Lowcountry Mysteries (Boxed Set #1)

by Lyla Payne

  The grilled mahi tacos and mango salsa are delicious, as usual, and though I can’t speak to the goodness of the chicken fingers, we eat in silence for the next several minutes. My mind whirrs, trying to figure out how to smudge away the dark circles under Beau’s eyes, maybe release some of the tension knotting his shoulder blades, but come up with very little that’s acceptable in the presence of company.

  Beau’s lips are pulled down into a frown, his hazel gaze far away from me and this room. The house, from what I’ve seen, looks tidy and I wonder who put it back together after the police search. I could have done that. If he had called.

  “Maybe we could watch a movie,” I suggest, tossing our scraped-clean containers into the trash. “Take your mind off things for a while.”

  Beau looks up, taking a moment to bring his mind back from where it’s wandered, but Brick needs no such luxury. “Watch a movie? Yeah, because that asinine waste of time is going to just wow the judge right out of his robes on Monday.”

  “I was just thinking you could use a break.” I bite my lip, tipping my chin toward Beau. “He could use a break.”

  There’s an unsure mixture of relief and worry on Beau’s face, and an odd pause in the room that should be filled by his coming to my defense, even if the answer is no.

  “We don’t have time for a break, and though you might know a lot about being the town pariah, you know very little about handling federal indictments … or what my brother needs, for that matter.” Brick slams his glasses back on his face. “It was helpful of you to bring dinner. Now you should go.”

  My face burns at the dismissal, and a thousand unsavory replies well up in my throat, fighting to be the one to roll off my tongue, but Beau beats me to the punch. “He’s right, Gracie. I appreciate you looking out for me but we really just need to make sure we’re prepared.”

  I turn my gaze on him, watching him flinch at the open anger. “That’s all you have to say? That is just fucking fantastic, Mr. Mayor. It’s nice to know how shallow your loyalties are when push comes to shove.”

  I grab my purse and stalk toward the table, waiting with my hand on my hip until Brick heaves a giant sigh and looks up from whatever he’s pretending to read.

  He doesn’t even flinch under my best glare. “You might get away with talking to women—or human beings—like they’re itty-bitty ants on the sidewalk where you’re from, but that shit doesn’t fly with me. I don’t give a goddamn what your last name is or how much money you have in the bank, Brick Drayton. Next time we speak, I’ll be expecting an apology. Until then, go piss up a rope.”

  My footsteps echo on the polished wood floors and again on the tile in the entryway. I will myself not to cry until I get into the car. Disbelief that Beau is really not going to stand up for me evaporates into dread at facing him as the click of his shoes chasing after me echoes off the walls.

  “Graciela, wait.”

  I wrench open the heavy front door so hard my shoulder aches, the humid air of the evening pulling me in like an embrace of wet cotton.

  “Gracie.” His hand wraps around my arm and the familiar zing of his touch stops me.

  His face is a wreck of apologies and guilt and desperation so potent my heart drops all the way to my toes, but regardless of how shitty his life is going right now, he sure as shootin’ is not going to treat me any way he damn well pleases.

  I cross my arms over my chest, wondering if they’re any defense for my heart at all. “What?”

  “I’m sorry. My mind is so wrapped up in figuring all this out that I’m not responding correctly to you, or life in general. But I’m not going to let him treat you like that. If he can’t be civilized I’ll kick him out and get a different lawyer.”

  It would have been nice if he had come to his senses a little sooner, but I can’t let him throw away his defense because of a lapse in judgment, no matter how hot my blood boils. “You can’t start over now, Beau.”

  “I don’t want to lose you. It would kill me to think that I’m damaging what we have along with everything else.” He steps closer, then closer again, looking encouraged when I don’t step away. His hands reach out and grip mine, our fingers threading together as though we’ve been doing it for years instead of months.

