by Lyla Payne
It’s a move that only Mel could play without making me feel like the most pathetic person in the world. I didn’t say a word to her about my new jumpiness about eating food I didn’t see prepared. Maybe Amelia told her that I threw out most of the food in the fridge and bought all new ingredients. Probably.
Daria rolls her eyes as she plops into a chair at the kitchen table. She’s wearing hot-pink leggings, high-top Converse, and a sweater that falls almost all the way to her knees. It could be considered loungewear. If one wants to be seen from space.
“You two are pathetic. I brought the garlic bread, because I fucking want it. And none of us has a weight problem.” She casts a dubious glance toward Mel. “Well. You know.”
“I’m pregnant. Not fat,” Mel says as she sets out the plates, silverware, and food.
“Potato, po-tah-to.”
We all serve ourselves, and it comes as no surprise when Daria rejects the salad bowl in favor of two slices of bread.
“What are you two doing here?” I ask, sliding into the kitchen chair next to hers. My stomach growls despite the upheaval of the past several days. It’s not Mel’s lasagna, but Will’s—his mother’s recipe—and the scent memory of his childhood home wraps me in comfort. “I mean, not that I’m not glad for the company.”
In truth, I haven’t been alone all day. LeighAnn spent the morning catching me up on everything she handled while I was gone, and Amelia has been clucking around like a nervous hen.
“I’ll let them talk to you about that in a second,” Will interjects, setting down his fork. There are lines around his eyes, too, betraying worry and fatigue that must be due to something other than pregnant sleeplessness. “I need to get back to work, but I wanted to fill you in on what we’ve learned at the library.”
That perks me up. I haven’t heard much—they closed the place for twenty-four hours while the forensics people from the next town over did their fingerprinting thing, but that’s it. “Oh.”
“There was no sign of forced entry at any of the doors or windows, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot. The place is open all day long, and people are in and out.”
A frown tugs at my lips. “But, I mean, I see all of them.”
He gives me a skeptical look. “I know that’s probably close to true, but not completely—I mean, you go to the bathroom. You get up to help customers and leave your desk. Someone could slip in and out without you noticing, right?”
An uncomfortable feeling jams between my shoulder blades. “Yes. It’s possible.”
“You said you have coffee and creamer every day. So, you had it on Tuesday, and Wednesday morning before this happened?”
My mind feels foggy as I try to remember. “I didn’t have any Wednesday morning. Amelia made me a to-go cup, so the pot I brewed early that afternoon was the first one. But I did have some Tuesday, all day.”
“Do you remember anyone strange, or anything weird happening on Tuesday night? Wednesday morning? Whoever poisoned the creamer would have had several hours.”
“I truly was at my desk almost all of Wednesday morning, but…” I trail off, my heart still in my chest.
Lavinia.
Cold fear seizes me at the memory of her appearance on Tuesday night…in the break room. I’d almost accepted that it hadn’t been her who wanted to kill me in the river, but now? Could she have poisoned my creamer? Is that something she’s capable of, even?
I find myself glad, now, that Daria tagged along, for whatever mysterious reason.
“But…” Will prompts.
“Nothing. It’s like you said—no one watches the door while I go to the bathroom, or shelve books or whatever. Now that I’m there alone most of the time.”
He nods. “No fingerprints in the break room other than the usual suspects—yours, Freedman’s, Amelia’s, LeighAnn’s.”
“So, basically you’re here to tell me there’s no news, and we have no suspects.”
“I’m sorry, Gracie.” His voice breaks, and all of a sudden, I feel as if I’m the reason Will looks dead on his feet.
And I hate myself for it.
I reach out and cover his hand with mine, squeezing. “I know you’re doing your best, Will. You’re not a miracle worker.”
Especially since he can’t see Lavinia Fisher. Or arrest her.
He gives me a tight nod and goes back to his lasagna. The only sounds in the kitchen for the next several minutes are the scraping of forks against plates, and Daria crunching her garlic bread. I’m disappointed that the police investigation can’t give me any leads as far as who is after me, but maybe that was too much to hope for; nothing about this has been that easy so far. Why should I expect it to start now?
“I should go,” Will says five minutes later, rinsing his plate in the sink and tugging at his pants. He bends and kisses Mel on the cheek, then his eyes meet mine. “I’m not giving up.”
“Neither am I,” I tell him with the best smile I can muster. The support of my friends, as always, bolsters my resolve.
Once he’s gone, I give in to my curiosity about Daria’s presence and pin her with a demanding stare. “Okay, spill. What are you doing here?”
“Your friend sort of insisted,” Daria confesses, her mouth full of noodles and beef and cheese. “She seems to think I owe you something.”
“I don’t think you owe her anything, exactly. Except basic human decency.” Mel rolls her eyes as she stabs a cucumber in her salad and shovels it into her mouth. It seems as if she might be using the chewing time to calm down, and sure enough, the fire in her eyes has dimmed a little by the time she swallows. “She’s worried about your ghost, and she was talking to me this morning about what she thinks you should do. I just thought…she should be telling you, that’s all.”
Curiosity shoves aside some of the depressed gloom that has been crawling over me. “What do you think I should do?”
