Lowcountry Mysteries (Boxed Set #1)

by Lyla Payne

  I’m not going anywhere, and not just because the cops haven’t been around to take my statement yet.

  Beau returns with two ice packs and a fistful of ibuprofen at the same time as two identical police officers stride toward me. Their nametags declare them Officer Ryan and Officer Ryan, which makes my eyes pop painfully wide.

  “Tom and Ted Ryan? You’re cops?” The idea strikes me as hilarious—the only kids to land in hot water more often as kids than Leo Boone and me are policemen. If it wouldn’t have hurt like the dickens, I would have laughed until I peed myself.

  They grin, twin pictures of Irish heritage, right down to their whiskey-loving bellies. “I know. It’s like the biggest finger ever to that old prick sheriff, right?”

  I have no idea which one of them speaks. I never could tell them apart, and never had any desire to try once they told me the only sure way was to check out the birthmark on Tom’s ass.

  “You’ve got that right.”

  The old sheriff had been ancient, and his face would turn the color of an eggplant when we got him going. Their smiles fall away as they study my injuries, and eyebrows go up when Beau snags my hand.

  “We’ve got to ask you what happened, Graciela. We’ve talked to Melanie already.”

  “Fine.”

  The Ryan twins grow more serious than I ever believed possible, pulling out a recorder and a pad to take notes, then asking me to recount the events of the day, starting with the attack that morning. I tell them everything, distracted more than once by Beau’s face in the corner of my eye. It appears to be carved from stone, with the exception of his eyes, which glitter with something fierce. Determined. Fiery.

  It reminds me of the story Mel told about Leo’s sister, and distracts me from one of the cops’ questions. “What?”

  “I asked why you didn’t report the threats you received.”

  “I don’t know. It seemed like some kind of teenage prank.”

  “Kids breaking out car windows? That’s pretty extreme,” one of them comments, skepticism plain in the twist of his lips. If anyone would know, the two of them would.

  “It didn’t seem possible that anyone was after me in particular—I’d been gone for years and was back only a couple of days when it started.” At the time, I wasn’t aware of the centuries-old hex on my family that lived on in the form of a deceptively strong voodoo witch.

  “You always were a pain in the ass. Surprised you haven’t kept a list of people you’ve annoyed in town, just in case.”

  “Hilarious,” I reply, not really in the mood.

  They stow their equipment and leave, exchanging looks that say the Ryan twins have heard the rumors about my sanity—or lack thereof—and are less than impressed with my tale. In fact, no one seems to really believe us about Mrs. LaBadie—we stuck with the story that she went crazy, not mentioning anything that sounds insane or impossible—but she disappeared from the scene without a sound.

  My exhausted, throbbing body thrums with nerves, knowing she’s still out there. Based on everything she said in the office about duty and witch’s blood and curses, it’s clear that she believes in it. Which means she’s not just going to pack up and leave town.

  Despite the pain, fatigue, and the shock, sitting still feels like too much to ask. I disentangle from Mayor Beau with the excuse of needing a moment alone, then cross the waiting room.

  “I’m going to find Amelia and tell her what’s going on,” I tell Melanie. Me sitting here isn’t going to make Will okay, and I’m not the one they’ll come looking for when there’s news, anyway. Maybe I could have been, maybe I even would have been, but I’m not.

  Her eyes struggle to focus, then to comprehend English, but eventually she nods. “Okay.”

  “I’ll be back.”

  I squeeze her hand, and she holds on, crushing my fingers together for a solid thirty seconds before letting go and reaching into her purse to drag out a plastic bag containing a book identical to the one I dug out of the ground, though not nearly as worn.

  “Here. My mom brought my purse. I was going to give this to you last night. Stupid evil bitch didn’t realize it was in my trunk the whole time.”

  It sounds wrong, curse words on Mel’s tongue. I hate that they’re there, that something so upsetting has knocked her life off-kilter, and guilt puddles in my knees. There’s nothing to do but take the book and say another prayer that Will is going to be fine. That things will go back to the new normal.