  My heart softens and I return his squeeze. “You’re not losing me, Beau. I know things are hard. I want to be there for you, but you’re not letting me. You’re keeping me at arm’s length and it’s killing me to be on the outside, helpless to make you feel better.”

  It’s on the tip of my tongue to suggest that he’s letting his little brother run his life and make his decisions, but we’ve got enough on our plate with just the two of us, never mind a third party.

  “I don’t want you to see me like this. All … disgraced like a damn political cliché.” His features go so haggard they leave no doubt that he’s trying not to cry.

  “Beau, I care about you—not just when you’re the magnanimous town mayor on the rise, but when it’s just the two of us fooling around, or reading together down by the river. You might feel like staying away from the town’s prying eyes, but you don’t have to hide from me.”

  He pulls me against his chest in a swift movement, crushing our bodies together with so much force that it’s hard to breathe, but he doesn’t agree or disagree or say anything else that makes me believe he’s going to let me into the thick of his pain. Whether it’s because he’s trying to be manly, or not ready to go there with me—or worse, hiding something—I don’t like it.

  My mouth feels stuffed with cotton, my tongue thick. “I think I’ll leave you to your work for the rest of the weekend and not bother you.”

  “You never bother me, Graciela.”

  “Even so. I’ve got plenty going on at the library and with Millie. I’ll be in court supporting you on Monday. Promise.” My smile almost hurts, but I press a brief kiss to his frown and turn to walk away.

  It’s hard to leave him with that worry crease between his sandy eyebrows and the hesitance in his eyes. It’s hard to leave at all when I’m not feeling great about how things are between us. But even though Brick’s an asshole, he’s not wrong about them needing to focus. The last thing I want is for Beau to end up in prison and blame me for taking up too much of his time.

  Also, it’s true enough, what I told him. We have to finish the ordering at the library tomorrow, and taking some time out for just Amelia and me is something I’ve been meaning to do for weeks, anyway.

  With Beau’s situation and Amelia falling apart, my life is a bit topsy-turvy. Right now the people I care about need me instead of the other way around, and as I crawl into my car and let the tears go, a cold, writhing fear slides into my heart.

  What if I’m not good enough? What if I can’t do this, and they both end up realizing that they’re better off without someone who takes far more from their lives than she gives back?

  I clamp my hands around the steering wheel and let my brain autopilot home. With each passing block I talk confidence into my heart. I can be there for them. I can. I will.

  Because they’ve been there for me, and without them, I’m not Gracie. I owe them, and as I pull into the driveway of my grandparents’ house and throw my car into park, I vow to not let them down.

  No matter what.

  Chapter Four

  There’s no way the old Amelia would miss the bags under my red eyes or my lingering sniffles, but the new version of my cousin barely looks up when I toss my things on the floor and flop on the other end of the couch. Being able to hide my tears might be a nice thing if it didn’t remind me, yet again, how different Millie is now from the girl that grew up with me inside these four walls.

  She glances at me from the corner of her eye, the local evening news playing so low on the television it might as well be on mute. I can only assume she was doing nothing but staring at her hands before I walked in the door five minutes ago.

  Her brow wrinkles as though she’s just realized my presence is w
rong. “I thought you were staying at Beau’s.”

  “Yeah, well, he has a lot of work to do.”

  That earns me a raised eyebrow. “Little early in the proceedings for things to be boring in the bedroom, yeah?”

  “It’s not that. I don’t think.” I sigh. “He’s got his head so buried in his defense he can barely remember the rest of the world exists, and apparently we haven’t worked up to him letting me see his vulnerable side.”

  “That’s a man for you.”

  “Maybe it’s some men, but if being engaged to an asshole for a few years taught me anything, it’s that life’s too short to put up with some men.” I wince, waiting for her to take exception to my calling David an asshole when she put up with so much worse. Which is not to say asshole doesn’t have a sliding scale, because it totally does. She doesn’t seem to notice. Par for the course. “Anyway, I told him I’d leave him alone for the weekend so he can work.”

