by Lyla Payne
We sit in silence for several breaths. I sense that Beau’s not done talking, so I wait. The longer it takes him to speak, the colder the dread in my gut turns.
“They found something when they went through my office. A letter from the son of a well-known local gangster and drug kingpin.”
My heart stops beating. My mind works through what he said, assuming “local” means Charleston and not Heron Creek. We don’t have gangsters, per se. My moonshine friends are about as close as it gets. “What does it say?”
“It asks me to focus the investigation on Lindsay in order to take the heat off the family. To put her away for a long time so the people will feel as though they got justice, and Lindsay won’t be able to talk about her time with the family.” He stops, drawing a breath that sounds shaky. In my mind, he runs a hand through his hair, leaving it mussed and my chest aching. “I don’t know where it came from. I’ve never spoken to anyone in the Caruso family. I’ve never seen it before. It … it promises me things. Help with my career. Things I would want that aren’t money.”
“Because if it was money it would be too easy to trace.”
“Not necessarily. Those kind of people deal in cash.”
The despondency in his voice wraps around my throat. It burns, like some of Clete’s moonshine trapped in my gullet, and I want to be home so I can put my arms around him. “We’re going to figure this out, Beau. We’ll go over anyone who had access to your house since you moved to Heron Creek. Someone’s setting you up. Or helping these Caruso people do it.”
“Do not get any crazy ideas in your beautiful head about looking into that family, Graciela. They’re dangerous.”
“I won’t. I won’t do anything until we talk about it. I’ll just be down here following a dead guy for a few more hours and then I’ll be home.”
“Okay.” He sounds so tired. His voice is thin, ragged. “I’ll call you tomorrow night.”
We say good night. I have to sit on the toilet and take several deep breaths before my heart rate returns to normal and I can leave the bathroom. The cool air in the bedroom feels marvelous against my bare legs and arms, and I climb under the covers next to my cousin, shivering for a moment in an attempt to warm up. There’s nothing better than snuggling under warm blankets in a chilly room.
There’s a letter on the nightstand beside Amelia’s side of the bed, the top frayed where she sliced it open. The pit of dread in the middle of my stomach bubbles over. “What’s the letter say?”
She sighs, rolling over onto her back and letting her head drop sideways against the pillow so she can see me. “What you’d expect it to say. That they know I’m pregnant and they want to be a part of the child’s life. Not-so-vague threats about legal action if I try to deny them, along with the suggestion that they’d like to have me mentally evaluated since I killed their son, because maybe I’m not fit to be a mother in the first place.”
Anger skitters through my blood but I hush it, clenching my fists to keep silent. Every instinct I have says lashing out at the Middletons would be the opposite of productive. “What are you going to do?”
“Talk to them. Try to convince them they can trust me with their grandson.”
I reach out, find her fingers splayed against the soft sheets, and cover them with my own. “They can trust you. You can trust you, Millie. You’re going to be a great mom. You’ve been dreaming about it for years.”
A tear slips down her cheek, soaking into the pillowcase. “I never thought it would be like this.”
Neither of us says anything else. I don’t tell her about Joseph Ladd, sensing quiet companionship is what she needs at the moment. It’s nice, sort of, to lie here the way we did when we were kids. The bed is more crowded and our problems are bigger, more intimidating, but we’re still Millie and Grace. As long as we’re that, I have to believe we can get through anything.
Chapter Eight
We endure a mostly peaceful breakfast with my aunt and uncle before begging our way out of the house. Amelia promises to talk to the Middletons and find out where they stand on the baby predicament, but Aunt Karen only lets us go after informing her daughter that if she doesn’t call with a report within the week, they’re going to take drastic measures.
Heaven help us, because there’s no way that threat doesn’t entail her coming to Heron Creek. She does own the house, so it’s not as though we could stop her.