  Amelia’s room is on the third floor, one flight of stairs up from where we’ve been waiting for news. I take the elevator instead of the steps, because I’d be lying if I said my heart didn’t leap into my mouth at every movement in the corner of my eye.

  The sight of her empty bed stops me short, but given the couple of days I’ve had, it seems more likely that I’ve walked into the wrong room than that she’s not here. I double-check the room number, which seems right, then backtrack to the nurse’s station, swallowing bubbles of panic. “Hi, I’m Graciela Harper. My cousin Amelia Cooper, er, Middleton was here. Was she moved?”

  It seems wrong that she wouldn’t text or call if they moved her, or that she didn’t try to get ahold of me when she was supposed to be released earlier today, and the wrongness gathers into a storm as the nurse checks her computer.

  “No, we released her this afternoon.”

  “What?”

  “The doctor advised against it, actually, but her husband was quite insistent.”

  Jake was here. Everything makes sense, now, especially that she didn’t call, but it hurts that she didn’t even think to leave me a message. I’m worried about her, a mess emotionally from the entire day, and I need, more than anything, a dark room to curl up in until everything is magically okay.

  The nurse must sense my imminent implosion, because the way she’s looking at me changes from cursory, maybe curious, to concern. Maybe she thinks I’m going to collapse on her desk.

  “There’s a chapel on the second floor. It’s usually pretty empty and quiet if you need a moment.”

  I manage a nod and somehow get down the stairs and into the chapel, which is thankfully, blessedly silent. I drop into a pew in the back corner, where no one will see me if they come in. Where it’s dark, with only the light of a few candles flickering off the wall.

  For the first time since I woke up this morning, I feel like I can breathe. The longer I sit and stare, sucking in oxygen and blowing it out, the more weight falls away from my shoulders. It’ll never be gone, not until I hear about Will, until I check on Amelia and make sure everything’s as fine as it can be in that situation.

  Until I can find what Anne needs and finish what she started.

  But the weight is bearable now, and after almost an hour I find the strength to pull the other half of the diary out of the plastic and crack it open, to face whatever demons, or curses, or consequences lie within its pages.

  February 1733

  I can’t avoid it another day. Jack has reached his thirteenth year, and Joseph loses patience with every breath my son draws inside the walls of his house. My solace, at least in knowledge, comes in the form of a pliable young kitchen girl. Our conversations have made it clear that Jack is no longer safe here, and I’m most frightened of what might happen to him if he stays. There may be no way to prevent the loss of everything dear to me in the world, but I know that keeping Jack here will accomplish nothing toward that end.

  Over a decade ago, my father and husband conspired to bring me home from Port Royal, and I am honestly thankful to have been able to hold on to Jack Jr., the last link between my love and myself, for this long.

  I’ve tried over the past several months, since I learned of the trysts between Zolarra and Joseph and began to suspect her ill intentions toward my son and me, to discover what black, evil magic she might have worked. Until a few days ago, I have been unable to pry any details from the rest of the staff, who all fear her with a completeness I now know is warranted. Earned.
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  The kitchen girl, Melaine, who finally revealed what she’s heard around corners and in the latrine, is too young to be of much use, and not quite all there in the head to begin with. It’s unfair of me to take advantage of these things, but Jack must come first. Before the girl, and before my own soul, if it ever had a chance of being saved in the first place.

  Melaine also hails from the Caribbean, but I’m not aware of the circumstances that brought her into the employ of the Burleigh family. She’s not well liked among the staff, slaves, or other children—has a reputation for being a snoop and an eavesdropper, which is exactly what made her invaluable to me. She gets slighted as far as meals, since being underfoot angers the cooks, so I’ve been slipping her food and toys whenever I can, and Jack’s befriended her at my request as well.