  That perks her up, a light sparking in her emerald green eyes. “Really? So you’re free after we get off work tomorrow?”

  “Yeah. Why? What do you have in mind?”

  “I’ve been slogging through my ghost tour receipts and calling the companies—one of them was sure he knew which guide told me about the mystery ghost. I was thinking we could drive down and go on one of his tours when you had time.”

  It’s funny how our minds still work on the same level, our ideas and thoughts often intersecting, even though we’re making up for years spent apart. It makes me smile, and so does the excitement in her expression. “Sounds perfect. I was thinking we should have some girl time, anyway.”

  “Maybe we could spend the night at my parent’s house?” She rushes on before I can get my emphatic hell no out. “My mom’s been bugging me about coming to visit, and you know if we don’t go there for one evening she’s going to come up here and stay for God knows how long.”

  I groan. My Aunt Karen is not my favorite person. The feeling has always been mutual, which stops me from feeling too badly about it. “What does she want?”

  “I don’t know. Probably to drag me around to shop for baby clothes.” Amelia makes a face. “And she’s going to give me the full-court press to move home once the baby comes.”

  The thought of my honorary nephew—or my cousin, for that matter—coexisting with my status-loving, upward-climbing snot of an aunt makes me shudder, but I do my best to keep the disgust off my face. Millie’s always been too forgiving of her mother’s faults, even indulging them by joining Junior League in high school and pledging Tri Delta in college.

  My mind turns toward the small pouches of smeared dirt and bones left on our porch, the ones that promise Mrs. LaBadie is not gone for good, and I renew my intention to talk to Detective Travis. The bags are reminders that we can’t hide in Heron Creek. Not from the crazy voodoo witch intent on snuffing out Anne Bonny and Calico Jack’s male line before his thirteenth birthday.

  Given that Aunt Karen, Amelia, and I are the last of Anne and Jack’s descendants, and that the baby baking inside my cousin is a boy, we need to get rid of that woman now. Not later.

  It’s hard not to wonder if Amelia and the baby would be safer at my aunt’s house in Charleston, but I don’t see how they could be. Not that I’m some kind of awesome, voodoo-battling bitch or anything, but at least I know what in the hell is going on, which is more than I can say for my aunt Karen in most situations.

  “What do you want?” I finally ask, my less diplomatic comments banished to the back of my throat.

  “Is it bad that I’m too tired to even think that far ahead?” Tears shine in her eyes now, dicing my heart into chunks. “I’m going to have a baby in a little over three months and if I didn’t have you depending on me at the library, I doubt I’d have a reason to get out of bed.”

  I scoot to the middle of the couch until our knees touch, then reach out and grab her hands. Shame floods her pretty face, turning her cheeks pink and her eyes dark with pain.

  “I just feel like such a worthless piece of crap. Why can’t I do better?”

  “Millie, there is no shame in asking for help. Talking to someone. I know we’re not the kind of people who do that easily. We’re stubborn asses who think we can figure it out on our own, and Lord knows I’m a horrible example, but I love you. I love that little guy in your belly, too, and you’ve got to do right by him.”

  Her hand goes to her stomach, rubbing her growing pooch absently. “I just … I don’t know what good it would do for me to talk about it. The thought of doing it with a stranger … a therapist …” She works the word around in her mouth as though it tastes bad, then shakes her head. “I know what happened. I know it’s not my fault. It’s just a matter of coming to terms with the fact that I took someone’s life, and that’s going to take time.”

  “Think of Anne Bonny.” Anne’s ghost is the only one who ever showed herself to someone other than me. Both Glinda and the guy in my room are shy. Or something. “Think of what she went through to keep that little man safe, to warn us about the danger. We’ve got to be on top of our game, and I can’t do it alone.”

  “Do you think I don’t feel that pressure? He’s not even born yet, and all I can do is lie awake at night and think about how to keep him safe. Worry that I’ll never be able to. Wonder what it says about me that he’s not a reason to get out of bed. It’s killing me.”

