by Lyla Payne
“I know Beau, Lindsay. He wouldn’t do this to you. Not on purpose.” I suck in a breath. “Which means someone else did, and I’m trying to figure out who and why. So would this Robert Caruso or anyone in his network have access to the prosecutor’s office? Maybe through this Wellington guy?”
“They hand out bribes like they’re cotton candy at the fair.” She shrugs, unfolding her arms to tug on the end of her long, dark ponytail. “Can’t say anything about Wellington for sure, though I’d like to.”
But it has to be him. It’s the name Clete gave me and he’s the guy who prosecuted Lindsay’s case… unless Clete already researched that and just fed me information that’s out there for anyone to discover. Possible.
“Okay. I’m going to look into it, anyway. If we can prove someone asked him to throw the book at you so people would stop poking around the Caruso family, then a judge could grant you a new trial. Maybe even get you off with time served.” I smile at her, unsure whether any of this is right to say because of the twisted expression on her face. Like she wants to believe me, wants to think there’s still a chance that justice could be a thing that happens for her, but she’s too scared. “Your daughter is so smart, by the way.”
Lindsay lights up from head to toe, suddenly engaged. She sits forward, forearms on the table and hands stretched toward me, eagerness written all over her. “You’ve seen her? How is she?”
“She’s good.” I pause. “Leo brings her to see you, right?”
“Yes, but not often enough. We agreed that she shouldn’t spend any more time in this place than necessary.”
I get that and don’t envy their having to make that call. “She comes to the library every Tuesday for story time. She can read as well as any of the kindergartners there, and she’s been talking a lot more, too. Pretty. Definitely a Boone.”
Part of me, the part that’s being sucked back into the Heron Creek lifestyle, wants to ask who Marcella’s father is, but I manage to throttle the gossip gene into submission.
“That she is. Have you seen my mother? Any of my siblings?”
I shake my head, dying for more information now. Was Leo the only one talking to her? Is that why he has custody of Marcella? “No, just Leo. And he’s not going out of his way to speak to me these days.”
“He’s got a hard fucking head. Guess we all do.” She tries a smile, one that looks more than a little baffled. “You two have always been thick as thieves. Because you were thieves, I suppose, but either way. This will blow over.”
We talk for a little while longer, me telling her about Marcella and her listening, before I stand up to go. There are still a few minutes of visiting time left but we’ve run out of things to talk about, which isn’t strange considering this is easily the longest conversation we’ve ever had.
“Graciela?”
I stop and turn, just a couple of steps away from the table. “Yeah?”
“Be careful. The Carusos have ears everywhere, and they’re not kittens.” The quick glance she cuts around the room makes me wonder if that includes in here.
I’m going to look into possible connections between the family and Chandler Wellington no matter what, but the look in her eyes grips the back of my neck with icy fingers.
It says she’s scared.
I turn to go, making it through the security doors before coming face-to-face with Leo Boone. At least he’s alone; I don’t think I could take another uncomfortable conversation in front of Marcella. She’s the only person in Heron Creek who thinks I’m totally awesome and isn’t dating me or related to me.
“What are you doing here?” he asks, eyes narrowed.
“Funny, your sister asked me the exact same thing,” I joke, knowing it’s going to flop on its face but dying for it to work. It’s strange because in all my years away from Heron Creek, I didn’t think much about Leo at all. Didn’t miss him, didn’t wonder where he was or what he was doing. A fleeting memory here or there might have made me smile, tell a story, but that’s it.
Now, there’s a growing hole inside me, leaving me feeling slightly lost at his absence from my life. This fragile, slippery life I’ve started to build somehow hinges on Leo as one of the strong footings.
“Graciela, I’m serious. Why are you talking to Lindsay?”
I want to lie to him but I can’t. If it weren’t his sister in question, Leo would, without a doubt, be the person I would go to with the information Clete gave me. In this moment, staring at the unforgiving lines on his face, nothing spills out of me but the truth.
