LOWCOUNTRY BOOKSHOP

by Susan M. Boyer

  “Phillip is dead because of you.” She screamed the words, closed in on Ryan.

  He held up his hands. “Hey, I didn’t kill the man.”

  “You threatened to often enough,” said Anne Frances. “And the only reason he ran out into that street—the only reason he’s dead—is because you made those women think he was beating me.”

  This was the bad man who needed to rot to jail. He’d set the whole thing in motion. I edged closer to the door.

  Nate must’ve sensed my urges. “Stay put.”

  “How am I responsible for what those women thought?” asked Ryan.

  “What was it you said?” Anne Frances tilted her head. “If I told anyone you blackmailed me into meeting you once a week, where your idea of playtime was roughing me up while you drank the champagne I paid for, in a room I paid for, you’d kill Phillip and incriminate me. You’d already incriminated me if anything happened to him—the people at the hospital thought Phillip abused me. Hell, anyone I came in contact with thought that, which was why I was a prisoner in my own house. And Phillip…my poor husband thought I was in love with another man.”

  The pain in her voice hit me in the gut.

  Ryan shrugged. “Seems more than fair. I let him live and you stay free.”

  “Free? I haven’t been free since you showed up. I couldn’t go to the police—after you told them who I was, well, they wouldn’t be likely to believe anything else I said, would they?”

  He snickered. “You don’t make a very credible witness, Nikita.”

  Holy shit. Nikita? This was Nikki Parks?

  “I wish you’d just killed me when you first showed up in Charleston.”

  “Now where would the fun be in that?” There was a taunt in Ryan’s voice. “It was so much more fun to play with you. And now, we can play all the time. We don’t have to hide to do it. Hell, we can buy us a house on the beach.”

  “There is no we,” Anne Frances spat. “There is no us. The only person I cared about in this world is dead and you no longer have anything to hold over me.”

  Ryan’s face shifted, like maybe he realized he’d miscalculated something.

  “Phillip was a good man,” said Anne Frances. “God knows he was better than I deserved. And I wish I had never met him just because I’m the one that brought you into his life.”

  “See, Nikki?” said Ryan. “It really is all your fault.”

  “Bastard,” she hissed.

  “I am, now that you mention it. But at least I didn’t steal a name off my dead best friend.”

  “I would have done anything to save Annie. But she was dead, and there was nothing I could do about it. I saved myself. Lucious wasn’t looking for Annie. He killed her.”

  “He killed her because she wouldn’t tell him where you were,” said Ryan.

  “Don’t you think I know that?” She looked at him with loathing. “We were hours from being free, her, Sasha, and me. Free from the drugs. Free from Lucious. Free from that life. Who told him we were leaving, you slug?”

  Ryan grinned an evil grin but kept quiet.

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “Now, what I want to know, and what you’re going to tell me unless you want to die very slowly and very painfully, is who else knows I’m alive?”

  “What’s it worth to you?”

  She laughed, with no mirth whatsoever. “That’s not how this is going to go. I’m never giving you another dime. You have cost me more than you can possibly imagine. Slugs like you don’t know anything about love. But what you don’t get is that I have nothing left to lose that I care anything about. Sasha was the only person who knew who I was. I haven’t seen or heard from her since I left Naples. A friend said she went to California. Where is she now?”

  A sly grin slid up his face. “Now, see, there’s something else you have to thank me for.”

  Nikki squinted at him. “What did you do to her?”

  “I can’t be held responsible for what junkies do.” He raised his palms “Sasha died of an overdose before I left California.”

  “If you didn’t kill her, you gave her the drugs.”

  He shrugged. “Either way, she’s not going to be telling anyone that Nikita Parks from Chicago is alive and well in South Carolina, living under a fancified version of her dead friend’s name.”

  “Then all I need to think about is how I’m going to kill you—how long I can enjoy that.”

  “We need to go in now,” I murmured to Nate.

  “Let me get in position,” he said.

  “So, what, you just gonna shoot me?” asked Ryan. “You don’t have the nerve.”

  “Wanna bet? See this smile on my face? I’m savoring it. I’m going to leave you to rot in that van of yours somewhere near a swamp. And no one will miss you. Do you know how I know that?”

  He just stared at her.

