Not Quite Gone (A Lowcountry Mystery)

by Lyla Payne

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Information

  Also By Lyla Payne

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Thank You!

  Acknowledgments

  Also By Lyla Payne

  About the Author

  Copyright 2015 by Lyla Payne

  Cover Photography by Iona Nicole Photography and Lyla Payne

  Cover by Eisley Jacobs at Complete Pixels

  Developmental and Line Editing: Danielle Poiesz at Doublevision Editorial

  Copyediting: Shannon Page

  Proofreading: Mary Ziegenhorn, Diane Thede, Diane Cleary

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used factiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real.

  Also by LYLA PAYNE

  WHITMAN UNIVERSITY

  Broken at Love

  By Referral Only

  Be My Downfall

  Staying On Top

  Living the Dream

  Going for Broke (published in Fifty First Times: A New Adult Anthology)

  LOWCOUNTRY MYSTERIES

  Not Quite Dead

  Not Quite Cold

  Not Quite True

  Quite Curious

  Not Quite Clear (October 27th, 2015)

  Mistletoe & Mr. Right

  Sleigh Bells & Second Chances (October 6, 2015)

  SECRETS DON’T MAKE FRIENDS

  Secrets Don’t Make Friends (November, 2015)

  Young Adult Novels Written as TRISHA LEIGH

  THE LAST YEAR

  Whispers in Autumn

  Winter Omens

  Betrayals in Spring

  Summer Ruins

  THE CAVY FILES

  Gypsy

  Alliance

  Buried (January, 2016)

  THE HISTORIANS

  Return Once More (September 29th, 2015)

  To the very real Drayton family and others like them – thank you for having the bravery, guts, smarts, instincts, and resources to help set such firm foundations underneath this great nation.

  Chapter One

  I stand on the porch for several minutes after Mrs. Drayton’s car disappears around the corner, reeling from the job offer that came from my boyfriend’s mother. My feet are rooted to the spot even after Mrs. Walters, who’s still auditioning for the role of Nosiest Neighbor in the Lowcountry—a title for which there must be plenty of competition—shuffles outside under the pretense of watering her tomatoes. She holds the green garden hose over the oversized pots, staring at me from three houses away.

  My excitement over the job at a historic property like Drayton Hall—it’s a huge coup for someone in my field to be asked to help archive such a prominent family’s documents—can’t overcome the guilt of saying yes without checking with Beau first. On the one hand, the worry annoys me—he’s my boyfriend, not my father or my boss. Definitely not my husband. Still, the niggle of shame means that, as my boyfriend, he at least deserves a conversation and a heads-up. If he has a reason—whether it’s a good one or not—for wanting me to stay away from his family archives, shouldn’t he at least have the chance to tell me what it is before I run pell-mell into the situation?

  It takes another minute or two to gather my thoughts well enough to make room for simple motor function, after which I give Mrs. Walters a giant smile and a wave. She frowns back, not disappointing me with her huffy glare. Pleased that at least one thing in my life can be counted on, even if it is being spied on and disapproved of, I take a deep breath and push open the front door to the house where my grandparents had practically raised me, where I now live with my cousin, Amelia.

  Frigid, recycled air washes over my sticky skin, giving me chills on my way to the kitchen, where the clanking of dishes and the banging of cabinets says that Millie escaped after eavesdropping at the door. I shiver, cursing at my inability to withstand the begging of a pregnant woman. Amelia had played that card yesterday, forcing me to turn on the air conditioner despite the fact that summer is, for all intents and purposes, over. But as long as the temperature is over ninety and the humidity over sixty percent, she insists that if Mother Nature hasn’t gotten the memo, we’re not going by the calendar either.

  My cousin does a wonderful job of acting as though she didn’t overhear the entire conversation between Beau’s mother and me on the porch, but we’ve known each other too long for me to buy it. I wipe the sweat out of my eyes, holding my frizzy dark hair back in a makeshift ponytail as she gives me the side-eye from the kitchen counter.

  “Okay, out with it,” I say. “Tell me how I handled that all wrong.”

  Amelia shrugs, busying herself with emptying the dishwasher. “I’m not a relationship expert, Grace.”

  “Maybe not,” I admit, trying to be gentle. She’s so withdrawn these days. It makes me feel as though the floor around her is lined with discarded lightbulbs, all ready to smash to pieces underfoot if anyone gets too close. “But you know I value your opinion, anyway. And I know you’re dying to give it to me.”

  That earns me the smallest start of a smile. It feels like winning the lottery. I let out a breath, my shoulders dropping for the first time since Mrs. Drayton showed up on my porch unannounced twenty minutes ago. My knees wobble more than they have since the ghost of Anne Bonny showed up my first week back in Heron Creek, almost three months ago now.

