Lowcountry Mysteries (Boxed Set #1)

by Lyla Payne

  Then Melanie crouches in front of me, her hands covering mine where they’re clasped in my lap. She gives me a squeeze, forcing me to focus on her dear face, which is better than the horror going on inside my head. Heart. Everywhere.

  “I’m so sorry, Gracie. We’ll clear out and let you talk to Gramps, but whatever you need, or he needs, all you have to do is ask. You know that.” The ferocity in her dark eyes reminds me of a million little moments that have always added up to the fact that though Mel looks like a sweet little pixie, she’ll protect the people she loves until her very last breath.

  It catches my breath to see it for me, after all this time, and my arms go instinctively around her neck. She hugs me back, and we stay that way for a while, saying all the silent I’m sorrys and you’re forgivens that we’ll ever need to trade.

  “I love you, Gracie.”

  “Love you, Mel.”

  “Call us, please. Let us know what’s going on.” Will squeezes my shoulder with one hand, supporting Grant with the other arm, his eyes wet with a mirror image of the coming loss ripping me open.

  “I will.”

  They say good-bye to Gramps with long faces and kisses, but when I find the courage to swivel and look him in the face, I find that he’s nodded off. My friends leave, and I gather up the food tray, trying and failing to contain the fat tears dripping down my face. I elbow Beau out of the way when he tries to help, setting the tray on the floor outside the door and wanting to scream at the pain in my foot with every single step.

  A different nurse almost runs me down in the doorway, a guy this time. He startles and manages to right himself with a hand on the wall, the glances down at his chart. “Graciela Harper?”

  “That’s what they tell me.” If only I was someone else tonight. Anyone. This could be their life.

  “Supposed to take you for X-rays.” He grabs a wheelchair that’s pushed up against the wall outside the door.

  I glance back at Gramps, who’s started to snore again, my heart breaking.

  “Go ahead, I’ll sit with him,” Beau urges, settling into a chair.

  The Braves are on, and they’ll both be okay. But leaving hurts, even though it’s silly. Nothing’s going to happen while I’m getting an X-ray, except that I’ll miss one more hour with Gramps. It’s dumb. I can’t spend every waking and sleeping moment with him, but it’s my gut reaction to try.

  “Go, Gracie. You’re no good to Gramps if you can’t walk.”

  Despite my stubborn inclination to argue, it’s obvious he’s right. I need to get my ankle tended to so that I can help Gramps when we get home. The internal admission doesn’t improve my mood, and I flop into the wheelchair with a loud enough huff to telegraph my impatience to both Beau and the nurse, who takes off down the hall with me.

  My attitude isn’t fair to Beau, who’s done nothing but be helpful and understanding and an incredibly skilled kisser, but it’s my truth at the moment. The most important thing in my life, the relationship that picked me up after I lost David, that tugged me back to the place that’s trying its best to heal me, is disintegrating before my eyes, and there might not be a damn thing I can do to stop it.

  Tears reappear by the time we get to the X-ray room, but the nurse doesn’t mention them. He doesn’t say much of anything, actually, while he completes his torture regime of prodding and turning my ankle for what feels like a hundred different photos. By the time he’s done I’m biting back tears for a different reason, but at least he hands over a few mild painkillers before depositing me back in the room.

  Beau drops Gramps’s dinner roll at the sight of me, but the crumbs on his face give him away. He’s sheepish, like a little boy caught with his hands in the cookie jar, and the expression endears me to him. Odd, that he can shift between sexy and sweet with so little effort, with a pit stop at bossy and annoying, but never lose a step as far as making me comfortable in his company.

  “Sorry. I’m starving.”

  “Beau, you heard the doctor same as I did. It’s better you eat that food than Gramps.”

  “We’re slow, so you should be fine to stay here with your grandfather tonight if you’d like. The radiologist should be up with your X-ray results in an hour or so.” The previously quiet nurse helps me from the chair and onto the second bed.

  It feels as good as it did earlier today. That four-hour nap had been nice, but it didn’t make up for sleeping against a tree last night.