  She’s smart enough to fear Zolarra, but she’s young and daft enough to be swayed by gifts and her own natural curiosity. I found her two nights ago in the barn’s hayloft, buried in the scratchy golden stalks and singing softly in a language I haven’t heard since returning from the sea. She watched me with big eyes, then said plainly that she’d been expecting that I’d want something from her and for me to just tell her straight what it might be.

  Her perception surprised me, though I don’t know why. There are so many kinds of intelligence in the world, and among thieves and criminals and pirates and Charleston society, I’ve met all kinds—intuitive, actual smarts, intelligence that came in the form of the ability to pick up fighting from the first touch of a weapon—all useful, in the right situation. This girl, Melaine, had the ability to read people, and I can tell you that it endeared her to me.

  She scooted close, not near enough to touch but to share my heat. It made me wonder again where she came from, why or when she was separated from her own parents. Being a pirate, embracing the idea that every person has the right to live the kind of life they choose as long as they’re willing to accept the consequences, means slavery’s never sat well with me. But Joseph, like my father, never asks my opinion and so I do what I can for the slaves, when I am able. I will take more care with Melaine, for she’s become a little friend.

  I talked to her about Jack Jr., told her how he said she’d been good at learning to swim and that he’d had fun fighting with wooden swords with her. The compliments, and the mention of my son, lit up her face like a hundred candles. I knew then that I had her, that she would tell me what I wanted to know, and even though it took me another fifteen minutes of soothing her fears regarding the devil woman, she spilled her secrets.

  It was asking her about her native land, and her mother, and her religion that opened the door. She felt comfortable sharing stories of curses, and hexes, and spells with me in a general sense, and there we began. Melaine informed me that voodoo curses can be placed with the assistance of a witch doctor, and the use of certain herbs and bones, but never without the acquiescence of the spirits, dark or light.

  When I asked her if it would make her sad to know someone put a curse on Jack Jr., her eyes filled with tears and she nodded. When I asked her if she knew about any such thing, she nodded again and provided these details:

  Joseph asked Zolarra to place a curse, a hex, on not only my son but the entirety of my lineage through him. That Joseph wants his own line to exceed anything begot by the likes of Jack Rackham, and in the end, the curse will leave my son with no male descendants. No one will ever again be called Cormac, or Rackham, once his beautiful soul leaves this earth.

  The girl said that because my Jack is nearly a man grown, there isn’t anything Zolarra can do to stop his seed from planting in a wife one day, but if they produce children, no boy will outlive his twelfth birthday. None will be older than he is now, and heartache and death will plague my family, and Jack Rackham’s, as long as the curse remains strong.

  I asked her about that, too, even though I’m not sure I believe it’s possible, what she says. Not sure chanting and herbs can affect the lives of people born tens and hundreds of years in the future, but my mind conjures the fear I felt in those Caribbean alleyways, and my guts twist into knots, full of the question of what if.

  Melaine says that in voodoo, curses can be nullified if the hexed finds a way to make it not come true. It’s that simple, she believes, and gave an example of a woman cursed by an old lover to never marry. She paid a man to marry her, a situation not foreseen by the witch doctor or the spirits, and the curse ceased to be.

  This is what I hope to accomplish with these diaries. Should the curse be real, not an idle threat, and should Jack’s male children and grandchildren be plagued by tragedy, perhaps it can be altered with the knowledge of these details.

  I’ll not tell my son about this, because at his age, there will be no fear of things that cannot be seen, and he will not take it seriously. I hope the note I send along to Mary’s cousin will be handled with care and that she will see to the journal’s safekeeping and speak with Jack Jr. about the contents when he is old enough, or it becomes tragically relevant.

  A letter falls from between the final pages, threadbare, faded, but readable. I hold my breath and read it, too, my heart in my throat. It details the fact that a week after her discussion with the girl called Melaine, Anne found her body in the hayloft, completely devoid of blood. Someone had cut out her eyes, lopped off her ears, and peeled her lips from her face. Anne was sure no one could have overheard their discussion, and she spoke of it not at all, save in the diary. The girl, she felt certain, had too much fear of both Zolarra and voodoo to have breathed a word, yet the events had to be connected.

