Not Quite Right (A Lowcountry Mystery) (Lowcountry Mysteries Book 6)

by Lyla Payne

  “Can you tell us what happened to Lucy?” Beau’s voice is gravelly and halting, as though he’s not sure he wants to know the answer now that we’re here, facing it.

  I know that he does, though. It’s a way to honor her, to stand strong and hear the truth. Based on the sadness covering Marcia’s face like a mask, I think witnessing it must have changed her, too.

  “I can. I think she would want you to know, honestly, but I never had the courage to look you up myself. If you’d moved on, if you were happy… I don’t know. Some people do better with forgetting.”

  “I could never forget her.” His hands are clenched into fists.

  I try to send signals to Brick, encouraging him to reach out to his brother, to help him the way I would if I were sitting there.

  Okay, not exactly the way I would, but geez. Brick is like a statue.

  Marcia nods, bringing my attention back to her, and takes a deep breath before diving into the story we all came to hear. “We had a meeting after the board made their decision to withdraw the official complaint with the WHO. No one was very happy about it, but Lucy was irate. I…I’m afraid I made a mistake.”

  “Why?” I’m on the edge of my seat, wishing she would tell the story faster but also praying she doesn’t leave anything out.

  “She asked for the file we’d prepared because she wanted to know who was behind it. I thought…” She shakes her head. “I thought she wanted to know so she could warn the girls in the school to stay away, something like that. I never thought she’d start looking for proof on her own.”

  Brick’s ears perk up. “What do you mean? What kind of proof?” This is why he’s here, and now I really get it: he promised Amelia he would help. So he’s helping.

  “She hired an investigator, someone local that could earn the trust of the girls. The ones who had been a part of the trial talked to him, and he traced their clues backward to the location and beyond that, I think.” She bites her lip. “Lucy disappeared a few weeks after that. People saw a group of four men in black masks grab her while she walked to school. They threw her in the back of a van and drove off. End of story.”

  “There were never any ransom demands.” Beau’s fingers are twisted together so tight his knuckles are white. “That’s what my investigator said.”

  “Not that we or her parents ever received, no.” Tears gather in her dark eyes. It’s clear that she cared about Lucy as more than an employee.

  Despite the fact that my boyfriend had been in love with the woman, I wish I could have met her.

  “Was there an investigation?” Leo asks.

  Marcia snorts. “Yes. The kind of investigation the Iranians conduct when an American aid worker goes missing, which is to say, not much of anything. The embassy looked into it and came up dry. We were all bound by a confidentiality agreement and couldn’t mention the debacle with Allied and that Lucy was looking into it on her own.”

  “So no one ever looked into them as a suspect in her kidnapping,” Beau surmises, his cheeks red with anger.

  Thunderclouds roll over Brick’s face, too, reminding me how much all of the Drayton siblings liked Lucy. They’ve intimated more than once that the breakup between her and Beau had been hard on them all. I can’t say it will be the same with us, if we can’t work this out.

  “No. Honestly, even with everything that happened, I think the chances are far greater that she was grabbed by one of the local Taliban groups who are against educating girls.”

  We sit back as she falls silent, and I absorb the story in bits and pieces. It sounds as though we already knew most of the details, except for the key fact that Lucy was actively investigating Allied before she went missing. Despite Marcia’s assessment of the situation, I’m not so convinced her disappearance isn’t connected. Maybe I would have been if Paul Adams hadn’t been killed. And if Amelia weren’t gone, too.

  All together, it has to add up to something. I’m just not sure what.

  “Where did she get the money?” I ask. All of their eyes turn to me, vague confusion as to what I’m asking. “To hire the investigator, I mean. Lucy didn’t have family money, and I’m guessing her work at the agency didn’t pay enough for that kind of thing.”

  Marcia’s expression twists in thought. “You know, I’m not sure. She never brought it up and we were so busy over there, I never thought to ask. It would have been expensive, too, because of the risks people like that run in the Middle East. Most of them are half-in with the terrorists themselves.”