  “Thank you,” I say to his retreating back.

  Beau finishes the roll and picks up Gramps’s pack of Jell-O, stuffing half of it in his face with a single spoonful, then looking guilty again. “Did you want some?”

  “Ugh. Definitely not. I don’t eat anything that moves voluntarily on a plate.”

  He shrugs and keeps scarfing, and it’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him again that he doesn’t have to stay, but he’s made it clear he wants to. And also, maybe I want him to, a little.

  “What are you planning to do, Gracie?”

  “Talk to Gramps when he wakes up. It’ll be useless if he’s already made up his mind, but I’ll try. Probably need to call my Aunt Karen, too, and have her give it a shot.”

  The mayor falls silent while he finishes his disgusting lime green dessert. I watch the game, wondering how he knows when his opinion might be important and when he has nothing to add. The sound of his plastic spoon scraping the bottom of the carton makes me hold back a smile.

  “I brought your things up from the car,” he comments, changing the subject.

  As tired as I am, having something to think about other than Gramps’s medical issue—or calling my Aunt Karen—makes me grateful. I hold on tight with both hands.

  Beau nods toward the stand beside my bed, where the little box and bundle of archive documents wait for my attention with far more patience than the woman who led me to them has ever shown. My fingers itch to grab it, to dig through the treasure for clues as to how to rid myself of the spirit. I can’t explain why, but I want to do it alone. Anne trusts me, I feel that with every instinct, and it surprises me how much betraying that bond, unwanted or not, bothers me.

  Not to mention that, as much as I enjoy avoiding adulthood, I’m in charge of Gramps, and Aunt Karen needs to know what happened today. What we’re facing. Making that call with Beau in the room isn’t going to happen. I do a fine job of embarrassing myself in front of him, and Aunt Karen’s always a little too willing to help in that department.

  I don’t realize how long I’ve been silent, staring at the box, until Beau throws up his hands.

  “Are you going to tell me where you were and what that’s all about or not?”

  “I’ll make you a deal. You go home, get some dinner and a good night’s sleep. I’ll do the same, after I call my Aunt Karen. If you want to come back tomorrow, I’ll tell you what’s in the box and what’s going on.”

  “Throw me a bone here, Gracie. I’m worried about you. How do I know you’re not going to disappear again and hurt yourself worse this time?”

  “I’m exhausted, for one thing. For another, I’m going to have to talk to Gramps when he wakes up, and even though he loves all of you people as much as you love him, he has his pride. He’s not going to want you here for that conversation—hell, he’s not even going to want me here. Let me deal with that first?”

  He runs a hand through his hair again, his eyes burning into mine. It’s clear he doesn’t want to leave, but my argument is valid and he can’t really rail against me for wanting time alone with Gramps to discuss whether he wants to lie back and welcome death with open arms.

  I do plan on confiding in him what happened last night, since he already knows I see ghosts and doesn’t seem inclined to run away screaming, but not tonight. I push that truth into my gaze, let it tumble out of me and through the air between us, until he can’t miss the honesty. The promise.

  “I can’t thank you enough for being there for Gramps today, and for calling Will.”

  Mayo
r Beau stands, giving me a rueful smile. “Calling your ex-boyfriend wasn’t high on my list of things to do, no matter how much I enjoy beating him at golf.”

  “Trust me, Beau, Will and I are a long way in the past.”

  “Doesn’t look that way from here.”

  Jealousy might be too strong a word for the emotion swirling off him, but it’s definitely something like that. Closer to envy, perhaps, but either way it strikes me as touching. He’s really interested in me. Me, the hottest mess to ever splat on the streets of Heron Creek.

  “We’re always going to be friends, I think. Even if we aren’t.”

  He nods, slowly, then takes the couple steps between the chair and the bed. His lips brush my cheek, lingering, then sweep down to taste the corner of my mouth. “That’s profound, Graciela. And enviable. Get some rest, please.”

