had even the barest sense of humor. The map finishes loading while I rethink this whole thing, all the way back to the possibility that I’m having a complete psychotic break by seeing her in the first place.

  The land where her father once lived is still intact and now exists as a plantation home and museum. Rebuilt, obviously. I snicker at my second joke at the expense of Anne’s teenage psychotic episode but keep my mouth shut as she glares at me harder. I steer the car out of Heron Creek and onto the road toward Charleston, concentrating on the map and not the fact that I’m basically not only off my rocker but impaled on the splintered remains. Following a damn ghost into a stormy night.