  Cold fingers wrap around my spine at the thought that Lucy’s determination to do the right thing could have gotten her killed. It’s curious where the money came from, but maybe not all that important. The Draytons would be an obvious guess, but the shattered look on Beau’s face and the sick shade of Brick’s skin promise they aren’t lying about the last time they heard from Lucy.

  I can’t imagine Mrs. Drayton giving a rat’s ass. If I know her, she was as happy as anyone to be rid of the little do-gooder stealing her son’s heart.

  “I do have his files, though,” Marcia adds. “Or at least, I can get them for you.”

  It’s like all of the oxygen is sucked out of the room. None of us responds for at least ten seconds, but it feels like much longer.

  Once again, it’s Leo—the one with the most reason to hold on to his focus—that wraps his head around our good fortune first. “The investigator’s files? How?”

  “Lucy left a note, hidden in one of her case files. The envelope said only to open it if something happened to her, and there was a key and an account number for a safe deposit box at a bank in Turkey.” Marcia shakes her head with a small, impressed smile. “I don’t even know when she found the time to sneak away to Turkey, but I did, too. The files on her investigation into Allied were there, including all of the reports from the investigator.”

  “What do they say?” I’m breathless to get my hands on those things. “Where are they?”

  “I never read them. I didn’t want to…after what happened to her.”

  “Can we have them?” Beau asks, a glint in his eyes that means he’s on the scent of something.

  “I keep them in a safe deposit box, too. With my parents’ will and other important papers.” She gives us a small, sheepish shrug. “I guess after what happened to Lucy, I’m a little paranoid. To tell you the truth, I’ll be glad to get rid of them. I can go tomorrow.”

  Beau makes arrangements to meet her tomorrow morning after the bank opens while Brick and Leo get up and wander off to grab our coats from the closet. My mind reels over what we’ve been told and keeps coming back to one thought: if Lucy felt the need to hide those files so well, and to leave a note about what to do if anything happened to her, we have to at least consider that she thought those two things would be connected.

  Chapter Fourteen

  My whole body thrums with unspent energy by the time Leo and I get back to Market Street in Charleston. We have forty minutes before we’re supposed to meet the woman who knows where to find Odette, so we duck into a bar and grab a couple of mojitos. It’s the wrong drink for the season—the mint-and-rum concoctions speak of lazy summer nights in sundresses and sandals—but for some reason, it sounds good. The two of us pick at a cheesy crab dip appetizer without talking, having exhausted most of the conversation about Lucy and what could have become of her in the car.

  I try not to think about Lucy still being gone. I don’t want to think about what happened to her and how no one knows and they might not ever find out, because with Amelia gone and the same awful people lurking on the edges of our lives, it’s too much.

  “Are you ready for this?” Leo asks, dropping a piece of uneaten pita bread back onto the tray.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be.” What I want is to drive back to Heron Creek and have Amelia be waiting for me. I want to crawl under the quilt my grandmother made, in the house she shared with my grandpa, and for the world to be tipped right side up when I wake. “I need to find Od
ette. I need to know about the curse.”

  “Haven’t you asked her about it before, though? And she said she can’t help.”

  I press my lips together. “She says she’s not powerful enough, that the curse is too strong. It’s not Gullah. It’s something else. I’ve done a little research on my own, and to last through the centuries the way it has, the woman who cast it must have made a powerful sacrifice.”

  “Maybe you have to make a similar one to break it?” Leo guesses.

  The way he avoids my gaze tells me he feels idiotic for even discussing such a thing. It’s a hard thing to believe, and even though he trusts me, curses and evil spirits are something else.

  I reach out and cover his hand with mine, then force a smile when he meets my gaze. “Thanks for being here, Leo. I know this is a lot.”

  “Hey, you don’t have to thank me. You’re going out on a limb to get Mel and me out of trouble, even when Amelia is missing, and you’ve gotta be a mess.”