  It takes me several minutes to gather my scattered wits from the blankets and sheets, as well as a few chunks that I worry might have left with Beau. Once I’m back together, at least for the most part, I pick up the phone and dial Aunt Karen’s number. Dread drops roots in my belly, reaching deeper and causing me more discomfort with each passing ring.

  “Hello?”

  I pause, wondering how this day could get any worse. It’s not Aunt Karen. “Millie?”

  My estranged cousin sucks in a quick breath, and when she replies, there’s a tremor in her voice that’s entirely new. “Grace?”

  My heart grows arms that try hard to reach through the phone, to fold her in a hug and ask why she’s afraid to even speak my name, but of course it’s impossible. “Is your mom there?”

  “No, they’re out of town. Is it urgent?” She knows it must be, for me to call at all.

  “It’s Gramps, Millie. He’s in the hospital, and we’ve got some big decisions to make very soon. I can handle it, but I thought your mom would blow a gasket if I didn’t at least give her the chance to be here.”

  “Oh, God. Is it bad?”

  The emotion in her voice clogs my throat for the millionth time today, but I swallow hard in a valiant attempt to keep it together. “It’s bad.”

  She clears her own throat, and then the take-charge, no-nonsense cousin that ran the first ten years of my life like a drill sergeant emerges. “I’ll call them right now. They’re just down in Savannah for some R & R, so I’m sure they’ll leave first thing in the morning.”

  Savannah’s only three or so hours away; if I know Aunt Karen and Uncle Wally, they’ll be in Heron Creek before breakfast. “Thanks.”

  Silence hangs on the line, bigger than the physical and emotional space between us. It’s vast, and full of accusations and lies and heartbreak that can’t even begin to rival what I’ve lost with David, or even Will. It doesn’t dissolve, isn’t broken even though we both have the opportunity, and a moment later she hangs up.

  Millie will always be the one to hang up first. Practical, real-world Amelia.

  I sigh, then patch up the weeping holes in my heart as I fluff up the pillows behind me and reach for Anne’s wooden container. Gramps’s snores knit a comfortable blanket over the room, and combine with the soft murmur of the Braves announcers to relax my stiff back into the bed. Pieces of dirt and softened wood rub off under my fingertips even though I apply as much of my training as possible in the situation. It’s not old enough or weathered enough to fall completely apart, but it’s not going to last long without some preservation efforts, and soon. There are no markings on the outside, nothing that makes it unique.

  The lip flips up with little resistance, no lock or even a clasp to keep it closed. The oily cloth feels slippery between my fingers, and whatever it’s covering is hard but also pliable.

  It’s a book, I realize as the cloth falls away and the little leather-bound volume sits on my lap. Smooth, worn by hundreds of touches by human fingers, and tied closed with a matching leather string. Excitement, the kind that drew me to complete a master’s degree, then a doctorate, in archival studies, shakes me fully awake.

  It’s old, clearly, and the fact that Anne led me to it makes me believe it’s part of her history. I should wait until I procure the correct equipment, but my curiosity gets the better of me. I grab a tissue from the box beside the bed to protect the old pages from the oils in my fingertips, then open the cover.

  My breath catches in my lungs when I see that a diary or journal entry begins on the first page, no title or introduction or explanation. I’ll begin with the assumption that the words are Anne’s and go from there. With another gulp of air, and then a quick check on Gramps, I dive into Charleston’s past.

  Chapter Thirteen

  December 1732

  I have no way of knowing whether the person who finds these words will know any part of my story, and so I’ll start at the beginning. It may already be too late for me, but I have to try. For Jack, and for our son. The child has no ownership in the misdeeds and sins of his parents, and no matter what, deserves to live the life he chooses.

  Whether or not this tale makes a difference, I’ll tell it. Because it cannot die with me.

  I know that the true beginning of my story rests in Cork, Ireland, and with the scullery maid my father forced to lie with him, an atrocity that resulted in my birth, but surely after all I’ve done, and the prominence of my father in Charleston society, those details will survive. It matters not that I was a miserable child after my mother died, or that my father hated the fact that his daughter, the one child he had left to him, preferred to run around barefoot in tattered clothes as opposed to the fine dresses he brought home from his frequent trips abroad.