Daria heaves a sigh, but rather than answer right away, she takes another mouthful of lasagna. I shrug and take my own bite of heaven, closing my eyes for a second and pretending I’m fifteen again. Mrs. Gayle is puttering around the kitchen asking about my day, about whether I’m coming for Sunday dinner and how my grades are back at home.
“That ghost of yours feels off to me, that’s all. I don’t think she wants help, like you said.”
“What do you mean?”
She screws her lips up, clearly searching for the right words. “There have been times, on my walks, when a place is full of spirits. Most of the time, there’s a hierarchy—some of the ghosts are more powerful than the others, and sometimes they can sort of trap people on purpose. Like minions. The thing is, they don’t have unfinished business the way other spirits do—they want to move on but they can’t. Something—or someone—is stopping them.”
I jut out my chin and lean back in the chair, folding my arms over my chest. It all sounds pretty out there, but a dark whisper in the back of my mind tells me that I’ve heard a story like this before, and recently. It takes a moment for my brain to pluck out the right memory, and when it does, dread unfurls in my heart.
Dread unfurls in my heart as I recall the most recent Carlotta journal, and the man from the rectory. She’d said he had seemed dejected and lost when he sought her out, as if he didn’t know why he’d hung about after his death. Ultimately, she’d discovered that Philippe had sent him to her, perhaps on accident.
“You think someone trapped Lavinia here?” I bite my lower lip, thinking harder. “But that could be what she wants help with, couldn’t it? Getting away?”
“Maybe, although she also seems like the kind of spirit who gets off on scaring people. She probably just doesn’t like being beholden to anyone.”
The three of us eat in silence for a while. I try to wrap my head around what, exactly, all of this could mean. It occurs to me again that if Philippe had the power to command ghosts all those years ago in France, and my father had it…someone else could very well have the same power. Perhaps that so
meone sent Lavinia to me, commanded her to…what? Watch me? Scare me? Distract me?
It could be all three.
“So, what does Gracie do, then?” Mel asks, her eyes wide and curious. One hand rests on her belly, massaging slightly.
“I think you should consider a priest, and an exorcist.”
A guffaw escapes me before I can check it, and the offended expression on Daria’s face tells me that she doesn’t appreciate my reaction.
“I don’t know why that’s funny.”
“It’s just…an exorcism? And I watch too many movies?”
Her distaste deepens. “It’s not like that. It’s a real thing, and the Catholic Church still sanctions and approves them. There are a couple of priests in nearby parishes who are certified, and they might be willing to do one. The only problem is that I’m not sure exactly where they would find her.”
“That could be a problem.” I realize for the first time that I haven’t seen Lavinia since that day at the cemetery. It could be that she’s gone forever, but it’s hard to believe it could be that easy. Especially if someone had sent her to watch me.
Or hurt me.
Why stop now, when she hasn’t succeeded? When I haven’t even dug up that spot in the graveyard since she asked me to? She doesn’t seem like the type of woman to take being ignored lightly.
“I haven’t seen her lately, and she’s never been one to hang out in my room.”
“Maybe where she’s buried, or where she died.” Daria throws up her hands. “I don’t know. That’s why I wasn’t going to say anything, but Mel here is worried about you. Everyone’s always worried about you, but it seems to me that you usually find your way out of trouble.”
“Until I don’t,” I observe ruefully. “This one isn’t looking good.”
Despite Brick’s reassurances last night, I don’t have much confidence about winning a case in court. It seems unlikely that a jury will let me go if we don’t have someone else for them to blame. Frank is dead. People like it when things are tied up in a nice bow—if someone’s murdered, someone else needs to be punished.
“I’ll think about it,” I tell Daria, mostly because she and Mel both seem anxious.
The idea of getting rid of Lavinia is certainly appealing, but it occurs to me that if someone in my family—someone with abilities like Frank and Philippe—did send her to me, maybe I don’t want to banish her just yet. She’s creepy, sure, but she could also be useful. If I can figure out a way to make her tell me who sent her and why, it could be a lead.
I should go back to the graveyard in Charleston and dig. Maybe there’s a clue in the dirt, or maybe the simple act of returning to the place she took me will cause her to reappear. This time, I’ll be ready with different questions.
“Think fast, because the priests take forever to make a decision. Not to mention the fact that they have to run everything by their superiors.” She pushes her empty plate away, peering at the lasagna dish like she’s considering more, but in the end she tosses her napkin in, too. “I’m just saying it’s not something that’s going to happen overnight, if you decide you want to go that route.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
We finish our lunch in companionable silence, peppered with the occasional bit of conversation that has nothing to do with ghosts. They don’t push any more, and I’m glad.
I have a feeling that neither one of them would be very happy with my decision, already made, to keep Lavinia around until she gives me some answers.
The good kind.
Chapter Eighteen
I go for a run first thing on Sunday morning, before the sun even peeks over the horizon. At least, that was the plan, but my still-recovering body insists on more of a stroll once we’re outdoors. But sleep was impossible, and even though I feel a little bit exposed and vulnerable in the lightening dawn, I’m too restless to spend any more time in the house. Since I can’t expect Leo or Cade Walters to take up full-time gigs as far as saving my life, I’ll just take care to avoid any exposed piers.