  I sink into one of the kitchen chairs, squinting in the late-afternoon sunlight streaming across the table. Amelia dries her hands and sits across from me, the bright glow in the room accentuating the growing lines around her eyes and mouth.

  “Okay. Well, she came over here just to ask you whether you’d be interesting in curating some new family archives at their second plantation home, correct?” Millie’s lips press into a line at my nod. “Why?”

  “Your confidence in my archivist abilities is inspiring.”

  “But seriously, think about it. Why not call first? Why not have Beau ask you?”

  “Maybe she was out running errands in Heron Creek? Renewing her subscription to the local paper?” The defensive tone in my voice makes me cringe, and I heave a sigh. “Fine. She said she spoke to him about it at their tea last week.”

  “He didn’t say anything to you?”

  I shake my head, positive that where she’s going with this line of questioning isn’t a place filled with sunshine and roses. It’s not as though any relationship worth having is ever easy, but it would have been nice for the mayor and me to have at least a month or two of sex-filled bliss before reality insisted on knocking.

  “No.” I bite my lip, picking at stray strings coming loose from my grandmother’s old embroidered tablecloth. It used to be white but the edges have star
ted to yellow. How could she have been gone that long already? “Why wouldn’t he want me to work for his family?”

  He hadn’t even made a move to introduce me to his family, but we haven’t exactly had a whole lot of extra time on our hands. After my first impression of his chauvinistic and condescending brother, Brick—and his of me as the Kook of Heron Creek—maybe Beau feels as though he already has a good reason for keeping us apart. Panicked tears start to burn in my throat.

  “Don’t start freaking out. I can see it on your face. You’re starting to question everything about your relationship until now and probably a decade into the future, too.” Millie smiles, bigger this time. “It’s probably nothing. Mayor Beau could have just wanted to figure out how he felt about things before bringing it up with you.”

  I pause, thinking about what she said. My panic recedes, but the visit from Cordelia Drayton starts to look foreboding in a whole new way. The fact that she would come here without talking to her son or making sure he’s all right with the decision… It makes me wonder. Not about Beau trying to hide me from his family, but perhaps the other way around—that he’s trying to hide them from me.

  “So, you’re saying it doesn’t necessarily mean he’s horribly embarrassed to be dating someone who’s so completely addled at the age of twenty-five?”

  Amelia snorts. “Not necessarily. Seriously, I’ve never seen anyone prouder of his girlfriend. And that reminds me… You’re almost twenty-six! What are we doing for your birthday?”

  A groan escapes me at the reminder. “Nothing, I hope.”

  “I don’t think that’s going to be possible.” The mischievous grin slips from her lips as she studies me with those emerald eyes, carbon copies of my own. They miss nothing. Her gaze softens after a moment and Amelia reaches out, covering my hand with hers. “Things are going good with you and Beau. I just think you should talk to him—about his family and yours.”

  I nod, a lump materializing in my throat. Her reference to the man claiming to be my father, who might show up here any day wanting heaven knows what, sinks deep into the pit of my stomach. The fact that I gave not only my ex-fiancé, David, my new address but my “father” as well, strings anxiety through my blood. There’s too much going on in Heron Creek that I don’t understand, what with these damn ghosts and my still-new relationship, for my past to start rolling into town, too.

  “I know you’re right. I guess it’s stupid to think things will go away if I ignore them.”

  She nods. “You’ve always held tight to that theory, Grace. It’s worked for you a lot of the time, but the thing is… We’re not kids anymore. Nothing bad stays gone forever.”

  Her statement hangs in the air, turning black around the edges until it darkens my heart like an unintended warning—maybe about the voodoo curse still hanging over our family. Anne Bonny pissed off a lot of people back in her day, but in the end it was her love for her son that had been her downfall. The thing that created the kind of hate that lasted generations.

  A knock on the front door makes both of us jump as though we’d been trapped in a trance, and I let loose a shaky chuckle. “If our fourteen-year-old selves could see us now they would be sorely disappointed.”

  “It’s true. We’re not even remotely cool. Although we both do still have awesome hair.”

  “True. That’s something.”

  I leave her in the kitchen and make my way to the front door, wondering who’s going to show up this time to tip my day on its back like a turtle. We’re not expecting anyone, but then again, we weren’t expecting Mrs. Drayton to show up, either. Maybe it’s Mrs. Walters coming with a fake offering of late-season tomatoes just to get a peek inside the house.

  Nope. A quick glance through the peephole reveals Beau, his hair mussed as though he’s run his hands through it countless times on his way over here. It’s getting long. He needs a haircut, but since Sonny and Shears burned down and no one in town has taken secret-criminal Hadley Renee’s place as resident stylist, all of us are looking a little shaggy these days.

  The expression on his face—half-desperate, half-angry—speeds up the beat of my heart.

  Relief slumps his shoulders when I pull open the door and give him a tentative smile.

