by Lyla Payne
You don’t know him. He could just be an unfeeling jerk.
I don’t think so, though. I really don’t. He knew I thought he was dead. He could have lived the whole rest of his life without contacting me to tell me the truth about my parentage. What’s it to him if I understand the root and nature of this family trait that’s haunting me? Literally. He cares. I guess what I don’t know is if his fear of Mama Lottie trumps his need to help me through this. Whatever this is.
To ease my anxiety, I sit down and make a list of things that need to be done: find Odette, follow up with Beau about Lucy’s files, hook up with Daria, text Jenna back and make plans for lunch. Before we parted ways an hour or so ago, Leo told me he thinks I should try to find out the rest of James and Charlotta’s story. It’s solid reasoning. If we’re not done with dealing with Mama Lottie, if it’s possible that she has Amelia, then we still need leverage. If I could find proof that the Draytons had nothing to do with whatever became of James or the baby, it might at least convince her to calm the fuck down.
I heat up some leftover spaghetti and dump it onto a plate with some sauce, then sit down with the same journal I read last time. She’s fifteen, and the diaries stop within the year. If there are clues as to how things went for the young lovers, they’ll be in here. Before I start, I shoot Jenna a text and ask if we can have lunch tomorrow. I’m going to convince one of my friends to come along to Charleston so we can look for Odette, too. Two birds with one stone, one of whom will hopefully produce some kind of answer.
She responds with a yes while I’m pouring a cup of coffee, and then I sit down to read with at least a little bit of focus.
6 September, 1899
My brother knows about my affair. Charles Jr. came looking for me today when Mama had one of her spells where she can’t breathe. Bessie started to panic and needed someone to go for the doctor, but she won’t believe anyone that Charles is old enough to leave the property on his own.
James and I were together where we always are, but I fear our little spit of land on the opposite side of the river is no longer the sanctuary we’ve come to depend on, not now that Charles has seen us.
I managed to bribe him into keeping his mouth shut with promises of candy and hunting trips, but I don’t know how long that will hold his silence. The importance of the secret is too much for a small boy to understand, perhaps. My heart hurts, thinking about how frightened the whole incident has made James. I don’t understand why he believes that he has more to lose than I do—I’m the woman, after all. I’m the one whose virtue has been compromised, the one who will sacrifice all hope of a respectable future to be with him. I suppose he might be right to fear my father’s wrath, but in truth, it’s his mother’s that terrorizes his thoughts.
He doesn’t know that I’m aware of his parentage. He has protected his secret all of these years, and though I know not why, I know better than to pick at a wound a person would rather leave scabbed over. In truth, part of my reason for staying silent is that I fear Lottie. Everyone who has any sense does. My father loves her like a sister, and she saved Bessie’s life from scarlet fever when she was a girl, but I’ve watched her ever since I followed James that day and learned she gave birth to him.
She hates us. All of us, even though we have been her family. Even though she was given her free papers years ago now, she chooses to stay.
Why?
The answer is hidden but makes my blood run cold all the same.
I managed to grab Charles after supper, asking him to help me stack firewood in the kitchen. He tried to run off after dumping an armful of wet logs, but I snagged the collar of his shirt and made him look at me.
“You can’t tell anyone what you saw, Charles.”
“I won’t. I already told you.” His big, honey-brown eyes were wide. “I like James. Mama would kill him.”
“Good. It’s good that you know that.” I ruffled his hair, kissed his red cheek, and said a prayer that his fondness for James would keep us all safe.
But he’s just a boy, and secrets aren’t made for keeping.
I toyed with the idea of letting him in on the fact that Mama Lottie might kill us all, should she find out, but decided it would frighten him too much.
We only have to hang on for a few more months, and then James and I will be gone.
The ring of the doorbell pulls me out of the diary with rough hands, dumping me into the present so hard it makes me ache.
Or maybe the ache is from being slammed into a glass sliding door so hard it cracked. Probably that.