  She herself fell ill at the same time, and the page leaves little doubt that Anne Bonny didn’t long survive losing her son, if only to another state.

  I think of how Mrs. LaBadie seemed to know every time I made a move, took a breath. How she knew who Amelia was when she came to the library, how we’re connected. And in the office tonight, how she heard my thoughts, at least when they related to Anne Bonny.

  My next thought is of my cousin, back in Charleston with an abusive husband, one of the last in the line of Anne Bonny and Calico Jack Rackham.

  And pregnant with a boy.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Beau finds me in the chapel, the journal open on my lap and my cell phone to my ear. He sits in silence, hand over mine, until I put down the phone. I’ve called Amelia seven times and left as many messages, twice as many texts, all without a response.

  My storm of worry has churned into a hurricane of panic with the absolute certainty that she’s in trouble.

  “Hey,” Beau says, softly rubbing my knuckles. “How are you doing?”

  “I’ve been better.”

  “We’re going to find that woman, Gracie. She’s not going to hurt you again.”

  I wave him away, my own safety the least of my concerns. I’d be happy if she’d never hurt any of my friends again. “Have the doctors been back?”

  “Will’s out of surgery, but he’s in a coma. They’re concerned about blood loss and internal bleeding. It’s still… It could be better news, sweetheart.”

  The news hits me with more force than expected, given everything I’ve just learned about my family, about Jake taking Millie away from me again, not to mention that I’ve managed to get my ass kicked in one of the safest towns in the country.

  Beau’s arms go around me. His fingertips trail over my arms and neck, across my cheeks, as gentle as feathers, giving me a moment of peace to utter another silent prayer for the boy who meant everything to me once. Who still does, in his way.

  Then I locate my nerve, sit up, stand up. There’s only one thing I can actually do right now. “I have to go to Charleston. Amelia needs me.”

  “What? Isn’t she here?”

  “No. Jake came and checked her out, and now she won’t answer her phone or respond to any texts.” I glance down at the diary in my lap, the product of Anne’s paranoia, maybe, but after everything Mrs. LaBadie has subjected me to, I’m not willing
to write it off as nonsense.

  Not to mention that, to my knowledge, a boy has never survived past the age of twelve in our family. Ever.

  “Here. Read this if you want. It’s the other half of Anne’s diary, and I know something’s wrong.” I step past him, but he’s on his feet fast, a strong hand circled around my wrist.

  “Stop, Gracie. I’ll go with you to check on your cousin if you want, but after everything that’s happened, I’m not letting you out of my sight until they find Zaierra.”

  I’m not sure they’ll find her, if they’re even looking. Not if she doesn’t want to be found. If Anne was right, and if one believes in voodoo, maybe she’s not even wholly human. The idea of being alone makes me shake all over, and his offer to come along steadies me. It’s more than comfort or protection. It’s as though maybe, with him by my side, Amelia might have a chance at being okay.

  Mrs. LaBadie’s words from the library dance in my mind, the ones she uttered when Melanie accused her of being no better than Anne herself—that she had no control over how the spirits ensured the survival of the curse. That they used “servants.”

  An abusive, controlling husband seems like a likely candidate for brainwashing.

  “Gracie. I’m not taking no for an answer.”

  “That’s okay. I was going to say yes.”

  We head back down to the waiting area, which has largely cleared out after the news of Will’s condition. His and Mel’s parents are still there, and my friend sits curled in a chair, watching her hands.

  “Mel?”

  She looks up, her dark eyes rimmed by red circles and cracked with crimson veins. “Gracie.”

  My name dissolves into sobs, and I fall to my knees, gathering her slight frame in my arms. Guilt makes me want to die, because if she loses Will, nothing will absolve me.

  “I know.” I pat her back, letting her loose her tears into my neck until she’s finished and pulls away. “I’m going to Charleston to check on Amelia, but I’ll call for updates.”