by Lyla Payne
She peers over my shoulder. “I told you, that doesn’t make any sense. No one wore English and Spanish garb, like, ever. Or English and French or French and Spanish. They all hated each other. Aren’t you supposed to be the history expert in the room? I’m just an interior design airhead and I know that.”
“I know, Amelia. It doesn’t make any sense, but this is what he’s wearing. Maybe if we can figure out why, we can figure out who he is and what he wants.”
“Fine,” she huffs, expending a ridiculous amount of energy to get off the couch. “I’m going to pee.”
The doorbell rings a few seconds after the sound of the toilet flushing, and I must be a terrible person because even though it could be a murdering moonshiner I figure Amelia can get it since she’s already up.
She returns in one piece with a disheveled Melanie in tow. Mel gives me a sheepish smile and sweeps her bangs off her forehead. Or tries to, but she’s impressively sweaty.
“Hey,” she says.
“Hey, Mel. What are you doing here?” It’s not late but it’s not early, either. Not for a woman with a little boy at home who probably needs to be put to bed.
“Will’s parents are in town so they’re watching Grant. Will’s working late. Again.” She avoids Gramps’ chair and takes a seat in the uncomfortable wingback to my right, flapping her loose cotton dress to circulate some air between her thighs.
Been there, done that. In public, too.
“Hotter than a goat’s rear end in a pepper patch,” Amelia says, sympathy coloring her pretty features as she hands over a second diet Sprite she gathered from the kitchen. “I think it’s somehow gotten worse since the sun went down.”
My cousin returns to her spot on the sofa but props her feet on the coffee table this time.
“I got to thinking about our conversation the other day, Gracie. At my party. I feel awful that you might think I don’t trust you, or trust Will, or that I’m some kind of sad, pathetic woman who can’t figure out how to make her husband happy.”
Surprise at her words confuses me for a moment. “What? I don’t think any of those things, Mel. I love you, and I love Will, and since coming back to Heron Creek, the one thing I’ve figured out for sure is that our friendships matter to me more than anything else.”
“You mean that?”
“Hell yes. My life went to shit when I left here and we all stopped talking. Things have been better, even crazy librarians and attempted murder considered, since I came back.” I swallow, finding the courage to meet her gaze. “I don’t want to do anything to screw this up, Mel. I couldn’t take it.”
Tears fill her eyes, and even though she’s cried in my presence multiple times this week, it’s still strange to see her this way. Melanie’s the kind of girl who plays emotion close to the vest—much like myself, though her reasons probably have to do with her crappy family while I seem to have gotten this way in spite of my loving one.
“I believe you, Gracie. I know you wouldn’t hurt me or Will or Amelia or anyone if it’s in your power not to. It’s just … things are hard. It’s been a long time since we’ve all been friends, and even though it feels the same sometimes, it feels new, too. Different.”
“I think it’s going to be better,” Millie interjects, her face shining with hope and love and all of the other emotions that bonded headstrong loners like Mel and me to each other and to Millie as children. “Now that you two are grown up and I don’t have to waste good energy chasing after you.” She casts me a disapproving but affectionate look. “I mean, you’ve got a long way to go, Grace, but at least you’re on the path.”
“Thanks.” They both just smile at my sarcasm.
We fall silent, but this time it’s comfortable and fills the room with the comfort of our childhood. It feels like a cool, nighttime breeze, and smells of sweetgrass and salt, of s’mores and strawberry Boone’s Farm, of hair smelling like bonfire smoke long after we’d crawled into bed. There are so many memories wrapped around us, so many threads that tie us together and hold us tight; to break one would rip me apart, too.
It feels like I need nothing but our friendships to sustain me for the rest of my days.
“What are you drawing?” Mel asks, breaking the silence after the Braves lose to the Brewers 2–1. She squints at my drawing, the tipping of her head like a dog trying to discern the wishes of its master, causing Millie to crack up.
“Isn’t it awful? I think this baby is going to come out of me with better art skills.”