  She breaks off, further thoughts stolen by a sob. I move a little closer and put an arm around her thin shoulders. Fear tickles the inside of my veins, a remnant from the years we spent estranged because of Jake, her husband. It shouldn’t feel strange to me, precious to me, to touch her like this, but part of me aches with worry that she’ll push me aside, the way she did when Jake told her I’d come on to him in the weeks before their wedding.

  It had been the opposite, but he’d gotten to her first and she’d believed him. Turned her back on me.

  Amelia leans into my side and drops her head against my neck. Her closeness lets me breathe easier and I’ve got to learn to have faith in the strength of the bonds I forged during those long-ago summers. Trust that they’ll hold.

  “If accepting that you did the only thing you could was the only issue here, I might agree with you.” I suck in a deep breath, then belly flop into the deep end of the quagmire. “But what you went through with Jake in the years before that…it’s fucked up, Millie, and not one person on this planet would blame you for needing to sort out how it happened, what it did to you, and how to be the person you want to be now.”

  Her face goes blank, eyes far away, and I hold my breath and watch her. The Amelia I grew up with would dismiss my intrusion into her personal life, but consider my advice later. The Amelia who believed I made a move on her fiancé a few days before her wedding or the one who seems uninterested in life in general? Those girls are still a mystery to me.

  “I promise I’ll think about it, okay, Grace? I’m just … I’m not ready to decide anything.”

  I give her hand a squeeze, thinking back to June and how I’d wanted nothing more than a few weeks in bed alone to nurse my heartbreak and my pride, and figure out what in the hell to do next. Anne Bonny had shown up and kicked me back into reality—her version of it, anyway—before I’d sorted out my issues, and as much as I like to lament my newfound ability to communicate with the living impaired, it probably saved me.

  “You don’t have to decide now. Three months is enough time. Try to remember that when your mother starts pushing your buttons in a few days.”

  “Oh, Grace. She’s not that bad.” The faint smile twitching at the edges of her lips says she’s not entirely convinced. “So, do you want to leave after work tomorrow and do one of the later ghost tours? That should get us out of having a meal at home, anyway.”

  “That sounds good. Beau’s plea hearing is Monday, so I’d like to be back on Sunday so I can maybe do some laundry.”

  “Laundry? Graciela Harper? What is this world coming to?” She gives m
e a bigger smile this time, one that’s trying but still a faint impression of its former self. “I’m going to bed if you’re done lecturing.”

  “That’s usually your gig, you know. You can have it back whenever you like.”

  The only thing that hanging out in the living room is going to accomplish for me is more angst regarding Beau and what all these developments could mean for our relationship. I used to be the kind of girl who believed in destiny and one true loves and happily ever afters, but the past several years did nothing but show me the opposite. It might be part of growing up to accept that love like that doesn’t exist, and maybe we shouldn’t want it to.

  Love is about working hard, about showing up when you don’t want to, about sticking around when you’d rather leave. My grandparents, God rest their souls, fought like badgers at times.

  A memory shifts in my mind. It’s my grandparents’ sixtieth wedding anniversary and we’re out on the back deck post-party, smiling even as we prop up aching feet.

  I look at Gramps and give him a rueful shake of the head. “Sixty years is forever, Gramps.”

  “I thought that was the idea.”

  That makes everyone laugh, but Grams reaches out, covering his hand with hers. They’re wrinkly and age-spotted but still strong. Capable. “And I liked him most of the time.”

  More laughter. Gramps’ blue eyes sparkle as he nods, then shrugs. “Most of the time out of sixty years ain’t half bad.”

  The memory fades, but the warmth in my chest doesn’t. My grandmother had been a wild thing once upon a time, and part of me wonders whether she would have gotten married or had children at all if she’d grown up in today’s world. It doesn’t mean they weren’t glad they spent those sixty-five years learning to love each other, but it does mean a shift in my beliefs to the idea that love is a choice.