The air on the front porch smells sweet, the hint of a coming storm thick and heavy. A glance toward the sky reveals a few gray clouds with a bundle sweeping toward us from the horizon. I told my cousin about my new ghost while we got ready this morning and managed to cajole her into visiting his old residence, the Thomas Rose House, before we head back to Heron Creek this morning.
“I was going to suggest we walk, but it looks like we might not make it back without getting soaked,” Amelia comments, stretching so that her back pops about a dozen times.
I flinch. “That cannot be good.”
“That’s why I wanted to walk. I feel stiff all over from that damn bed. You were hogging it, as usual.”
“I don’t think so. I just think you require more space than normal.”
Her expression turns rueful as she glances down at her growing belly. “You’re right about that. Maybe we could stop on King Street before we go home and I could pick up some actual maternity clothes. These rubber band hacks from Pinterest are only going to last so long.”
“Sure.” I’m anxious to get back to Heron Creek, to be close if Beau needs me. Anxious to get to the library to do some research on the double trouble I have stalking me. Joseph Ladd takes precedence, in my mind, because the guy who seems to be Henry Woodward isn’t nearly as nice. Or helpful. Or motivated. “I’ll drive.”
She doesn’t argue. We wind through Charleston’s old, narrow streets with the windows down, wet-smelling wind whipping through the inside of the SUV. The houses that parade past aren’t all original or historical, but they all look like they are. Charleston began its preservation program long before many other Southern towns, which is one of the reasons it’s the second-best-preserved city in the world. That’s also one of the reasons it costs an arm and a leg, and maybe your teeth for good measure, to own one of the genuine historic homes.
I once heard a tour guide say, Everyone thinks they want to live in a two-hundred-year-old home until they live in a two-hundred-year-old home, and I suspect he’s hit that particular nail right on the head.
It takes me too long to find a place to park once we’re south of Broad and inching toward the Battery. It’s Sunday morning, there are approximately two hundred churches in the city proper, and any good Charlestonian will tell you that they all attend because they’ve got plenty to ask forgiveness for every week.
“Grace, you can’t park here,” Millie hisses, pulling her gaze away from the horizon and glancing around the parking lot. “It’s for the Presbyterian church.”
“What, am I going to hell for nabbing the only parking spot left in the entire city?” I say, pushing open the car door and pocketing her keys. “I probably already drew the do-not-pass-go, do-not-collect-two-hundred-dollars, one-way ticket there, anyway. Let’s go.”
“Good morning!” A jubilant male voice freezes me in my tracks.
I turn slowly, catching sight of my cousin’s barely restrained expression of satisfaction on my way to confronting the open face that goes with the friendly voice. He’s short, has a head of thinning hair, and is wearing a striped button-down and meticulously pressed khakis. The overall effect is that of a poorly aging frat boy, but one I’m guessing isn’t going to offer me a red plastic cup and point me toward the trashcan punch.
“Good morning,” I reply, pulling my friendliest smile out of my ass. Which is probably what it looks like based on the slight wobble in the man’s own broad smile.
“Are you here for the services?”
“Um …” I hedge, not really wanting to lie to a churchgoing fellow, even if
I am going to hell for other things. Like not going to church.
“We sure are,” Amelia blurts, stepping up beside me. “We’re in town visiting from Idaho. It’s such a pretty church.”
The gushing cadence of her voice forces me to swallow a snort. We don’t look like tourists and our car doesn’t look like a rental, but this poor deacon on parking-lot duty isn’t going to accuse us of lying.
“Wonderful. Well, the entrance is just straight ahead to the right, but you’d better get moving. Services have started.”
“Thank you.” Millie reaches out a hand. “God bless you.”
We hustle past him in the direction of the church, clutching each other’s arms to keep from giggling. Amelia shakes me off as we turn a corner and slip from his view, leaning against the deep gray bricks of the old building as she struggles to catch her breath. We’re laughing as quietly as possible; I’m not even sure what’s so funny, except that Millie had been the one lecturing me about using the parking lot and then she ended up being the liar.
