by Lyla Payne
I had mentioned it at one point. My aunt Karen likes to pretend that she and my mother weren’t sisters who grew up under the same roof, but it’ll be hard for her to act like she doesn’t recall Felicia going missing. Or her sister’s friendship with the likes of Clete Raynard, for that matter.
“It’s still a good idea,” I murmur. “Can you go Saturday afternoon?”
I haven’t had nearly as much time off since Amelia has been on maternity leave. It’s not that there’s too much work at our little library for one person, but someone does have to be there to interact with patrons. Mr. Freedman definitely doesn’t think it’s part of his job description. On Saturdays we close early, so we should be able to squeeze in a late lunch/early dinner.
“Sure. Let me call and make sure it’s not bridge day, but otherwise we can force her into it. I can guilt trip her about the fact that she hasn’t seen her grandson in over a month.”
Her tone is light, but she can’t hide the hurt in her eyes.
I hold Jack a little tighter, dropping a kiss on top of his downy head. He relaxes against me, staring across the room at Brick, who has fascinated him since the day he came home from the hospital. Probably because he’s the only male he sees on a regular basis.
The fact that we have a sort-of plan on the Clete and my mother front makes me feel a bit better.
At least, it does until I think about how, in a couple of hours, Leo’s going to have to answer questions.
Just like any other family member would in his situation.
Chapter Twelve
I decide to walk to Leo’s house while Millie puts Jack to bed for the night. Brick is still there, using the excuse that Glory Jean is keeping his car until morning. Maybe it’s true, I don’t know. I also don’t care—Brick seems sober, so having him around takes no skin off my nose. They give me some trouble about walking alone in the dark but I have my phone and promise to text when I get there.
Man, it must suck to be a teenager in today’s technology-rich world.
My desire to avoid this conversation with Leo is off the charts. Maybe that’s why I fought to walk, though I tell myself it’s the exercise that appeals to me. Plus, out in the open, no one can sneak up on me with little red rocks. Gems. Whatever.
If I’m being totally honest, the idea of my mother’s ghost lurking around makes me feel like bugs are crawling over my skin.
As an avoidance tactic, even walking doesn’t take long enough—I’m at Leo’s door before I’m ready to face him. Yet here I am. Doing a dead man’s bidding, even when it goes against every last instinct I have.
I’ve finished my text home when the smell of sweat and sawdust, tinged with spicy aftershave, wafts under my nose. A quick glance to my right reveals Harlan Boone lurking just out of sight behind some neatly trimmed holly bushes. Speak of the devil.
“You coming in with me?” I ask, unsure of why I’m whispering.
He frowns, a look of deep disapproval in his bright blue eyes. His head shakes, and a vast feeling of sorrow, of loss, and of grief grabs me in a tight grip. Breathing is hard. Existing is hard. Hell, not dropping to my knees on the porch is hard.
These are his feelings. Harlan’s. And I have to believe they have everything to do with the fact that I’m about to force his son to relive what must have been the worst experience of his life.
Tears fill my eyes. My throat and nose burn with the effort of holding them back and my chest aches with love and loss and guilt. It’s impossible now to untangle my own emotional response from Harlan’s.
“I have to talk to him,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “He’s the only one who was there. He knows more than anyone.”
The sorrow doesn’t fade from his expression, but the reproach turns slowly into resignation. I want to reach out and cover his hand, to reassure him that while I’m still feeling my way in this ghost business, we are on the same page about how to handle Leo.
But I’m cold enough without putting my hands on a ghost.
Footsteps approach on the other side of the door. Harlan stays, but I swear he seems to fade.
“I care about him, too,” I manage to get out before the door swings open and Harlan Boone’s ghost disappears into the black night.
“Gracie.”
“Leo.”
There’s an awkward pause—we seem to have no shortage of them these days—and I wait for him to invite me inside.
“Are we going to greet each other like that forever?” he wonders aloud.
