Lowcountry Mysteries (Boxed Set #1)

by Lyla Payne

“You’re Beau’s girlfriend. Grace?”

  I close my eyes for a brief second, then smile wider. “Graciela. And I don’t know if I’m his girlfriend, but we are dating. You’re Jasper.”

  He nods. “I thought you were going to call me before you came out here again.”

  “I was, but I got a friendly invitation from my new friends out here and figured I could handle it on my own.”

  “That was pretty bold of you. Or dumb, depending on how you look at it.” Again he smiles, but leaves no doubt he means every word.

  Anger grabs hold of my tongue. “Well, at least this way I’m not your problem. And I’m sure Beau mentioned I’m a bold kind of girl.”

  “Did you find what you were looking for?” he asks, ignoring my snark.

  I never told him I was looking for anything. It’s possible Beau did, but I doubt it because we’d never decided on what exactly to use as an excuse. My brain clicks, coming up with something—anything—that sounds plausible. I used to play poker and was pretty good at it, too. One of my favorite things to do at the casinos was join a table full of young, drunk frat guys and spend the evening systematically taking their money. The fact that most guys assume girls are too stupid or inexperienced to take care of themselves at a table always worked in my favor. I’m thinking that using Sheriff Jasper’s assumption that I’m an empty-headed loon might be to my advantage right now in the same way. “Not yet. Glinda’s granddaughter is a friend of mine, and she asked me to come grab her grandma’s jewelry box.”

  His gaze, a dark brown that should be inviting but isn’t, narrows. “Why would she keep jewelry out here?”

  I conjure a giggle, perfected by years of living with sorority girls. “How should I know? I was just trying to do a favor for a girlfriend, you know? Before things got all tied up in probate.”

  “Hm.” He glances at Cooter, who’s pretending not to listen to us. “Did you find it?”

  “Nope. Guess Winnie’s out of luck.” I don’t mention the locked door. The realization that I trust Cooter more than this guy surprises me a little, but if I’ve learned one thing over the past several months, it’s to trust my gut.

  It’s about the only part of me that doesn’t overthink everything.

  Either way, if I want to find out what’s behind that locked door, I’m going to have to make another trip to the boonies, because the good sheriff obviously doesn’t plan on letting me out of his sight. A glance at Cooter tells me I’m not getting any help from him.

  “I’ll walk you back to your car,” Jasper says, leaving me no way to get out of the offer.

  I’d rather be accompanied by Big Ern, but Sheriff Patton tips his hat, indicating that I should go ahead of him down the steps. Cooter gives me a look I can’t decipher, and when I glance back at the house, he’s watching us walk away. My frustration builds, curling my fingers into fists and making my steps quick enough to cause Jasper Patton to speed up to keep pace. It’s mostly because the morning was a total waste that I’m so annoyed: I still don’t know what Glinda wants that’s behind that locked door.

  I sneak a look at the man beside me, who’s a little too quiet. Maybe the morning hasn’t been a total waste. After all, he knows about my connection to Glinda and this cabin, and he was back there chatting with Cooter as though they’re old friends. They didn’t look like two people on opposite sides of the law, which leads me to wonder whether the county sheriff could be the one on the take, not Will.

  “So, how do you know Beau?” I ask, trying for conversational. I also slow down so it doesn’t look as though I’m running away from him. Which is my inclination.

  “We met several years ago when he first started in the DA’s office. Didn’t he tell you?”

  I shake my head. “No. He just said you guys had known each other for a while.”

  “You know, you really should have waited for me. These guys are some pretty hard characters. You can’t trust them.”

  Or you.

  “That’s what I hear. But we had a long talk the other night, and Clete promised I’d be safe with Cooter and Big Ern for the morning, so I figured I didn’t need to bother you.” I pause, feeling my way along this tightrope of a situation. “How do you know them?”

  He gives me a look that suggests I’m still aboard the dummy train. “I’m the sheriff in this county. I wouldn’t be a very good one if I didn’t know the people who elected me. Especially the criminals.”

  “If you know they’re criminals why don’t you arrest them?”