“I don’t know whether to be proud of you or more worried than ever.” I gasp, wiping my eyes. Millie has always been the more religious of the two of us, even if we both grew up with our butts on hard pews every Sunday morning, but that never stopped her from being at my side for just about every shenanigan I ever pulled.
“What kind of friend would I be if I let you have all the fun in hell by yourself?”
“I don’t know how to answer that.”
“Well, think while you walk because I really have to pee.” Amelia tugs me down Church Street.
“Ah, and now we get to the real reason you didn’t oppose the parking spot any harder.”
“Hey, have a baby sit on your bladder for a few months and then you can judge me.”
“Fair enough.”
We’re in one of my favorite parts of the city, the older of the old part, near Water Street. It’s tucked away between an alley and more major thoroughfares, and is one of the areas that even the tourists miss without a good guide or an even better host. The Thomas Rose House looms right on Church Street, though, an address that takes up three lots in its current iteration and, like so many properties in the city, proudly displays the little sign declaring it a historic landmark.
It’s a monstrosity, really, with only snippets and vague outlines of the stately colonial it had been when constructed in the seventeen hundreds. My brief research on my dying iPhone this morning—I need, like, a hundred chargers so I never have to remember one—informed me that someone had added the traditional porch and piazza in the eighteen hundreds and that the immense, lush garden peering at us from behind wrought-iron fences was an even more recent thought.
Regardless, the place is impressive—two blocks, three stories, all sunny yellow stucco and forest green shutters and bright white columns. The entrance would have been at the street in its first years, but now it’s around the side where they can sell tickets like everyone else trying to make a living in a tourist economy.
“Wow. This is an amazing garden.” Amelia wanders away from me, down a stone path that winds beneath a towering magnolia and among fragrant flowers.
Bushes of white hydrangea, floppy peonies, manicured rosebushes, and an assortment of fruit trees huddle near what was probably the entrance to separate kitchens at some point. It is beautiful, but as much as I love this city and this beautiful day, I feel restless. Beau’s arraignment is tomorrow, and I’ve got two dead dudes dogging my footsteps. I’m ready to find out what we can here at the Thomas Rose House and get home.
I open my mouth to say as much when the shimmering sight of Dr. Ladd catches my eye on a bench under the trees. He’s in the shade, still not quite as substantial as I’m used to, and his lips are pursed, that happy whistle crawling through the blades of grass. My worries calm when the sweet tune hits my ears, and it’s easy to believe that his strange habit used to settle himself and his patients—and that since his death, people in this very house have heard the sound most often during times of strife.
The next time I look, he’s shuffling through the gate at the back of the garden.
I take a deep breath and look around for Amelia, who has wandered back toward the main entrance. When I catch up with her, there’s a sign on the door that pulls my lips down in a frown. “I swear to everything holy I have the worst luck in the world.”
“Oh, come on, Grace. The place isn’t closed for renovations because you lied to a church man this morning.”
“You lied to him. All I did was park in the lot with no intention of attending. If there are really levels of hell, you’re going one deeper this time.” I slump back against the wobbly railing, crossing my arms and pouting. “I cannot believe the place is closed.”
“For another couple of weeks is all.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not the one being haunted.”
“Not by an actual ghost, anyway,” she murmurs, pushing sweaty blond bangs off her forehead. “Are you ready?”
“Lord, yes.”
We start to leave in more of a hurry than we arrived, the first couple of fat, cold raindrops splashing onto the uneven, cracked sidewalks. My head is down to avoid the rain and I almost run smack into an older woman in a visor, muddy apron, and gloves, her gray curls spiraling every which way in the humidity.
“Watch yourself, girl.” She brushes some dirt off her apron with one hand, the other clinging to a plastic potted camellia as she peers around me at Amelia, narrowing her eyes in the process. “What are you two doing back here? We’re closed, and the gardens aren’t free admittance.”