Well, most of it.
“Someone I know came to me. He told me that Beau is innocent but that someone in the DA’s office did take a bribe and agree to make Lindsay pay for the crimes of the bigger fish.”
My heart breaks a little when no response flickers on his stoic face. “And you came here to what? Harass my sister? Try to talk her into chasing rainbows with you?”
His disrespectful tone raises my hackles. “No. I came to ask if she knew anyone in the Caruso family who might have had that kind of connection to the prosecutor’s office, and if they did, who they would have gotten to do their dirty work.”
Leo doesn’t ask whether Lindsay was able to tell me anything, just folds his arms over his chest. His cheeks are white, stark against his short, inky hair, his blue eyes glittering as he steps toward me. I take a step back, breath stuttering out of me, and for the first time in my life, I can’t stare down my childhood enemy.
“You listen to me, Graciela Harper. You’re going to leave my sister alone. You’re going to let justice run its course and stop making shit up or listening to lies from God knows who in order to make yourself believe that the guy you’ve climbed into bed with isn’t that bad after all.” He drops his arms to his sides, fists clenched. “I know it must be hard for you to be so wrong about every man you date, but maybe you should spend some time looking at yourself instead of turning over rocks in a case that a lot of people have already decided is solved.”
“Leo,” I say, my voice wavering. His words knock me off-kilter, force me to take another rummage around inside my head to determine if I’m doing exactly what he says, trying to validate my own choices. “I don’t—”
“Save it, Graciela.”
He brushes past me, leaving the faint scent of salt water and shampoo swirling around me. I’m not sure how long it takes me to get my feet moving, to get my lungs working, and Leo’s maybe slightly true insults hang off my back like little disease-ridden monkeys all the way to my car.
By the time I’m halfway back to Heron Creek, I’m pissed. How dare he land such low blows? Who does he think he is, acting like he knows everything and I’m just a poor stupid lovesick girl trying to save her boyfriend?
I swing my car into the parking lot across from the library, drop coins into the meter, and stomp inside. Maybe I’m not Nancy Fucking Drew, but I am Graciela Fucking Harper, and if there are clues out there—truths out there—that no one is looking for that could save Beau’s reputation, then I’m damn well going to find them.
I’m so out of sorts already that I don’t even get mad when I get a message from Amelia before the end of the workday.
I made you a hair appointment at Sonny and Shears. You have to go. I can’t look at you anymore. :)
I do grumble to myself on my way down the block, though, my feet tracing the well-beaten path to the hair salon without much nudging. My hair is stringy and the ends are frizzing worse than usual, but I would have preferred going to someone when we were in Charleston. Or seeing if Dr. Ladd can hold a pair of scissors—anything but Sonny and Shears.
I’m mostly over it by the time I’m in one of those dumb swivel chairs wearing an ugly black cape with Hadley Renee squinting at me in the mirror.
“So, what are we doing today?”
“I don’t know, just trim it up? Shape it up?”
“No bangs? Layers? Color?”
I shake my head, almost catatonic from PTSD after the pa
rade of awful haircuts I’ve gotten in this place. It does look nicer in here than it used to, with a bunch of manicure and pedicure stations on one side and a couple of new rooms at the back for waxing and massages. I don’t think Glinda was licensed for any of those things, and Hadley may or may not be—she doesn’t seem like the type of person to let petty legality stop her. I recognize my own.
Either way, it’s none of my business. I’m never coming back here if I can help it.
She sighs heavily and pops her gum at my response. She probably wanted some entertainment or, more likely, the money. “Shampoo?”
“Sure.” Might as well throw her a bone.
While her long, talon like fingernails dig into my scalp, my mind drifts back to the prison. What Lindsay said has me nervous but what hurts, what won’t stop looping in my head, is what Leo said to me. How he sounded like he meant it.
“What’s wrong?” Hadley’s keen light eyes flit over my face as she rinses the suds down the drain.