  “No proof. We have to catch them in the act—either manufacturing or selling more than the legal amount of moonshine—or no dice.” He frowns, maybe because he hears the defensiveness in his own voice. “We’re always working on it. Got a stakeout later tonight, as it happens.”

  “So, you’ve made friends with them in the meantime?”

  There’s a hitch in his step that he tries to hide, but he stumbles a little bit, avoiding a gnarled branch. “Not exactly.”

  He doesn’t expand on that answer as we emerge from the foliage. His Berkeley County cop car is parked beside my shitty Honda in the overgrown parking lot, and as I pull onto the road that leads back to Heron Creek, I check the rearview mirror.

  Jasper Patton is looking at me, an unhappy expression on his face. I can’t help thinking that even though he may be a friend of Beau’s, it doesn’t seem likely that he’ll ever end up one of mine.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Beau’s number shows up on my cell’s caller ID on my way to meet Leo later that afternoon. We decided on a swim instead of a run, knowing the local pool has a no-kids policy between five and seven each evening which is exactly when Marcella’s at Vacation Bible School. I wondered whether Sheriff Patton would call Beau and tell him about our run-in. It would have been interesting if he hadn’t, but he probably figures I would have, anyway, so maybe he wanted to do it first.

  I watch his name come up on the screen, my stomach sinking into my butt. It’s tempting to ignore the call, to pretend I’m busy, but more than anything else I’m tired of not being honest. It’s exhausting.

  So I flick the devil off my right shoulder, gag the one on my left, and hit answer. “Hello?”

  “You went out to that cabin alone this morning? Without telling me?” Beau’s angry voice, I’m learning, isn’t loud at all. It’s soft. Too controlled.

  “Yes.” Done with arguing and defending myself. Not that there’s really anything I can say, anyway.

  “Gracie, why? What have I ever done or said to make you believe I wouldn’t hear you out or let you make your own decisions?”

  “Nothing.” I suck in a deep breath, my throat tight. It’s nothing he’s done, honestly. Beau’s made some comments here and there about my choices, but they’re normal boyfriend-type comments, and nothing that Amelia or Mel or Will wouldn’t have voiced as friends, either.

  The problem, as always, is me. I’m rebelling against people making comments or interjecting themselves in my life right now. My lingering issues from David are the root of the issue, but knowing what’s wrong with me does little to help me change it.

  “I’m sorry, Beau. I know this is clichéd, but it’s not you. I’m … working on it. I’m just not ready to have to explain myself to anyone but me right now.” I swallow, trying to keep the tears out of my voice, knowing they’ll change the way he handles this conversation and not wanting that. “I understand if you’re not ready to take me on.”

  I told him from the very first date we had, back when Gramps was alive and I thought Anne Bonny might be in my head, that I’m not ready for anything serious—maybe not for anything at all but bottles of booze and padded walls—but he’s just been there, waiting. Saying all the right things and making me feel better, and I’m surprised to find that now, in this moment, it would kill me to let him go.

  But I’ll do it. Because somehow, in the middle of everything, I’ve started to care about him. More than that, because I realize it’s more important that I
care about me.

  “I don’t want out, Gracie.” The tone of his voice relaxes toward normal, but there’s hurt in it that spears my heart. “I don’t want you to be anything other than who you are or to feel anything other than how you do. Just … trust me. That’s all.”

  It took trust to be honest about my reasons for not talking to him about my plans. He’s smart enough to know that.

  “I’m working on it, Mr. Mayor. You’re good incentive.”

  “I plan to remind you soon about all the reasons for that,” he whispers.

  The whisper makes me wonder whether he’s in public somewhere, which in turn makes me tingle. “Is that right?”

  “Definitely. Do you want to have dinner tonight?”

  “I’m supposed to hang out with Amelia. Do you want to come over?”

  “Sure.”

  “Oh, and Beau?”

  “Yes?”

  “Bring your jammies.” I pause, unable to squelch a wicked smile. “Or don’t.”