  “I know that because you’re invisible, just like me. People like you and me, not a soul cares about us. You killed the only three people who ever cared about me—first Annie, when you ratted us out to Lucious, then Sasha, then Phillip. No one has ever cared about you, and no one ever will.”

  “Put the gun down, Mrs. Drayton.” Sonny stepped into my field of vision.

  She looked at him, stunned.

  Ryan took the opportunity to grab a gun from the floor in front of him and bolted from the room.

  Sonny went after Ryan.

  I went in through the French doors.

  Nikki sank onto the sofa, laid the gun on the floor beside the destroyed coffee table.

  I picked up her gun. “Let’s get you outside.”

  Before we could move, Ryan backed into the room, both hands on the gun at his side. Nate walked in front of him, arms straight out, ready to fire. There were only a few feet between them.

  “Put down the weapon,” said Nate. “Now.”

  “I don’t think I will.” He raised the gun, pointed it at Nate’s chest.

  My ears buzzed. I couldn’t breathe. I raised my weapon.

  “Sutton, you have three guns on you,” said Sonny.

  Where was he?

  He’d circled back through the dining room. “There is no way out of this except to put down your weapon.”

  “You’re wrong about that.” Ryan looked down his barrel at Nate.

  I slowed my breathing, ready to fire.

  A shot rang out.

  Ryan crumpled to the floor.

  Nate kicked his gun away from him.

  “Are you all right?” I hollered.

  “Fine,” said Nate.

  “Sonny?” I said.

  “I shot him,” Sonny said to me. Then he spoke into his phone, called for an ambulance and a crime scene unit. He hung up, looked at me, then Nate. “Everyone else all right?”

  We all answered yes.

  Sonny moved to Ryan, knelt down and took his pulse. He looked up at Nate, shook his head. “He’s gone.”

  I sat down beside Nikki, pulled out one of Fraser’s cards. “I don’t know if you have a good attorney,” I said. “But if not, I recommend you call this one before you answer any questions.”

  “Thank you,” she said. “That’s twice you’ve done me a good turn. How much did you overhear?”

  “Enough,” I said. “But there’s something I don’t understand.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The night of the accident, why didn’t you tell the police the truth? At least about why Phillip ran into the street? All this time I thought he abused you, but he didn’t. These women came into your home and attacked him. I know they were trying to help you, but…”

  “I did want to protect them if I could. They didn’t know what they were doing. They thought they were saving me. More than that, though, I knew if I started telling the truth, I would trip up and tell too m
uch. It was all wrapped up together with Ryan. Everything was all mixed up together. You don’t know what kind of people these are. Ryan…Lucious Carter. I’ve been hiding so long.”

  “That must’ve been hard for you. Knowing Phillip was outside in the street…” This part I couldn’t wrap my head around. How and why had she come to the door and pretended she’d been asleep?

  “I had no idea he was dead,” she said. “Sofia said he was injured. I still thought then that I needed to protect him from Ryan. And that meant keeping everything a secret. All I ever tried to do, since Ryan Sutton arrived in Charleston, was protect Phillip from my past—a past he knew nothing about.”

  “The day of the accident…what was your plan? You signaled Tess and the others to pick you up. What were you going to do? Why didn’t you show up at 20 South Battery?”

  She drew a ragged breath. “I had to do something. I was losing Phillip. I couldn’t tell him what was happening. He would’ve confronted Ryan. Phillip is unaccustomed to dealing with men like Ryan. Ryan would’ve killed him.

  “Phillip was supposed to go to the Southhampton house for two weeks. He’d had it planned for months—tried to talk me into going with him. Some friends of ours were having a big party. I thought he’d be safe from Ryan for two weeks and I could make a move. Phillip was scheduled to fly out that afternoon. He kept saying it was just rain. They could fly in the rain. I left a message in the bookstore. But then the pilot called and told Phillip there was weather all up the coast and they couldn’t fly.”

  “If he’d gone and Sofia had picked you up, then what?” I asked.

  “Tess knows everyone here,” said Anne Frances. “Once Phillip and I were both out of Ryan’s reach, I was going to ask her to introduce me to her attorney, get his or her advice, and figure out a way to get Ryan out of our lives without destroying everything.”

  “Couldn’t you just have made an appointment and gone to see the attorney?” I asked.

  “Ryan watched me,” she said. “It was a game for him. Sometimes he’d park across the street and watch the house. Saturday wasn’t the first time he used a tracking device to find me. I was trapped. I needed a safe place to stay while I worked all this out.”