“Who is he?” Mel turns her sharp, inquisitive gaze from Millie to me.
The silence grows awkward before a minute passes. Their eyes train on me, one pair asking questions I don’t want to answer and the other begging me to stop keeping secrets from one of the people I just claimed to love more than anyone else.
It won’t hurt anything to tell Mel about the ghosts. Not really. It’s just that it’d be one more person who knows. One more person who will wonder, even if it’s just in passing, if I’ve lost my ever-loving mind.
“He’s no one,” Amelia says with her soft, peacemaker voice, one Mel and I both know means drop it. We also both know it doesn’t mean there’s nothing to talk about in the first place. Millie doesn’t agree with me, but she knows it’s my secret to keep or tell.
It hurts to keep something from Mel, even though, like she said, things aren’t the same as they used to be. It doesn’t mean they can’t be better, and nothing is going to solidify for me—or for us—if we don’t at least try to trust one another the way we used to.
“She means we don’t know who he is,” I amend, giving Millie a small smile to let her know it’s okay that the subject came up and thanking her for trying to let me off the hook. “We were just getting ready to do some research and see if we can figure it out,”
“If you don’t know who he is then how do you know what he looks like?” Mel purses her lips, taking in the meager, poorly drawn details of my sketch until the lightbulb flicks on over her head. She turns wide, curious—but not disbelieving—eyes on me. “You saw him? You’re seeing more ghosts?”
“Unfortunately,” I confess with relief at her in-stride reaction. It swells my heart until it’s almost the size of a normal person’s—like being with Beau did the other night.
Well, not exactly like that.
“I thought the Anne Bonny thing was just because you were related, though.”
“So did I, but this guy showed up not long after Anne finally disappeared for good. He’s not as insistent as she was, or really helpful at all. He just pouts a lot.”
“Oh, Lord, but I hate a pouty man,” Mel laments, rolling her eyes.
“So say we all,” Amelia intones, cracking us up.
My cousin’s affinity for science fiction has baffled us for years, but she loves it all. The nerdier the better, and she’s seen every single episode of Battlestar Galactica more times than I can count. Which means I’ve seen them all more times than I prefer to admit, though I have to say, the most recent one with Blue Eyes, aka Chris Pine, isn’t nearly as painful as some of the others.
“I’ve seen Glinda, too,” I blurt out before I can lose my nerve and shut up. “It’s how I knew we needed to check on her the night the cops found her body. And why I was in the woods the other day when I ran into Will.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Hold on.” She puts up a finger, and the wheels turning in her brain are almost audible. “Okay. First question: Why would Glinda take you out to Berkeley County?”
“Because she was a secret moonshiner,” Millie supplies, unable to hold back the juicy gossip another moment now that I’ve given her the go-ahead.
Together we bring Mel up to speed, sharing the information about Glinda’s granddaughter and Leo and the falling-down house deep in the woods, and ending with Clete’s visit to town today. Her face pales when I relay Will’s part in rescuing me the other day, including the fact that it wasn’t anywhere close to his first run-in with my new criminal buddies.
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“Gracie, crap on a cracker! I knew you shouldn’t be going out there alone and that you really scared Will, but he didn’t tell me the details!”
Her concern touches me, but also fertilizes the seed of doubt in my mind about Will’s connection to the moonshiners. It’s odd that he hasn’t told her about the troubles he encounters at work, but it’s also plausible that he doesn’t want to worry her.
“And she’s going back out there on Sunday to check out Glinda’s cabin, but she doesn’t want to ask Will to go with her in case it hurts your feelings.” Amelia responds to my glare with a jutted chin. “Tell her that’s stupid.”
“That’s not the only reason,” I protest. “Clete and Will don’t get along, first of all. Second, if Will’s around, then Glinda definitely won’t show up and the whole thing will be a waste of time.”