“Well, there’s no sign out front, so we came around to the entrance.” My irritation spikes at her condescending tone. “I promise we didn’t make off with any rosebushes.”
She purses her lips, apparently unimpressed by my sarcasm. “See that you don’t.”
Something occurs to me as she brushes past us, looking determined to get that plant in the ground before the storm breaks loose, and regret over my hasty retort tugs at me. “Um, ma’am?”
“Yes?” Gloved fingers twitch at a curl that had the nerve to fall into her eyes. She looks as though she’d rather have the power to twitch me right out of her presence.
“There’s no one we could talk to about a private tour during the renovations, is there?” I give her my best apologetic smile. “I’m a local archivist and I’m looking for information on Doctor Ladd.”
The woman’s dark gaze narrows, suspicion oozing from her pores to mix with the falling raindrops. “Archivist? Or one of those damn ghost-seeing yahoos wantin’ to wander around the house with your fuzzy equipment?”
“She doesn’t have any equipment,” Amelia interjects helpfully, a smart-ass grin on her face. As if this were going well to begin with.
“I’m not a ghost hunter,” I promise. “I’m researching the doctor, that’s all.”
“Well, no one’s allowed in for the next two weeks, and even if you were, you wouldn’t find anything about him here. The man only stayed here for a few months before and during his death. He never owned the house.” She snorts. “Must not be very good at archiving if you couldn’t even figure that one out on your own.”
I give my head a shake, unable to believe that she really insulted my skills to my face. Millie reaches out, placing her hand on my arm before I can blurt out anything stupid. Like that there must be a reason people see his ghost here at least as often as they do in Philadelphia Alley.
If we’re going to come back here in a few weeks, the last thing I need is her scoffing and accusing us of being cheesy mediums or something.
“Well, thank you. We’ll just come back in a few weeks, then,” I tell her.
“None of my business if you want to waste your valuable time, I’m sure. Now, if you’ll excuse me, these camellias aren’t going to plant themselves, and I’m supposin’ we’ve got about five more minutes before this sprinkle becomes a soak. Good day.”
I don’t realize we n
ever got her name until she’s disappeared into the back of the garden and Millie’s dragged me out the gate and halfway back up Church Street. The crooked roads are sparsely populated, people either in church or taking refuge from the storm inside stores or museums or restaurants—all of which sound better than trekking home in this weather.
Millie climbs behind the wheel this time and I don’t argue, figuring maybe I can get some more research done on my phone once the car charger lights my battery back up.
We’re pulling onto King Street and headed back toward the highway when Millie gives me a look, a familiar sparkle in her green eyes. “If you’re really hoping to kick this whole Nancy Drew career into gear, you’re going to have to figure out how to lie, Grace. Or at least come up with better stories for getting into places you’re not supposed to be—which you used to be the best at, actually. What happened to you?”
I groan, half annoyed and half embarrassed because she’s right. “I don’t know. I’m out of practice, I guess, and talking to snarky Southern ladies in charge of marginally important historic properties isn’t the same as sweet-talking moonshiners in the woods. This ghost therapist gig requires a vast range of skills. They don’t tell you that in grad school.”
“I doubt they tell you that in the loony bin, either. Hurts recruitment.”
I grab my midsection in an exaggerated silent belly laugh and roll my eyes at her smirk. Amelia flips through her iTunes and settles on some melancholy shit like Joe Purdy. My phone comes back on and I grab it, taking a silent bet with myself on how long I’ll be able to read before my motion sickness forces me to do nothing but twiddle my thumbs all the way home.
After checking my phone sixteen times to make sure Beau hadn’t texted, I abandoned Amelia at home in favor of the extra search engine access at the library. She had flopped on the couch, shoes kicked off and feet up on the armrest, half passed out before I grabbed my work keys and got out the door. I’ve been huddled at one of the computers in the archives for a little over two hours with not all that much to show for it.