  My throat burns and I look away, taking a couple of deep breaths and pulling myself together. “I’m pretty good at living life as a mess. I’ve had practice,” I whisper.

  “You are not a mess, Gracie. You’re real. Nobody has it all together, but there aren’t many brave enough to show that fact to the world. You don’t hide. You have courage, more than anyone I’ve met.”

  His blue eyes shine bright when I meet them again, and confidence flows from him into me. I nod, sucking in more air, and try to believe what he says. It almost works. Being around Leo makes me feel like it’s okay that I’m a mess, and that’s an interesting concept, to say the least.

  “It’s just…I don’t know how to break the curse without Mama Lottie. I can read about voodoo and hoodoo and Gullah and any other number of religions on the Internet, but the people who understand how to connect to it, how to make it work, it runs in their blood. It has for generations. It’s not… I can’t do it on my own.”

  “You’re not on your own. I’m here. We’re going to find Odette and see what else she can tell us, if Mama Lottie has decided she prefers throwin’ shit fits as opposed to followin’ through on her word.”

  My heart swells. For the first time in days, calm slows my thoughts to a point where they feel as though they can be dealt with before they run off to something else. “Thanks, Leo.”

  “Anytime, Bugs.”

  He pays the bill the bartender left in a shot glass in front of us while I grab my coat. I can’t help but feel better. Even if I’m not sure being compared to a rascal of a cartoon rabbit is a good thing, I suppose Bugs does usually figure out how to get his way.

  “Did you know that you get a real drawl when you’re passionate about something?” I ask.

  “Huh. No.” He shoots me a thoughtful look. “I suppose it’s been awhile.”

  I wonder what he means by that as we exit and follow East Bay back toward the Market, but my curiosity skitters away at the sight of the tight group of women, one of whom promised to take me to see Odette.

  “You back,” the older woman observes. Her head is wrapped in a turban now but her eyes remain kind, if worried.

  “We’re back.” I feel grim, maybe because some part of me expects that something bad has happened to Odette. “Do we need a car?”

  She nods, then pulls a scrap of paper out of her pocket. She shoots a glance at the other women, who have fallen silent in favor of staring with open distrust at the two of us, then slips it into my hand.

  “She’ll be ’spectin’ ya.”

  I hesitate, hoping she’ll say something else, anything that makes me feel more comfortable driving…where? I peer down at the paper. An address on Edisto is scrawled across it. The women shuffle off, casting looks back our direction.

  “Well, clearly we’re not getting any more help from them,” Leo comments, leaning over my shoulder. “What’s it say?”

  “It’s an address on Edisto.”

  “Hmm.” He furrows his brow. “Mostly swanky beach houses out there.”

  “Mostly. There’s quite a bit of undeveloped lowland, too. I don’t know where this is, but thanks to the miracle of GPS, we can still find it.”

  “What did we do before GPS and satellites?” Leo wonders as we take off for his car.

  The night keeps getting colder, and we waste no time climbing in the truck. Leo cranks the heat, and we wait for a second for the engine to warm up, holding our hands in front of the vents.

  My teeth chatter. “Does the heat even work in this thing?”

  “Hey, do not malign my girl. We’ve been through a lot together.”

  “It’s not a crime to buy a new car, you know.”

  “Says the girl driving a Honda that’s almost older than she is.”

  I don’t have a comeback for that, and he knows it. We ride quietly, listening for directions from the disembodied voice on my phone as it steers us away from the lights of Charleston and into the dark surrounding lowcountry. Aside from a comment here or there on the land, we focus on what’s coming, even though neither of us has any idea what that will be.

  If Leo feels out of his element when we’re in the mountains, I can’t imagine that hanging out with Odette is going to make him more comfortable. Especially if she’s not alone.

  The twists and turns take us over a bridge and then off the highway. Soon enough we trade paved roads for rutted dirt and mud, making me glad we’re in Leo’s truck instead of my car. My old Honda has been steadfast, but I’ve been asking an awful lot of it lately, and despite my brave face, it’s creepy as hell out here.