They both look thoughtful, and Mel surprises us both with a grunt of agreement. “She’s right.” She finishes off her soda and plops the can down on the table. “And I agree with Gracie. Those guys think she’s a nut. Nuts are adorable and harmless. Like Chihuahuas.”
“You know, I’m starting to think you two are having a little too much fun with this Graciela’s touched in the head commentary.”
They break into giggles, and it’s too hard not to join in. When Melanie recovers, she picks up my crude drawing, studying it this way and that. “Why are his clothes all mismatched?”
I sigh, then give Amelia a look that suggests she’d better shut up. “I don’t know. He’s always showing up in something different—late-seventeenth, early-eighteenth century in style but a mishmash of cultures. Ideas?”
She shakes her head. Mel just finished her degree in elementary education, but history has never been her strong suit. Last summer we found out she had the answer to my Anne Bonny problem stored in her noggin since she was a kid, but she’d never thought the story about her ancestor being a pirate and giving birth to an illegitimate child in prison before her untimely death was very interesting. Freaking weirdo.
Mel says she needs to get home. Amelia grabs my laptop and starts punching keys and poking around while I walk our friend to the door. She throws her arms around me in the foyer, murmuring another apology for the other night, which I brush off. We’re moving past that. Will can’t be a thing between us.
I want so badly to find a way to let him be a thing among us again, though.
The look on Mel’s face is thoughtful as she pulls away, her gaze turned toward the ceiling. “What do you think Glinda wants you to find at that cabin? A clue about who murdered her? Some expensive jewelry for her granddaughter? I mean, it can’t be as crazy as what Anne needed you to dig up, right?”
I shrug. “We had no idea Glinda was leading a double criminal life all these years. Who knows what else she could be hiding.”
“What kinds of things turn people into ghosts? I mean, why do they stick around?”
I roll my eyes at her expectant expression. “I don’t know, Mel. This is all new to me. I’ll get back to you in twenty years when I’ve totally given up all hope of living a normal life. You can find me in the shanty I’m going to build in the woods next to the cemetery to save myself the travel time.”
“Gracie, I know this must be, like, freaking you out, but it’s kind of cool, you know? You can help people. It’s special, to have something like that.”
I’ve never thought of it that way. The ghosts have made my life more complicated—have almost ended my life at least three times since the first day Anne fouled the backseat of my car with her impressive presence—but they’ve also helped me put my breakup with David in the rearview mirror. They’ve convinced me to stop drinking so much, and brought Amelia and Mel back into my life.
And despite all the trouble, it felt good to help Anne Bonny retire from the haunting business. It’ll feel even better the day one of her male descendants—ideally the one in Millie’s belly—celebrates his twelfth birthday, which should break the curse that voodoo freak set on our family.
We say good night a few minutes later, having come up empty guessing what Glinda might have hidden out at the cabin in the woods. I swing open the heavy front door to let her out into the muggy night and find Detective Dylan Travis on my porch, hand raised to knock.
He’s wearing a suit that clings to his sinuous body and a stern expression, and is carrying a piece of paper. Two detectives I don’t know lurk behind him, their eyes anywhere but on me. “Miss Harper? You’re officially a suspect in the murder of Glinda Davis. We have a warrant to search the premises.”
Chapter Twelve
“What?” I know I didn’t hear him wrong, but it seems like I must have. “On what grounds?”
“You’re welcome to read it.” Detective Travis hands over a thick, folded packet of paper, but there’s water roaring in my ears, blurring my vision.
A warrant. That means proof and a judge and real trouble.
I feel Mel’s hand on my elbow, helping me into the front sitting room and down to the closest place to sit, the bench in front of Grams’ antique piano.
“What in the name of Jesus Christ is going on out here?” My cousin stands in the doorway, striking and beautiful and somehow more intimidating than any five-foot-two blond pregnant woman has any right to be.
Her appearance affects Detective Travis, whose ears turn red at the tips. He glances at me with a frown and then, apparently deciding I’m in no condition to comprehend things such as the English language, takes the warrant from me and hands it to Amelia.