  “Gracie, you’re… Hi.”

  It’s almost as though he was about to say…you’re okay. Which is ridiculous. Am I supposed to believe that the cultured, put-together woman who came to offer me the best opportunity of my young career is someone who could make me not okay?

  “Hi,” I reply, more guarded now. “I’m fine,” I say pointedly.

  Beau flinches, and instead of inviting him inside I step out onto the porch. We sit together on the squeaky, green-painted front porch swing as we’ve done so many times, our toes pushing us back and forth a few times as the tension tightens between us.

  “I know you’re fine, Gracie Anne, but my mother…she doesn’t make things easy.”

  “For you or for me?”

  “For most people.” He bites off the words, so bitter they leave a bad taste in my mouth. Our eyes meet, and he heaves a sigh at the look I pass his way. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about her idea.”

  Earlier, I felt peeved by his not coming to me, but now, seeing the almost-tortured regret on his face, it all bleeds out of me. “Why didn’t you?”

  He tips his head back until it’s supported by the rusty chains that anchor the swing to the porch roof. Breathes out. The quiet feels softer now, not pressed so tight against us, but my anxiety remains. There’s a sense of fear that’s impossible to shake. It’s almost as though this moment, his response, has the potential to define us going forward—for better or worse.

  “My family isn’t like yours,” he says.

  “Well, I certainly hope not. We can’t all be dreamers and crackpots, you know. Someone has to be responsible.” My attempt at lightening the mood falls on its face so hard it makes me wince. He’s alluded to his family before, how growing up in that house, with money, wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be.

  Now, watching him, so obviously hurt, I still can’t understand why. It sucks not being able to help, but I am sure of two things: first, whatever the truth, however bad, it’s going to help me know this man I’ve come to care about, and second, it’s going to break my heart.

  “Your family may be odd in some ways, Gracie—though not nearly as many as you seem to think—but you grew up knowing you were loved. No amount of supposed normalcy and affluence can replace that.” He runs a hand through his hair again, and close-up, it looks as though it needs a wash.

  I frown, my senses on high alert. There are signs everywhere that he’s bothered by something, isn’t himself, and maybe it’s more than his mother showing up to offer me a job.

  “I didn’t tell you about my mother’s idea because she doesn’t do anything out of the goodness of her heart…or without a personal agenda. I had hoped to discover what it was before discussing the situation with you.”

  The comment brings back my irritation, and I scoot away, turning to face him with plenty of space between us. “So, it couldn’t be that she honestly has archival work that needs to be done, and she honestly thinks I might be the best person for the job? That’s not possible?”

  “Of course that’s part of the reason. Don’t misunderstand. My mother would also never let anyone near those archives who she didn’t believe was more than capable of handling them. It’s just…”

  “It’s just what?”

  “The family has never let anyone near them. I’ve always been under the impression that they hold some sort of awful secrets, or at the very least, the sort of information that would reflect poorly on our family name.”

  “Every family has secrets, Beau.”

  “Not like mine.” The raw edge to his voice worms its way into my chest.

  I scoot closer again until one of my knees presses against his thigh. It’s hard to pinpoint the source of the worry that grabs at my lungs, squeezes the back
of my neck, but secrets? Amelia is right about those: they’ll get us nowhere.

  “Are you saying you don’t want me to accept the job?” I swallow hard. “Because it’s an amazing opportunity for me. Like you said, no one has been near those archives in heaven knows how long and she’s going to let me rifle through them. I want to do it.”

  “You aren’t the kind of woman who would let me tell you what to do. That’s one of the many reasons I’m falling in love with you, Gracie Anne.” He pauses, letting that sink in. Maybe for me, maybe for him. Maybe for us both. Our eyes meet, his hazel ones a storm of emotion and wetter than I’ve ever seen them. “I love you.”

  My heart explodes in my chest and the world beyond the swing, beyond the porch, blurs. My eyes well up and I choke on my fear. There are a million worries careening off the inside of my skull. What if I’m wrong again? What if he turns out to be awful? What if this all falls apart? What if I break his heart?

  What if he breaks mine?

  You can’t crawl back from the darkness again, whispers a devil as he lounges near my ear. You’ll never make it.

  My breathing speeds up. Panic encroaches on the moment from all sides, trying to cut me off from my senses, but the solid, steady grip of Beau’s hands around mine feeds calm into my body. The hopeful, adoring look on his face pushes away the fear until it tumbles off the porch and into the street, taking my devils with it.

  I feel a smile stretch my lips, surprising me as relief softens my boyfriend’s face. “I love you, Mr. Mayor.”

  His lips are on mine before I finish the declaration, and I laugh into his mouth. The joy flows between us in the hunger of lips, the curled-up grins, and the desire in a quick brush of tongues. When he eases back we’re both smiling, but I give him a good whack on his solid bicep, anyway.