Not Quite Gone (A Lowcountry Mystery)

by Lyla Payne

  I sit back down among my boxes, sifting through them with a different purpose now. Instead of doing what Cordelia Drayton is paying me to do, I search for lists of the property’s occupants. They aren’t that hard to find, though the files aren’t all that well organized. I find a ledger of slaves’ names, where they were acquired, their duties, what pieces of clothing were issued to them and how often, which is great except the years aren’t in order. Some are missing dates entirely. It’s not going to be a fast process, even searching among the house slaves, as Jenna suggested.

  Luckily, I have a few hours, and Jenna grudgingly revealed the other day that there are grape sodas in the mini-fridge at the back. Nothing like some sticky purple Welch’s to pass the time.

  It’s not until three hours later, with paper cuts littering my fingertips and intense growls coming from my stomach, that I realize I never went to grab one. I do have a short list of suspects as far as the helpful female spirit out by the river, though, and that’s got to count for something.

  If I’m going to get back to Heron Creek, have dinner with Amelia, and get to Daria’s before ten, it’s time to go. I drop the pile of potential names on the empty desk, wipe my hands on my shorts, and head out the door.

  The tours are over for the day but Jenna’s car is still in the parking lot when I pull out onto the drive, which makes sense because I didn’t even know she had any contact with the tourists until today. That coffee or lunch needs to happen because a girl as young and pretty and fun as Jenna should not spend every day and night chained to this place, no matter how much she loves it. I feel sort of protective of her, even though she’s not that much younger than me—as though she could benefit from the knowledge of my many, many mistakes. Then again, what’s the fun in not making a few of your own?

  The drive home passes quickly, and the sense of happiness that tickles my cheeks when my car hits Heron Creek surprises me. Worries me, a little, because I’m not sure that I want the rest of my life to be lived in such a small, insulated place. Heron Creek will always be home, but there’s still a big world out there.

  Or maybe that’s just what I’m supposed to think.

  A motorcycle leans on its kickstand in my grandparents’ driveway, knocking me out of my version of philosophical thought. I step on the brakes so hard that my seat belt locks, snapping tight across my chest. “Ow. Good move, dumbass.”

  The visitor is my second surprise of the day—the first was Daria’s call, of course. Maybe this is her again, adding motorcycle chick to her ever-changing menagerie of looks and attitudes.

  But the man at the kitchen table is definitely not Daria.

  His back faces me, so all I see right off is his shiny, light blond hair and slim shoulders underneath a plain gray T-shirt that’s stuck to his back with beads of sweat.

  Amelia meets my gaze over his shoulder, her green eyes huge. Not full of fear. Full of warning.

  And not for herself. For me.

  I clear my throat, trying to dislodge my heart and shake it back where it belongs. I don’t know if it’s some kind of weird genetic beacon or just the fact that I’ve kind of sort-of been expecting him, but this is my father. I know it.

  He turns, slowly, as though he’s either dreading or treasuring this moment of reveal. Then he’s facing me, and the strangest thing is, there’s nothing in there that looks like me.

  “You must be Graciela.” He stands up, crossing to me, and takes my hand in both of his. “I’m Frank Fournier.”

  “Frank.” I pause, my brain moving slowly. “You’re my father.”

  He nods, avoiding my gaze, then catching it, then avoiding it a second time. It spikes my nerves once more. “I do believe that I am.”

  “Wait, what do you mean you believe you are? You don’t know?”

  “Your mother never told me you existed, so no, not technically. My name isn’t on your birth certificate but she and I were…involved in the year before your birth. It wasn’t until recently, after her death, that I became aware of you.”

  “How?”

  He flinches as if I asked him for access to his bank account. “Could we have a drink before we get into that, perhaps?”

  Amelia gets up from the table, grabbing a bottle of bourbon down from the cabinet and pouring two glasses. “Mixer?”

  “Ginger ale,” Frank—my father—requests.

  Same way I drink it, when I’m not showing off for Cordelia. If he didn’t pass down any physical traits, perhaps he’s the one to thank for my love of booze.

  Amelia finishes the drinks, leaves them on the table, then saunters out of the room after eye-checking with me first. I gave her a nod because, what the hell? If a girl can’t trust her father who can she trust?

  Probably a bad question.

  “We can go out on the back deck, if you want,” I offer, picking up both drinks and nodding to the sliding glass door that leads outside. He follows me and we sit at the high-top patio table that was one of the last things Grams bought before she died. I remember because Gramps spent half the month bitching about how he didn’t like his feet swinging above the ground.

  “I’m very happy that you wanted to see me, Graciela. That means a lot.”

  I toy with my glass, watching it slide in tracks of water against the glass tabletop. “I mean, a guy shows up claiming to be my father, who I’ve always believed was dead. It’s kind of a hard thing to resist.”

  “Point taken.”

  He falls silent, gaze cast out over the landscaped backyard and down toward the river. “It’s beautiful here.”

  “Yes. Where are you from?” He doesn’t want to talk about how he found out about me, but the only things in my head are questions, questions, and more questions.

  “Oklahoma.”

  “Landscape’s a little different there, I guess.”