  We left streetlamps and stores behind when we crossed over to the island, and we seem to be following a stream or small river through the overgrowth. Leo pulls over and puts the truck in park after we hit a particularly jarring hole in the road.

  “We should walk now, I guess.”

  “Walk where?” I don’t know why I’m whispering.

  He points, and when I follow the direction of his finger, I see small pinpoints of lights in the distance. The color of the glow, along with the way it grows and flickers, casting shadows on the trees, tells me it’s a fire and not a house.

  I’ve done too much research online, perhaps, and my mouth goes dry. The images in my head are of wild dances, sacrifices, and spirits come to visit the living—all belonging to the voodoo culture that is more prevalent in New Orleans and not the Gullah people far more common to this region.

  We get out of the truck without discussing it further. I pull my coat tighter around me as we start forward, the mud sucking at my shoes with every step. The houses on Edisto, the ones owned by rich people that Leo mentioned, all sit near the beach so they can get the most out of their properties as summer rentals. We’re on the back side of the island, the one that’s marshy and rests low next to a salty river like the one that rumbles through Heron Creek. It’s as black as a raven’s wings.

  The stars overhead twinkle, doing their best to compensate for the sliver of a moon, but my hand slips into Leo’s all the same. He squeezes, and between our palms, the slightest bit of heat provides some comfort.

  I take care to shuffle my feet as we draw nearer to the firelight, stepping on branches hard enough to crack them. I’m not sure anyone can hear over the hoots and rustlings in the trees but surprising them isn’t part of the plan. There are tents up ahead, as well as some makeshift shanties or lean-tos. They’ve set up a little town in a clearing next to the water, fires burning bright in the center to thwart the November chill. The people milling around see us a few moments after we see them.

  In this world where people draw guns for little to no reason and think that every stranger might be someone who needs to be shot, there are more than a few reasons to worry—even if neither Leo nor I seem particularly threatening.

  The people we’re approaching don’t seem worried. Curious, perhaps, as the glow from the fires illuminate the whites of their eyes. Their bodies are as dark as the night, almost without exception, and despite the fact
that they live outside in tents, they’re all round in the middle.

  My eyes scan the group for Odette, but I don’t see her lined, wise face.

  A woman steps forward, her head wrapped in a colorful turban like the woman weaving sweetgrass on the street. Her eyes are kind but wary. “Can we help yah?”

  The others have stopped what they’re doing to watch, to listen. To assess. Nerves ping in my stomach at being outnumbered, but no one’s body language suggests we should hightail it out of here. Leo jabs my ribs with his elbow, which hurts more than it would have before my run-in with Mama Lottie.

  It does make me realize I’ve been silent too long. Like a creeper.

  “Um, I’m… We’re looking for Odette? Someone told us she might be here.”

  The woman studies me for another moment, her eyes flitting above my head and into the darkness, as though she’s chasing something down without moving. A shiver zips down my spine. Can she see the curse, too?

  “Normally I wouldn’t let yah bring that there curse into the camp.”

  Well, that answers that question.

  She folds her arms over her chest. The group behind her gathers closer, all staring at me with more intensity now. “But Odette can’ be comin’ out thar, no’ in her state. C’mon.”

  She gestures for us to follow her. Leo flicks a glance at the air around me, as though trying to see my curse like the woman just did. I elbow him back, at least as hard as he did me. His wince gives me some satisfaction.

  “Ow. What’d you do that for? I just wanted to see it for myself.”

  “Shut up. And maybe before you jab me again, remember I got the shit kicked out of me by a ghost a few days ago.”

  Leo flinches, apologies written all over his face. “Oops, sorry. I forgot. It won’t happen again.”

  The way he says it, with all kinds of conviction, makes me sure it won’t.

  The night is warmer inside the circle of makeshift houses and firelight. The group disperses, perhaps having lost interest in us, or at least pretending they have, and the first woman crooks a long finger in our direction. We follow her to one of the small, wooden sheds and through the opening at the front.