Amelia was asleep when I left, but I couldn’t leave her in the dark in the event that she wakes up while I’m gone and goes looking for me. I left her a note in the kitchen telling her when I plan to be back, assuring her that I’m carrying the pepper spray Aunt Karen left when she was here a few weeks ago, and promising to make pancakes when I get home.
The air is cold and refreshing against my cheeks, which always feel too hot these days. The whole world is too hot, like some unseen fire is creeping closer and closer. It’s going to consume me if I can’t find a bucket full of water. At the moment, it’s so well hidden that I don’t even know where to start looking—peering into the Fournier family past has been interesting, but it hasn’t turned up anything that’s going to save me. Maybe I’ve been looking in the wrong places the whole time, but if that’s true…where’s the right one?
The familiar feeling of my feet pounding on pavement is reassuring as I wind my way out of the neighborhood and through the deserted streets, landing on the path by the river without even thinking about it. I don’t have headphones in, no music to keep me company. It’s easier to keep an eye on my surroundings this way.
Pushing my body feels good. Focusing on running, on breathing, and on not getting blindsided by an attacker is helping me clear my mind of all of the shit that’s been shoveled my way over the past several weeks.
At least, it is until Leo Boone falls into step beside me and everything comes crashing back in like an upended bag full of oranges.
He doesn’t say anything for a while, his breath puffing in white clouds and his long legs pacing my own shorter trot. I can’t go any faster without winding myself, and stopping or going the other way seems immature or petulant. No, both.
Mel and Amelia both told me to talk to Leo, to apologize for the way I spoke to him the last time we saw each other—aside from the back of the police car—and in the corners of my heart, I know they’re right. Leo didn’t deserve to be treated that way, to be cast out simply because he wasn’t willing or interested in taking our relationship to another place. That’s his choice.
I know all of that, but now that he’s beside me again, close enough to listen, all of my shame and uncertainty about what happened between us comes rushing back.
A battle wages inside me while we run the rest of our regular loop together. As we near the bench where we usually stop and talk about what’s going on in our lives, what’s on our minds, I know he’s going to force me to make a choice—either face the rift between us head on or keep driving the wedge deeper.
He slows down to a walk, and my feet copy his without permission. He stops by the bench, stretches, and I mimic him. When he sits, though, I stay on my feet. Getting too close to him feels dangerous, like it might be a reminder of the attraction that has caught me off-guard, of the feelings of closeness that drove me to take the chance I did the other night. The one that might have cost me a guy who has somehow become one of my very best friends.
“I’m glad to see you up and around, Gracie,” he starts, his blue eyes serious as they lock on my face. “I came to the hospital when I heard what happened at the library and you looked…I don’t ever want to see you looking that helpless ever again.”
His confession surprises me—Amelia hadn’t mentioned that he’d stopped by to see me, but of course he had. Leo was always the first one to step up when something bad happened. The one who was there when the shit went down. Somehow.
“I’m much better.”
“Do the police have any idea who might have poisoned you?”
I shake my head, my throat on fire at the normal-ness of our conversation. It feels right. Maybe too right. It would be far too easy to pretend the other night never happened, but the fact is…I don’t want to. I can’t allow my friendship, or relationship or whatever, with Leo to be anything but one hundred percent real.
Anything less is too damned depressing.
“What are you doing out h
ere, Leo?”
“Running.” He squints up at me in the rising sunlight. “Same as you.”
The exhaustion of the past week returns, slumping my shoulders. I want to sit down, but I don’t. I want to burst into tears, but manage to stop myself. “I…I’m sorry about the way I talked to you the other night, Leo. Truly. You didn’t deserve that.”
Now his shoulders slump. Everything about his body language speaks of relief—it’s even pushed more color into his cheeks. “I’m sorry, too, Gracie. I didn’t…I didn’t expect that to happen, and things are so good between us that I was afraid of what would happen if you woke up the next morning and everything was different.”
I take a moment to let his words sink in, feeling the honesty in them as they settle underneath my skin. Leo is as scared as I am to upset the apple cart of our friendship. It’s precious to both of us, that much is clear, but knowing that doesn’t change much. Not really.
“I get that. I do.” I lick my lips, finding them chapped and cracked in the cold morning air. Wondering for a brief moment if I’m really going to say more, and whether I can’t just let this mutual apology good enough for today.
Because it’s not good enough for tomorrow.
Right. I square my shoulders and take a deep breath. “But I feel…everything I said, it’s true. You’re one of my best friends, but I’m not one of yours. You don’t tell me anything. You don’t trust me. Leo, you make me feel like I can take on this whole damn world if you’re by my side, but as much as I love having you in my life, I can’t be the only one invested in this friendship.”
“Gracie, I…” he trails off, running a hand through his sweaty hair. “Can’t you just give me some more time? It’s not you, I just…I don’t talk about my past with anyone.”
I give him a sad smile. “I thought I was different, though. That’s what you said the other night, when you pushed me away.”
“You are.”