“Mrs. Middleton.”
She blanches. “Ms. Cooper, or Amelia. Please.”
“Very well. That’s a search warrant. It covers the house and grounds, as well as Miss Harper’s vehicle.”
Millie peruses it for at least five minutes, even though it’s doubtful she understands the legal jargon any more than I would were it in my hands. She’s stalling because she can, or maybe just to piss him off, but no matter the reason it makes me love her more than ever.
She finally nods, pinning the detective with a glare that could shrivel the buds on a magnolia tree in April. He flinches like a kicked puppy and nods to the officers who have stood silent in the foyer this entire time. At least it’s not the Ryan twins. They would have had a little too much fun being the ones on the arresting side of me and the law this time around.
The detective’s henchmen leave the room, one heading back outside while the other tips his hat toward Millie as he passes her and heads into the living room. Mel sinks down beside me on the piano bench, the press of her leg against mine offering small but tangible comfort.
It’s not the first time I’ve run up against the law in Heron Creek, but it is the first time anyone’s accused me of murder. Tears burn the back of my eyes. Not because I’m sad, or scared, or anything that a normal person might be feeling.
I am fucking pissed off.
“What in the hell do you think you’re doing?” I snap at Detective Travis, who’s apparently going to stand around with his dick in his hand while his cronies tear up my grandparent’s house. “I read Nancy Drew novels as a kid, which seems to mean I’m one step ahead of you as far as your job. I called you when Glinda died. Why would I do that if I’m the one who killed her?”
“I suggest you take advantage of your right to remain silent, Miss Harper.”
That makes me roll my eyes because he hasn’t even read me my rights. It’s like he thinks this is New York City and he just took down a major crime boss, or maybe a television channel is going to offer him his own reality show if he plays the hard-ass detective well enough.
“Grace, they have a search warrant. The law classes I took freshman year are coming back to me, and I’m pretty sure that means they have some kind of solid evidence that you could be involved,” Amelia says in a quiet voice, taking the few steps to my side.
I cast a sidelong look at Detective Travis, who does his best to pretend he’s not listening, and I barely restrain another eye roll. �
��Fine, but I didn’t do it. So everything’s going to be fine.”
“Maybe, but I’ve been watching a lot more television than you have lately, and let me tell you about this little thing called lazy police work,” Millie hisses.
“And corruption,” Mel adds in a louder voice, not bothering to hide the disdain she shoots toward the hovering detective.
“Would y’all just calm down? Let’s just wait until Detective High and Mighty here deigns to tell me exactly why I’m being arrested before running around like chickens without heads.” I force a smile but feel it wobble. “This is kind of like old times, right?”
“Grace, this is nothing like the time you filled Mrs. Walters’ pool with Jell-O for that party, or the time you set blue-painted squirrels loose in the courthouse. This is serious.” Tears glisten in my cousin’s eyes, pooling more and more no matter how many times she blinks and bites her bottom lip.
I reach out and take her hand, sucking a deep breath in through my teeth. “I know that, Millie. I’m not suggesting we grab some cigarettes and tap a keg, just that we don’t go into full panic mode until we know exactly what’s going on.”
As though on cue, one of the uniformed officers returns to the foyer, a plastic bag grasped between his fingers. Inside the bag is a knife, crusted with a dark brown splatter that looks suspiciously like blood. He hands it to Travis with a grim expression. “It was in the backseat of her car, just like the tip suggested.”
Shock rolls black clouds into the edges of my vision, making it hard to see. When Detective Travis comes over and pulls me to my feet, then locks my hands behind my back with a pair of too-tight metal handcuffs, I sway so hard I fall into his solid form. He pushes me upright gently and now he does read me my rights before helping me toward the door with a hand around my bicep.
It’s as though I’m walking on the bottom of the river, barely able to see, unable to breath, and with all sound and light muted by gallons and gallons of salty water. I hear Amelia say something about calling Beau before I’m herded out the door and into the backseat of a black-and-white cop car.