I know she’s just trying to make conversation, but my emotions are running so close to the surface that I blurt it out. “I went to see someone in prison today. It was awful.”
“It’s prison. Did you think it would be nice?” Her gaze snaps up, meets mine. “Oh. Was it your first time?”
The way she says it leaves no doubt that she’s been to visit someone in prison. More than once. Curiosity lurches up inside me.
“Not my first time in a jail, no, but yes to a state prison. You?”
She snorts. It’s not delicate. “I’ve been there a few times. Never describe it as nice. Who’d you go see?”
I swallow, all of the sudden unsure about discussing this with her like we’re friends. But she is a hairdresser, which seems to obligate me to some kind of discussion, and I signed a log at the prison. It’s not like it’s a secret, and anyway, what’s Hadley Renee going to do with the information? “Lindsay Boone.”
She knocks a bottle of shampoo off the shelf, nearly smashing me in the face. “Sorry.” Hadley puts it back, then finishes rinsing my hair and wraps a towel around my head. “I didn’t realize y’all were friends.”
I follow her back to her station, settling back onto the cracked plastic chair. “We’re not really. I was closer with her brother, but …”
It’s weird to mention Beau to her. I don’t know how things ended or if she wanted to keep seeing him.
“You can talk about Beau. It was two dates. I’m not cryin’ myself to sleep at night after almost a year.” She shrugs. “I guess it looks pretty bad, whatever they found in his desk.”
“Yeah, well. I did go to talk to her about the case. I was hoping maybe she’d tell me something Beau and his brother don’t know, or that she’d have the answers to some questions I have about the case and the guy who actually prosecuted her.”
“Wait, wasn’t Beau the DA?” She snips away, chunks of my hair falling to the floor.
I hope this conversation isn’t distracting her.
“He was the DA, but one of his assistants, a guy named Wellington, actually tried the case.”
“And you think, what? That he’s the shady one?” Hadley pops her gum again, raising an eyebrow. “Why would he have something against Lindsay?”
“I don’t know, but he’s got to have more reason than Beau. Beau doesn’t even know the Carusos.”
Something about her interest, about the way she keeps guessing what I’m about to say next, pinches a nerve. Maybe it’s something she said. Either way, I snap my lips closed, my tongue as heavy as lead.
“How are things with your boyfriend? They can’t be as flawless as mine,” I joke, hoping to distract her. “What’s his name?”
A long pause while she squints at her scissors. “Bobby.”
She doesn’t say anything else and the silence grows uncomfortable as she finishes cutting and starts to work some gel through my trimmed layers. I look down at my phone as though I’ve gotten a message that just can’t wait. As if anyone alive needs to talk to me that badly.
There must be something about hairdressers that makes people want to talk to them, but I apparently used up all of my goodwill.
That, or she really doesn’t like talking about her boyfriend.
The memory of Leo’s verbal barrage won’t leave my twisted guts alone. I watch Hadley finish drying my hair in silence, determined to not keep talking until everyone in town thinks I’m just as desperate and sad as he does.
Chapter Fifteen
By the next day, my frustration has shot through the roof. Beau’s been so busy prepping for his trial that I’ve only seen him here and there. He hasn’t spent the night at the house because, quite frankly, neither one of us wants to hear it from Aunt Karen. For Beau, I suspect he’s more uncomfortable being fawned over than lectured, and when confronted with old money and status, my aunt has no downshift button.
Amelia is … about the same. She’s barely speaking to me and all she does is grunt at her mother, but at least she’s getting out of bed every day. She’s showering, too, which is more than I did during my depression, so that’s something. I guess.
At any rate, no one cares but Henry Woodward when I announce I won’t be home until late Friday night. Millie says nothing and Aunt Karen waves her hand in my general direction, not bothering to look up from her Junior League newsletter. Beau and I had lunch so he’s not expecting to see or hear from me, and sadly, that accounts for everyone who would miss me at the moment.
Alive people, anyway. Henry pouts in the corner with more force than usual. Dr. Ladd is happy, since I’m heading out to look into his whole situation.