On the way to the front door, I can’t help but wonder when Charlotta found out she was pregnant. Since the journal ends in the spring, it wouldn’t be long now, and my heart hurts for the long-dead girl. She must have been terrified, but she trusted James so blindly… Had he let her down? Had Mr. Drayton killed him?
I didn’t think she’d raised the boy at Drayton Hall, even though Charlotta herself never left. She owned her share of the property until her death not so many years ago.
My last hope is that Jenna’s managed to find some information that isn’t in the journals. She knows what I’m looking for, and I know she wouldn’t have said she found something if she hadn’t. The possibility of knowing the end of Charlotta and James’s story lights a flutter of anticipation in my chest, despite all of the stress tugging at my limbs.
“Oh. Hello.” The jarring release from the past numbs my surprised reaction to the visitors.
It’s Beau and Brick standing on my porch.
My heart stutters at the sight of the former, but the twist of anguish on Brick’s face punches thoughts of anything but Amelia straight through my stomach.
“Any news?” he asks, his voice raw and low.
I shake my head. “No. The state police will probably be by at some point, and I’ve got Clete on it.”
“We want to hire a private investigator, too,” he replies.
“I’m not in any position to reject your help.” I clear my throat, dislodging more tears. “Thank you.”
They nod, and I stand aside so they can come inside. There’s something about the way Beau shifts from foot to foot, an eagerness about him as he clutches the folder in his hands, that tells me the offer to hire an investigator isn’t the only reason they’re here.
“Did you find something in the file on Lucy?” I ask once we’re in the living room. Neither Drayton brother wants to sit down so I don’t, either, but all of us standing, trying not to pace, infects my chest with tight nerves.
“Yes.” Beau slides a glance toward his brother, who doesn’t seem to notice. The anguish on Brick’s face as he looks around the space where he and Amelia spend so much time tugs at my empathy. “Nothing that’s going to break this wide open, maybe, but the name of her supervisor while she was working at Teach International in Iran.”
“We could talk to her and find out if Lucy confronted Allied directly. Ask what her thoughts are, if the company is still operating in the same manner,” Brick adds, coming back to the issue in front of us currently. “If she’s got any proof, or any way to get it.”
“Great.” My spirits lift the slightest bit. It won’t bring Amelia home. In fact, thinking too hard about what happened to Lucy only makes me think that if the Middletons or Allied are behind Amelia’s disappearance, I may never see her again. “Where is she? Do you want to call her?”
“We can go see her if you want.” Beau’s eyes sparkle. He’s excited, and it’s hard to blame him. After all of these years, he’s going to talk to someone who had known Lucy after she left him. Someone who might hold a clue, however remote, as to what happened to her. “She’s down in Beaufort.”
“What is she doing in Beaufort?” I can’t help but ask. Once a bustling, wealthy seaport, the town now has that run-down feel that crept over so many Southern cities after the Civil War.
The brothers exchange a glance, but it’s Brick who speaks. “We don’t know. She had some family money, which is how sh
e could afford to take off after college and do the Peace Corps for a few years, and then accept a low-paying position for a small volunteer agency in the Middle East.”
“Her family is from Beaufort?” I guess.
“Yes. Six generations or something.”
Ah. So the woman doesn’t live in South Carolina, she’s from South Carolina. An important distinction that only people born south of the Mason-Dixon Line understand.
“When can we go?” Mr. Freedman doesn’t expect me back until all of this is settled, however it turns out. I can’t explain how I know that Amelia won’t be one of those cases like Lucy’s and a hundred others, where the families wait in agony for decades without news. When they never know.
For better or worse, I have a feeling that Amelia will turn up again.
“I have some meetings this afternoon,” Beau says, regret lining his face. “I can’t move them.”
“That will give me time to dig into Bette and Randall’s list of sins a little more.” Brick’s lips set in a grim line.