“I hope not. It’s weird.”
“Agreed.”
My emotions are stabilizing. The tears are gone. The pain in my throat has subsided, leaving only an echo like after a charley horse.
But I don’t feel better.
“Can I come in?” I finally ask, flexing my stiff fingers inside my pockets.
“I guess.”
He stands back and holds open the door while I walk past him into the small entryway. The living room is a happy clutter of toys, and the delicious, homey smell of tomato sauce and garlic bread waft from the kitchen. My stomach growls, loud enough that Leo probably hears it, but he doesn’t offer me food.
Not that I could eat, but it’s another marked change from the way we were just a few weeks ago. We were so comfortable with each other before I drunkenly lunged at him. Before he turned away from me.
Before Harlan Boone showed up and I went to Trent instead of Leo to ask the hard questions. Betrayed him, at least in his eyes.
It was my way of taking the chicken exit—no more and no less—but I can see his point.
Leo leads me around the kitchen instead of through it, taking the long way to the heated sunroom where we’ve had so many late-night talks. The sound of Marcella’s excited chatter as she tells her mother about her day playing with friends falls around us like rain. Something else to miss—I haven’t seen the little girl in days.
There’s a cup of coffee steaming on the table and a book laying open over the arm of the indoor/outdoor sofa. A thriller that recently hit the bestseller list. The scene is cozy, but the winter air isn’t. I leave my coat on and my hands tucked inside my pockets as I perch on the edge of the chair opposite the couch. Leo sits, too, but with a sigh that makes it clear his acceptance of my unannounced visit is a concession to our past, or just to polite decency. Folks in the South have a hard time being out loud and to-your-face rude. When manners are beaten into your noggin from a young age, abandoning them can cause serious anxiety, I guess.
Which is not to say people don’t talk plenty of shit when you turn around.
“So, what brings you out this late?” Leo asks, breaking the silence. There’s nothing inviting in his tone, though he does sound the slightest bit curious. Or maybe desperate.
I can’t imagine how he felt, seeing his dad like that after all this time.
“As you know, I’ve been looking into your dad’s death.” I swallow. For some reason, my throat is as parched as if I’d just trekked here through the desert rather than quiet, winter streets. “Because usually when a ghost shows up it’s got something to do with where or how or when they died.”
“So you said,” he responds, caution painting his expression.
This is where I wish I had prepared more to broach such a touchy subject. Not an unfamiliar place to be since the ghosts started showing up.
In the end, I take Leo’s advice—like I’ve been doing since I moved back to Heron Creek last May—and do my best to conduct my investigation the way I would if it weren’t him sitting across from me.
Because the questions are always hard. The memories are always raw. Families are never ready to talk about it. The only difference is how acutely my empathy is tugging on my heart.
“I read the police report and the newspapers. I know the two of you were working together on a business, flipping houses. I know the police in Folly Beach talked to you about his death but never, like, charged you or anything.”
“What else do you need from me?�
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“You were the one who was working with him, so no one would know better than you if someone…you know…had it in for him.” Leo’s eyebrows go up and my face burns. It was a dumb way to put it. I’ve read too many Nancy Drew novels, clearly. “Also, I had a thought that maybe someone else wanted the house, and maybe that someone killed your dad to get his hands on it…”
“I’ll save you the trouble, there. I still own it.”
“Did you two buy it together?”
Leo shakes his head, his lips pressed together and his face white. “No. I bought it from the bank. I guess, I don’t know. We had plans for it together, and it didn’t feel right to let someone else go through with them.”
“But…”
“But he also died there and I haven’t been able to make myself go back.”
My whole body hurts. Leo’s face twists, then straightens out, and I wish I could give him the hug he so clearly needs.
Instead, I clear my throat and change directions. It’s all I can do. “Did you know your mother is working with the Draytons’ law firm?”
It doesn’t seem possible, but more blood drains out of Leo’s face. I have no idea where it’s all going. “Yes.”