  I’m feeling better by the time I meet Leo at the pool. He’s waiting outside the fence in his swim trunks and a Heron Creek high school T-shirt, which is threadbare enough to suggest he’s had it since we were in high school—a time that’s being relegated to the more and more distant past.

  He takes the towel off his shoulders and snaps the backs of my legs with it, making me shriek and, in an odd way, feel young again.

  “Leo, seriously. Are we going to have to sit down and hammer out a grownup version of our peace treaty?”

  He grins. “Yes. I’m pretty sure the last one’s expired. It’s got to be ten years old.”

  “At least. I think we gave up parlays for toilet paper and eggs by sophomore year.”

  “You’re probably right.”

  I glance at the pool, which is empty of kids but populated by a half-dozen adults swimming laps in caps and goggles, and bite my lip. “How would you feel about returning to our previous life of misdeeds instead of exercising like responsible adults?”

  “I don’t know if I like the sound of that.”

  I put on my best pouty face. “Do you want me to go to jail for a crime I didn’t commit, Leo? Is that how our lifelong adversarial relationship is going to end?”

  “It’s kind of a cheap shot for such a worthy opponent,” he admits, eyeing me. “But I only have your word that you didn’t do it. I saw that haircut Glinda gave you after Gramps’s funeral.”

  “Ha-ha. I haven’t done a thing with my hair since before I moved back to town, so joke’s on you.”

  “Oh no, I think that clearly means the joke’s on you.” He ducks my swat. “What nefarious deed do you need to complete in order to clear your name? I mean, I feel like you could just make that Dylan Travis guy bleed and then show him how it makes you throw up.”

  “That’s not a terrible plan, but I’m thinking more along the lines of providing an alternate suspect.”

  “And you have a convenient other suspect in mind how?”

  “It was you, actually, mentioning that whole moonshining thing. Clete and his cronies—”

  “I’m sorry, who’s Clete?”

  “He’s the head of the moonshining clan. Gang?” I shake my head. “I don’t really know what a group of moonshiners is called.”

  “Um, no one does. They’re not animals.”

  “Whatever. Anyway, when you suggested that whole thing about Will being on the take, maybe getting a cut of their business in order to look the other way, it got me thinking.”

  “That Will’s just a man like everyone else and not some kind of Perfect Guy robot?”

  “No.” I frown at him, not wanting to talk about Will. I never realized before that Leo had some sort of personal problem with the guy all of these years. “That just because Will’s not involved, doesn’t mean someone else isn’t. So …”

  “So … ?”

  “I want to go snoop around the county sheriff’s house.” I pick at my fingernails and make a face, ready for him to tell me I’m being ridiculous. When I suggested we get together earlier, I figured we might sneak back to Merle’s cabin, but after meeting Jasper out there today, it seems imperative to find out what he might be hiding.

  Leo doesn’t yell at me, instead looking more as though he’s trying not to fall down laughing, which is so Leo. He presses his lips together, eyes dancing with light. It takes him a moment to get it together, but then his features rearrange into something serious. “Can I ask how you’ve come to the conclusion that this is a more viable option than the fact that, I don’t know, the actual criminals are responsible for Glinda’s death? Didn’t you say they had some kind of problem with her?”

  “I had a heart-to-heart with Clete, and I just don’t think he did it.”

  “Oh, well, that makes sense.”

  “Come on, Leo, it does. They’re mostly worried about keeping their location a secret, and Glinda never said a word.”

  “If that’s all they cared about they wouldn’t have hated her, Gracie.”

  “Maybe.” He’s intent on making fun of me, so I don’t go into my other reasons for doubting that Clete is behind her death, which mostly rest on the manner of execution. Those guys are simple, but efficient—if they got rid of Glinda, they would have gotten rid of her.

  No body, no questions.

  But it was done with a hunting knife, and given that Big Ern can’t go to the grocery store without shoes and Clete dresses squirrels on picnic tables outside his house, they’re both likely to own one. Maybe they’re pulling the wool over my eyes. Maybe I want to believe it’s Jasper or someone—anyone—who isn’t my first love.

  Even if he’s looking the other way because he needs the money, I just don’t believe Will would frame me. Or be involved in killing Glinda, for that matter.