“Are you going to be okay here?” my sort-of-maybe-ex-boyfriend asks, concern in his hazel eyes that, thanks to Charlotta’s journal, I know are hand-me-downs.
Beautiful, breath-stealing hand-me-downs.
I nod, biting my lower lip to stop myself from asking him to stay. “Yeah. I can do tomorrow, either early or late. I need to spend a few hours in Charleston, too.”
“How about evening?” Beau suggests. “You can get your errands done, and Brick and I can make sure we’ve got clear schedules.”
“Are we going to tell her we’re coming?” I ask.
We fall silent, eyeing one another as we assess our thoughts. Anyway that’s what I’m doing. On the one hand, showing up at people’s houses unannounced is rude. On the other, what if she runs? What if she disappears, like Lucy or Paul Adams? I can’t be responsible for anyone else’s life. I’ve all but proven I shouldn’t even be responsible for my own, if I want it to go well.
“No,” Beau decides for all of us, but it’s a simple answer that makes sense, at least to me.
It must to Brick, as well, or maybe he’s too out of sorts to argue. Either way, we’re set for tomorrow night. That just means I need to talk Leo or Mel into meeting me in Charleston tomorrow. First, I’ll have lunch with Jenna, but then I’m determined to find Odette.
I’m so relieved to see Jenna the next day that it makes me smile involuntarily. She looks different in the cooler weather—no cutoffs and no T-shirt bearing a funny history pun. Her silky, jet-black hair piles on top of her head in a messy bun, and there are circles under her eyes that suggest perhaps she’s been working late nights on her thesis, or Mrs. Drayton has been keeping her busy with preservation efforts.
Her jeans are tight and dark, and she’s paired her faithful black Converse with a lilac, long-sleeved T-shirt under a puffy white vest. She looks adorable, as usual, but instead of her normal, exuberant greeting, Jenna’s bottomless almond eyes are wary. They dart around the room before landing back on me, as though she’s worried someone might be watching.
It raises my hackles in a heartbeat. I’ve put Jenna in an awkward position, and while she’s not culpable for the things she’s done to help me in the way Mel and Leo are, Mrs. Drayton doesn’t need to prove anything in court to give Jenna her walking papers—and the woman is spiteful enough to ruin Jenna’s career as a parting gift.
I can’t let that happen. Determination to do at least one thing right floods my veins as I slide into the seat across from her at SNOB and pull a piece of warm cornbread from under the cloth napkin.
“I’m so sorry about Amelia,” she starts, her gaze the slightest bit wet. “We just met, of course, but she’s so sweet. And the baby…” Jenna trails off, frowning down at her hands.
“Thanks.” I wipe the crumbs off my face. “Are you okay?”
“Me? Sure. I mean…I heard that Mrs. Drayton caught you on the property again.” Her words are slow, halting, as though she’s considering each one before sending it away.
My heart stops. “Did you get into trouble?”
She shakes her head. “No. But she suspects someone was helping you, since a few of the cameras have been off and no one mentioned it.”
“I told them I snuck in through the marsh, and it’s true. There’s no way to trace it to you, right?” I’m trying to convince myself as much as her, I think. I’m not sure it’s working on either one of us.
“I’ll be fine. You’re right, and besides, she can get as mad as an ol’ wet hen if she wants. Mrs. Drayton knows she’ll never find anyone as good as I am to work for basically free.”
“She knows she’ll never find anyone as good as you are, period.”
A smile lights her face finally. “Thanks.”
We order two plates of shrimp and grits when the waitress comes by, plus two glasses of sweet iced tea despite the chilly weather. Once we’re alone again, I decide it’s time to get down to business. Mel and Leo are meeting me at the Market in an hour.
“So you said you had something to tell me?”