“Is it your dad’s estate? Because that should be settled by now, right?” I pressed.
He goes still, his gaze fixed on the steam curling off his cup of coffee. It’s weird for Leo to not look at me—he’s one of the most straightforward people I’ve ever met. Honest. Maybe not forthcoming all the time, but not like this.
Not angry.
“No.” The answer is soft. A warning, maybe, that it’s time to back up and back off. “It was, but recently my mother decided to contest some aspects of the business we started together. And she’s…we think she’s after Marcella again.”
His words fall on me with the weight of bricks. I don’t know if I can shake enough of them loose to breathe, never mind stand up and go. Harlan left something to Leo—maybe a little, maybe a lot—and his own mother is angry enough to try to keep it from him.
Lindsay is clean and out of jail, with her name at least partially cleared, but Darla doesn’t think she should care for her own daughter. Or maybe she’s so eager for her family’s attention, she’s demanding it the only way she knows how.
And I’d thought there was nothing more I could learn about Harlan’s death that would make me feel worse for my friend than I already do.
“Oh.”
“Yeah. Oh.” His jaw clenches and he purposely uncurls his fingers from tight fists, flexes them, then picks up the mug of coffee. “Any other questions?”
A ton, actually. Like, what is he doing with the house? Does he think he could ever return to the business he and his father had dreamed of building together? Is there a chance Darla could come around? What would it take for his family to believe he had nothing to do with his father’s death?
Has he forgiven himself?
I don’t ask any of those. I might have if he weren’t a friend, but now, sitting under the weight of his anger and hurt and betrayal and just…grief, I can’t force the words. Can’t face the fact that he probably wouldn’t answer me if I had the gumption to ask.
“Has your sister seen your dad, too?”
Leo nods. “Twice.”
Interesting. I should head over to talk to Darla Boone at some point, to see if she’s had the same experience. There must be something significant about Harlan’s choice to visit his family. A nagging feeling tells me that his hauntings are the key to figuring this whole thing out, but the truth behind the niggle stays stubbornly out of sight.
“I guess that’s it, unless either of you has an idea why he might be back now, after all this time.”
“Mom just hired the lawyers. But if you think it has something to do with how he died then no, we don’t have any ideas.”
We sit in silence for way too long. My fingernails dig into my palms. Leo stares into his drink.
I hate all of this. Most of all, I hate how much I want to get the hell out of here.
My feet are halfway off the porch before Leo sets his coffee down and follows me. The kitchen is dark and quiet, so this time we take the shortest route between the porch and the front door. The unspoken truth that he doesn’t want Marcie to see me cuts almost as deep as the rest of this mess.
“Thanks,” I tell him once I’m back under the harsh glare of the light on the front porch.
Leo’s standing in the open doorway, not at all dressed for the weather. His jeans have fallen low on his hips and his faded Heron Creek High Baseball tee rides up a bit on one side, revealing a bit of skin that’s still tanned in the dead of winter. My traitorous gut does a flip, my heart squeezing tight for a second, then another.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt, maybe because he’s caught me staring but mostly because I really am. For about a hundred things, it seems like.
“For what, Bugs?” His smile is rueful, but at least it’s recognizable. “Being you? Don’t ever be sorry about that.”
“I’m sorry…that I was such a chicken shit. When I first saw your dad, I mean. I know things have been off between us, but we’re friends. I should have come to you first.”
Our eyes lock. My stomach does another flip.
Leo nods, slowly, then stands up straight and backs up, all the way into the house. “I know you are, and I know you’d go back and do it different if you could. There’s no permanent damage done, but I’ll tell you how you can make it up to me.”
“How’s that?” I’m having a bit of trouble catching my breath for some reason.
“Find out what my dad needs, and give it to him. As good as it was to see him after the original shock, I can’t stand the thought of him not being able to rest. Man never sat down until ten p.m. in his life—he shouldn’t be holding on to any worries now.”