  It matters not that I never loved him, that no one bothered to love me, not until much later.

  I am guilty of many of the transgressions that stirred my father’s hatred, even stabbed a few people under his employ, but none of them were innocent. I’ve never harmed a single man, in all my life, who can claim to be that.

  Who among us can?

  When James Bonny arrived in my life, he appeared as a lifeline. A preserver, a way out of the hell on William Cormac’s plantation, or of the marriage he would eventually force on me. If I give my father credit for anything, it is that he was able to see through James’s facade immediately, while my first husband’s cowardly nature did not show itself to me until after we had wed and moved to New Providence Island around my sixteenth birthday.

  It was then I learned, in a personal way, of the pirate life. James Bonny was small-time, in brains and heart and courage, and lacked the grit to become a great corsair. He was nothing more than a cutthroat and a common thief, and later a betrayer of the men who had once crewed ships through the Caribbean alongside him. He got me with child against all of my efforts, but the girl was dead when she slid from my body. Weak, like her father, and probably for the best—I would never have harmed my child, but loving anything half James Bonny would have challenged my heart.

  It was shortly afterward that I met Jack Rackham—Calico Jack, to most. I sat on the docks, drowning the sorrows of my life in a bottle of rum and contemplating how I could have been so stupid, trading the prison my father constructed to one gaoled by James Bonny, when a man sat beside me. Despite the fact that I hadn’t showered in days, that I wore breeches instead of a dress, my feet were bare, my hair a mess, Jack’s first words to me were “You’re a beauty.”

  I think I fell in love with him then, before I ever chanced a look at his face. The mud caked on his hands and under his nails told the tale of a workingman, the kind of man who didn’t expect others to do for him. I had never known a man like Jack, and I am never like to again.

  When I did look up, into eyes so midnight blue I spent days of my life searching them for the stars, I was lost—and also found. Jack Rackham was everything I’d searched for in another human being—alive, filled with vigor and lust, starving for the next adventure. His filthy, matted hair, bronzed skin, missing teeth, and stench would have sent polite society ladies shrieking in the other direction, and the
fact that the sight of him filled me with such desire I struggled to keep my hands to myself proved to me, once again and beyond all shadow of a doubt, that I was not like other women. Could never be, and was never born to be.

  When Jack asked me to come with him when he put the Revenge to sea, I said yes without a moment’s hesitation. I would have the life I’d always wanted, with a man by my side who wished to put my proud, fighting nature on display instead of squashing it until it shriveled and died.

  There was, of course, the small matter of my marriage to James Bonny. When I informed him of my plans to leave he dragged me in front of the governor, who suggested Jack purchase me in a divorce. But I’m no cow, and the night we put the sloop to sea, James Bonny threatened me, promised that one day I’d be back to the real world, begging for help.

  He was right, though not for any of the reasons simmering in his half-wit head.

  The night Jack and I left port and set sail for the smaller islands, where he gathered a crew, was the best of my life. We decided it would be best for me to dress and act as a man, with one exception—he would not have me cut my hair, because he loved to tangle his hands in its waves while we made love.

  The crew didn’t question my authority as first mate, and if they suspected my womanhood, none made any advances. I knew how to use a sword and a blade, and it didn’t take long to learn a pistol as well. The next few times we returned to Nassau I begged James for a divorce under the cover of night. Not because propriety concerned me, per se, but because I’d recently learned I was pregnant again and wanted to give the baby Jack’s name. No one knew better than I the stigma that came from an illegitimate birth, and even though my concerns probably seem silly, for the baby’s parents were both wanted outlaws, the desire to give him or her a good start plagued me.

  In the beginning of 1719 our little crew experienced the kind of abundance and good luck that led to a need for expansion, and so we took on more crew and another ship in Port Royal. Jack was ill with the scurvy, so while the training of new hands generally fell under his purview, this time I took the new ones to task.