  “I’ll go with you, but not because I think this guy had anything to do with it. Because you need a wingman something fierce and all your girlfriends are pregnant.”

  “Thanks, Leo.”

  “No problem. So, where does this guy live?”

  It takes almost an hour for the two of us to figure out where Sheriff Patton lives, but at least it’s not as far into Berkeley County as the hills and forest. It’s about a twenty-five minute drive, nestled in a swanky neighborhood on the Charleston/Berkeley County border.

  Leo’s the one who actually tracked down the information. He called a girl he knows who used to date one of Jasper’s deputies, and she remembered what neighborhood they went to for her boyfriend’s work Christmas party.

  It occurred to me that Leo seems to have an excess of lady friends. They’re everywhere.

  Then I Googled “Jasper Patton, South Carolina” and found one address in Berkeley County, so we could have just started there. But now poor Hadley Renee, who works for the state controller’s office during the day, is a party to our subterfuge should we get caught. Leo and his charms.

  I’ve never met Hadley, but Leo also happened to mention she was one of the few women that Beau took out on a date before my arrival in town. Just one date, nothing serious, but it makes me curious about her. My desire to know more about Beau’s life before I met him gets stronger every day, and the fact that it never seems to happen starts to make me more suspicious there’s a reason.

  “How do you know the sheriff’s not going to be home?”

  “I don’t for sure,” I reply, sending a text to Amelia to let her know I’ll be home later than I’d planned but to order extra food because Beau’s going to join us for dinner. “But he told me they were on a stakeout tonight in the mountains.”

  “Right, but maybe he’s sending his deputies or something.”

  “Just shut up, Leo. If I wanted someone to fret the whole time I would have brought Will or Millie along.”

  “Or your boyfriend? Isn’t he a fretter?” Leo’s lips pinch into a thin line.

  The only rift in the renewal of our friendship has been his dislike for Mayor Drayton and Leo’s insistence on bringing it up again and
again, even though I’ve told him repeatedly that I have no desire to engage in any gossip on the matter.

  Which is true, despite my curiosity.

  I’m saved from having to reply as we pull onto the street that’s listed on Google Maps and cruise by the address, a stately two-story brick number with white-painted columns and an ornate front door that’s either Tiffany glass or a nice imitation. “Fancy,” I comment.

  Leo drives down the block, then makes a right-hand turn and parks at the curb in front of a dark ranch-style house. We both get out of the car, a little too conspicuous in swimwear, but there’s nothing we can do about it now. Maybe it’s better this way. If we were all decked out in black or something, we’d stand out even more.

  We fall into the easy back-and-forth of our youth, one that was spent playing more war games than ones that involved kissing, and stalk quietly around the corner and right up to the sheriff’s front door. When no one answers the bell—which I’m counting on based on the dark windows and quiet feeling—Leo gets out his cell phone and pretends to make a call, shielding me while I use a credit card to let us inside the house.

  The foyer is dark even though the sun won’t set for a few hours. My eyes adjust after a couple of moments, outlining wooden floors, a sweeping staircase, and framed paintings that give the place a professionally decorated feel.

  I know from Beau’s comments about Jasper and my Google research that he’s single and lives alone, but even if he had a family the size of the Duggars this would be a giant house.

  “Whoa,” Leo breathes at my side, obviously thinking along the same lines. He shakes himself out of his impressed daze a second later, glancing down at me with raised eyebrows. “What are we looking for? I really think we should be out of here in less than five minutes, just to be safe.”

  “We’re just looking. I’m hoping something will jump out at us.” I pause, taking a look at my watch. “And I agree about the timing. I’m surprised he doesn’t have a security system.”

  “Maybe it’s silent,” Leo murmurs, eyes sweeping the corners of the room, looking for cameras.

  Then again, this is the only suburban-type neighborhood for miles. It could be that he’s just not worried about it, especially given that he probably parks his cop car in the driveway every night. When we were kids that would have invited more harassment, at least in Heron Creek, but times have changed and so has the definition of harmless antics.