The ache is back in my throat, a lump that’s harder than ever. It makes giving him an answer impossible, so I only nod, biting down on my lip hard enough to taste blood. Anything to stop myself from crying.
This isn’t my pain. I may have wanted a father like Harlan Boone, but he wasn’t mine to lose. I don’t get to cry now.
And if there’s one thing I know about Leo Boone, it’s that family means everything to him. The biggest way I can show him that I know that, and respect it, is to do what he’s asked.
Now, more than ever, I need to find out why Harlan Boone is back from the grave.
And fix it.
The house angle was pretty much a bust, so I need a new lead. Harlan is quickly becoming one of my least helpful ghosts—he’s keen on telling me who not to bother, but not so much on what I should be doing or who I should be talking to.
The next few days settle into something like a normal routine. Amelia and Brick seem to be on a good path. Mel’s still home, waiting to return to working for Daria once she’s ready. Beau has stayed gone, and to be honest, it hasn’t crossed my mind to ask about him since Mary was born. The curiosity is still there over him and Lucy—how they’re doing, how she’s doing, and whether he’s ever coming back to Heron Creek—but I think that’s normal.
But there’s a pall hanging over all that normalcy. There’s Harlan. There’s the garnets, even though a new one hasn’t shown up for a few days. There’s my tire, which may or may not have been tampered with. And, of course, there’s this distance with Leo.
Small things, maybe, on their own. But all of them together are enough to make me antsy by Sunday. Which isn’t so good considering I have a long day of freedom stretching out before me. Amelia and I are going to see Aunt Karen for a late lunch, but not until tomorrow, because my aunt was busy all weekend and she calls all of the shots.
In another version of my life, I’d go for a run with Leo to shake the anxiety loose, but in this one, I find myself behind the wheel of my Honda, headed up to Seabrook.
I didn’t make any sort of conscious decision to see Knox again. Trent can’t even be used as an excuse this time around, becau
se I doubt there’s much more he can tell me about his father.
Not that I won’t at least ask him about the whole hiring the Draytons thing if he’s willing to answer a few questions. But being that he’s a Boone, he probably isn’t.
Still, my whole body is humming with this weird feeling…if I hadn’t gotten up and out, I would have crawled right out of my own skin. Like George Bailey in It’s a Wonderful Life, telling his poor, doomed father that he felt like if he didn’t get away from puny Bedford Falls he’d bust.
Funny, but I used to identify more with old moss-back George when I was a teenager. Why would anyone want to stay in some crummy town, making crummy money and marrying a crummy girl who wanted nothing more than to trap him in the cage he despised?
Now, I don’t know. Maybe we can’t see the places where we grew up through eyes that do them any kind of justice until we’re grown up. Maybe everyone—or at least, those of us with wanderlust and adventure singing in our blood—sees their hometown as something to escape and not much more.
Mary Hatch was still a crummy bitch, though. No debating that.
Gravel pings off my undercarriage as my tires trade the pitted pavement for the marina parking lot. Calling it a marina is a stretch, really. There are boats and an office and piers, so the place technically qualifies, but it’s got nothing else going for it. Not snacks or a bathroom I would use unless it was a true emergency.
I put the car into park in the mostly-empty lot. The steering wheel slips beneath my sweaty palms. Nerves dance in my stomach, and when I check my face in the rearview mirror, a smile breaks out on my lips. You’d think I’d never propositioned a man before now. Not true. I had some wild days as an undergrad in Iowa.
“Anyway,” I say aloud, “he sort of propositioned you.”
Part of me must have known all along, but this is the first time I’ve allowed myself to acknowledge that jumping Knox is exactly what I came out here to do. This visit has little to nothing to do with my mysteries or with Harlan’s ghost—I just need to get rid of the ants in my pants. To forget for a couple of days or maybe a week the complete disaster of my personal life. To remember what it feels like to be in control, in at least one aspect.