I get in my car, hoping it makes it to the city and back without incident. The wind in my hair is warm and sticky, the brief rainy respite from the Indian summer evaporated.
Like my patience.
I’m feeling mopey about how little I’ve been able to turn up about the Caruso family on my own, even if the lack of public information makes sense. Major crime families and drug families probably do their best to stay off the grid. On television people like them always get what’s coming to them sooner or later.
The problem is that if it’s later, then Beau’s going to get the sooner part.
The frustrating excess of dead ends in Beau’s situation inspired this spur-of-the-moment night off from angst, and if it makes Dr. Ladd stop leaving Thomas Rose House brochures all over my room and car and desk at work, it will be more than worth it. I don’t know where they’re all coming from, but since he dropped the one in my car in my lap the other day, he’s been on a tear.
He’s in my passenger seat right now. Every time I look down there’s something new on the dashboard in front of me—a hairpin, a credit card, a screwdriver that came from heaven knows where.
“I get your point, sir. We’re getting inside the Thomas Rose House regardless of the signs on the doors. I’d like to know who gabbed about my ability to pick locks. Do you ghosts have cell phones? An Internet site where you swap stories about the poor fleshies you’re haunting?” I cut a glance toward him and catch a half-sexy smirk before jerking my eyes back to the road. “Men.”
That’s the thing with these ghosts. They’re awfully short on patience for people who have been doing nothing but floating around aimlessly for years. It’s hard to believe that whatever he wants me to find as far as Amanda goes could be that pressing. She’s been dead a long time.
At least Anne had her descendants to worry about, and in the end, that’s what Glinda was worried over, too. The town’s hairdresser was out of sorts about money, of course, not a curse, which is just like her, but Joseph never had children.
It’s still light when I pull into Charleston, and in my limited experience, breaking and entering is best left to the cover of darkness. The jitters that left me anxious to get out of Heron Creek also ended up allowing me a few hours to kill here. My stomach is in too many knots to think about dinner, no matter how good the early evening air smells as it wafts down the market. I
’m thinking about trying to find Odette before the market closes for the night. I’m not even sure what to ask her, but I’ve got twenty bucks in my pocket and nothing to do until the sun goes down, so what the hell?
The crowd weaving through the stalls is an average size for the tail end of tourist season. It’s not so crowded that it’s hard to see what’s being sold in the booths or to pick things up and examine them, but there are enough people to make it hot, to leave the stink of sweaty bodies in the air. To make me realize how spoiled I am living in a small town with an intimate group of friends.
Every fifty yards or so a building opens up to the street and I have to cross outside to enter the next aisle of stalls. At the entrances and exits, people man food carts, hawking kettle corn and cotton candy, cups of fresh lemonade and a bunch of crap too cheap to sell inside. The Gullah women sit on crates or cross-legged on the concrete as they weave their baskets and hats, bowls and other trinkets from long, supple strands of sweetgrass that might smell like the heart of this city if it were a tangible thing.
I wander, fingers trailing over little homemade wooden puzzle boxes, dead butterflies pinned to glass, Tshirts that change color in the sunshine, and all manner of jewelry, prints of local art, silly magnets, and giant ceramic farm animals as my mind drifts and my eyes search halfheartedly for Odette. It was so dark that night, her hidden in the shadows, and all of a sudden it seems crazy to think I would recognize her now.
But then there she is, half toothless and wearing a shapeless cotton dress as she crouches on an old milk crate outside the entrance to the very last building before Market Street runs into East Bay. She notices me, too, and her gaze does that thing where it searches the space around me instead of latching on, and her lips tighten.
“See yah still gots the curse, girl. Figgered out whatcha gunna do ’bout it?”
I pull up the patch of concrete next to her and flop onto my butt. Odette gives me a look like it’s rude to sit down without being asked, as though this is her formal dining room and I’m wearing muddy shoes, but whatever. It’s not.