“Yes. I was talking to Sean the other day after Mrs. Drayton questioned the staff about if they’d seen you or if you’d asked anyone for help getting onto the property. I was playing dumb, of course, because everyone knows Sean’s her little lackey spy, no matter how good of an archivist he is.” She waits for me to nod my agreement, taking a sip of her tea, and then continues. “Anyway, I told him all secret-like that I’d overheard that you were out there looking for Mama Lottie’s ghost and asked if he knew what had ever become of her back then.”
“And?” Despite everything, excitement tightens my fingers around my own glass of tea. Not even the temptation of hot cornbread can distract me now.
“He says it’s true that none of the staff knows, not even him. But he also said there has been gossip for years that there are more of Charlotta’s journals that aren’t available to the public.”
My head tips to the side as I consider that. “Well, not the public, but surely the archivists have access?”
Jenna is shaking her head no before the question leaves my lips. “That’s the thing. That’s why he called it gossip. The archivist who trained him before she left told him about them, but said he would have to get used to the fact that the family only shares the parts of their history that they deem fit for the public or of interest on a national-history level.”
That sinks in as the waitress sets down our steaming plates, makes sure we don’t need anything else, and scoots away to deal with the growing lunch crowd making it hard to hear.
“So, basically, if there’s something that embarrasses the family and they can deem it private information—like an unwanted pregnancy—they can just keep it to themselves.”
“Sure.” Jenna shrugs. “I know you and I are really into all this stuff, but honestly, the Draytons don’t have any more of a responsibility to share their secrets than any other American family.”
“Well, except their family helped shape this country. Some for better, others for worse.”
“They do a pretty good job keeping anything like that public. And right or wrong, there are people who still think the kind of scandal Charlotta and James stirred up counts as a family embarrassment.”
“I guess.” My shrimp and grits is delicious, as usual, and for the first time in days I don’t have to force food past my lips. Thoughts parade through my head, and at the moment, I can’t help but wonder if there’s a way to get my hands on those journals.
Jenna might think it’s merely academic curiosity that drives my need to know, but like Leo guessed, there’s no way I’m done with Mama Lottie. I need to know everything I can about what became of her son and her grandson, and if the Draytons are guilty of anything more than covering it up.
“There’s no way to get your hands on them, then?”
“I assume they keep them close, so not unless you want to steal them.” Her smile is conspiratorial, as always, but it’s half-he
arted. We both know I’ll never ask her to put her future on the line like that.
Now, me? I’ve listed the whole future-happiness thing under critical condition the way it is, so I’m not so concerned about myself. “Do you know where they keep them?”
She shakes her head. “No idea. I would say maybe at home, but if they’re really that concerned with the illegitimate line becoming public knowledge, they could take it one step further and have them in a safe deposit box or something.”
Or buried in the backyard. Though probably not. I can’t imagine any of the Draytons getting their hands dirty enough to bury it, and they wouldn’t trust anyone else.
We finish our lunch in mostly silence. I summon enough energy to make small talk, to care about anything but the mountain of trouble sitting in my own lap. Jenna wolfs down her entire plate of food and more than half the cornbread, her appetite as huge as ever. She’s quiet, but Amelia being missing is affecting everyone, not only me. I have no doubt that I love her the most, but everyone who knows my cousin can’t help but love her at least a little.
“You’ve got to find her, Gracie—your cousin.” Jenna gets up, shrugging into her coat after we’ve paid the bill.
I’m thankful for her intuition, for her not making me go through the motions of conversation when all I want to do is wallow in silence. “I will. I swear.”
“If you need anything at all, don’t hesitate to ask. I love my job, but if I can help get Amelia back, nothing else matters. Got it?”
“Got it.”
We leave, parting ways outside the restaurant. I do my best to swallow the lump in my throat all the way down to the Market, but it doesn’t do any good.
I need to call Beau and see if he’s had any luck getting his mother to back off her instructions to arrest me on sight. And if what Jenna says is true, then he might have an even bigger favor request coming his way—because if Mrs. Drayton doesn’t want me at the Hall, I can’t imagine she’s going to be too thrilled about inviting me into her house.