  “The card I gave you…Fraser Rutledge is Tess’s attorney.”

  “I’ll call him right now. Thank you again for your kindness.”

  “You’re not invisible,” I said. “You said your husband was a good man.”

  She nodded, crying. “He really was.”

  “He must’ve loved you very much,” I said. “Hold onto that.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  It’s amazing what my Daddy can pull off when he’s motivated. He unveiled the family pool on Sunday afternoon. Instead of family dinner, we had more of a pool party. Mamma outdid herself with the spread of food in the screen porch. She was so relaxed that she just put all the food out and let everyone eat when they wanted.

  She’d been twice more to the spa in Charleston while Daddy, Ray, Ponder, and the crew Daddy hired finished the yard. And it really did look fabulous. The pool had an abstract shape, more like a lagoon. A waterfall spilled into it from a pile of rocks. Beside the waterfall was a hot tub.

  Mamma was in her new swimsuit, in a teak lounge chair with a striped cushion under a trellis. I was right beside her, Merry was on the other side of me. We all had drinks with little umbrellas in them.

  “This is amazing,” I said. “I may be over here every day to swim.”

  “You’ll have to wear a suit.” Mamma gave me the side-eye.

  “Where’s Blake?” I asked.

  “He came by earlier,” said Mamma. “He said he was going to pick up a friend, but he’d be back later.”

  “April, Calista, or Heather?” I asked.

  “I’d bet on April.” Mamma sighed. “That might be awkward with Tammy Sue here, but what am I to do?”

  “I think it’ll be Heather,” said Daddy. “Pretty girl, umm umm.”

  Mamma rolled her eyes at him. “With one exception, you have always enjoyed women a little on the trashy side.”

  “Mamma,” I said. “Heather is not trashy. You have got to get over the fact that she had a previous relationship.”

  “With a much older man who stashed her in a bawdy house? Sadly, your brother seems to have inherited your father’s taste in women.”

  “Present company excluded,” said Merry.

  “Well, naturally,” said Mamma. “Doesn’t Moon Unit have a cute swimsuit?”

  “She does. She looks happy, too. I like her and Sonny together. I hope that works out.”

  Nate and Joe walked out through the screened porch.

  “Carolyn,” said Nate, “we put the grilled chicken and sausage on the table with the rest of the food.”

  “I declare,” said Mamma. “It’s so lovely having a man around who can grill.” She eyed Daddy.

  The screen door opened again and Blake walked out, followed by Poppy.

  We all stared at him slack-jawed.

  “Hey everybody,” called Poppy.

  Colleen popped in and bray-snorted exuberantly. When she stopped laughing, she said, “Do you remember the very first time you brought Nate home for dinner?”

  We were partners, not even dating, but yeah.

  “What else happened that night?” asked Colleen.

  I searched my memory. Chumley. Daddy brought Chumley home.

  “And when Merry first brought Joe home?” asked Colleen.

  Oh, my stars—the rat drama.

  “Yep,” said Colleen. “And there were goats for Poppy.”

  I could not stop smiling.

  About the Author

  Susan M. Boyer is the author of the USA Today bestselling Liz Talbot mystery series. Her debut novel, Lowcountry Boil, won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel, the Daphne du Maurier Award for Excellence in Mystery/Suspense, and garnered several other award nominations, including the Macavity. The third in the series, Lowcountry Boneyard, was a Southern Independent Booksellers Alliance (SIBA) Okra Pick, a Daphne du Maurier Award finalist, and short-listed for the Pat Conroy Beach Music Mystery Prize. Susan loves beaches, Southern food, and small towns where everyone knows everyone, and everyone has crazy relatives. You’ll find all of the above in her novels. She lives in Greenville, SC, with her husband and an inordinate number of houseplants.

  The Liz Talbot Mystery Series

  by Susan M. Boyer

  LOWCOUNTRY BOIL (#1)

  LOWCOUNTRY BOMBSHELL (#2)

  LOWCOUNTRY BONEYARD (#3)

  LOWCOUNTRY BORDELLO (#4)

  LOWCOUNTRY BOOK CLUB (#5)

  LOWCOUNTRY BONFIRE (#6)

  LOWCOUNTRY BOOKSHOP (#7)

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