  “And not as pretty, unless you fancy red dirt and oil pumps.” He smiles. “I’d like to get to know you, Graciela. I can’t stay here for long—I don’t stay anywhere for long—but it would be nice if we could keep in touch.”

  The way he says it, sort of wistful or doubtful, raises my interest. “I’d like that, too. Luckily we live in an age of text messaging and Skype and social media, so it shouldn’t be too hard.”

  A frown tugs at his mouth. “I don’t know how to tell you this. We’ve just met, so it’s hard to guess how you’ll react.”

  “Well, I can’t help you with that until I know what you’re going to say. But I think I’m a pretty reasonable person. Most of the time.” As long as he doesn’t want to mess with Amelia or talk shit about my mom or grandparents, there’s not much he could blurt that would offend me. In theory.

  More silence. It starts to unnerve me, so I slam my drink in two swallows and spend the extra time mentally preparing myself. It seems as though my dreams of having the kind of dad who’d play catch with me in the backyard are slipping away faster than grass goes through a goose.

  Which is maybe okay since I’m nowhere near coordinated enough to catch anything.

  “Has anything ever happened to you that you can’t understand? Or explain?” he asks me.

  My heart stops beating and I stare at him, unable to conceal my shock. How could he know that? Why would he ask me such a thing?

  It occurs to me now that this guy could be some kind of con artist. Maybe word got back to David about my seeing ghosts down here and this whole thing is a twisted joke. Something he and my old “friends” will laugh about at their next dinner party before they all sneak off into rooms with one another’s spouses and bottles of Xanax.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I manage around the shame and fear and the crippling horror that comes with being duped.

  He’s watching me, some of the same uncertainty on his face. “I’m talking about voices. Apparitions. I thought you people had an excess of that kind of shit down here.”

  “I think you should leave.” I’m not sure if I want him to leave, really, but I can’t have this di
scussion without thinking it through, first. This whole thing is too new. It’s too big, has too many implications for my life, and talking about it with a perfect stranger whose intentions here are as clear as mud? Nope.

  “I’m not making fun of you.” He levels me with a dark gaze, the first time he’s held eye contact since we met. It’s unnerving. “It runs in our family. The sight, the gift, the juju or strangeness, whatever you want to call it.”

  My brain isn’t working. It’s numb, as though it made a trip to the dentist without me and came home soaked in novocaine. After a long time, he gets up to leave, but not before he reaches a hand into his hair and deliberately plucks out a couple of strands, leaving them secured under his cup.

  Just before he gets to the patio door, my tongue starts working. “Wait. I just… I need some time but I don’t want you to go leaving for good.”

  “I didn’t come all the way here just to slink away, darlin’.”

  “Can you leave your phone number?”

  “Don’t have a phone.”

  “We could meet at the coffee shop in town. Westies.”

  “I’d rather stay out of sight, if you don’t mind. I could come back this weekend. Can’t stick around much longer than that, I’m afraid.”

  I nod, agreeing. For now.

  “Okay. It was very nice to meet you, Graciela, even if you are the spittin’ image of Felicia.”

  Frank Fournier—my father—walks away. There’s no guarantee he’ll show up again, given that I didn’t know he existed before a few weeks ago. Despite the talk about keeping in touch, he didn’t leave a number, but my gut says he will. It says he came here to tell me something, or to find out something, and even though he’s being pretty mysterioso about his comings and goings, there’s little to no chance he’s going to leave without taking care of business.

  What I don’t know is whether to be worried or relieved.

  Chapter Ten

  Amelia squeezes onto the back deck less than a minute later, pinpoints of color bright on her cheeks. Her eyes are still wide but relieved, probably to find me alive. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine. He didn’t try to murder me or eat my brains or anything.”

  “Grace, for goodness’ sake. Don’t be so dramatic.” My cousin eases into the chair vacated by Frank, rolling her eyes. “Tell me what he said.”

  “He asked me whether anything ever happened to me that I couldn’t explain. Like an apparition or a voice. And then I asked him to leave.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned.” If possible, her eyes grow rounder. “Grace…”

  “I know. I mean, chances are he’s about to tell me about some mental illness that runs rampant on his side of the family and explain this whole thing.”

  “More likely he’s going to tell you seeing ghosts runs in the family. This is amazing. You’re finally going to get some answers.” She gives me a look. “You could have already asked for them. Why’d you throw him out?”

  “I don’t know. He could be so full of shit that his eyes have turned brown.” My teeth worry my lower lip. “What if it’s a trap or a trick? David sending some backwoods actor down here to make fun of me.”

  “This is going to sound harsh but I’m going to say it anyway because I love you.” She levels me with an exasperated gaze. “David doesn’t care enough about you to go to this much trouble.”

  “Ouch.” It doesn’t hurt as much as maybe it should. As maybe it would have two months ago before Beau slowly but surely started to show me—or remind me—of a different sort of man and a different sort of relationship in a better kind of life.

  “I’m serious. Even if he somehow got wind of your new career path, there’s no way he would go to this much trouble to humiliate you. I don’t know who this guy is or if he’s really your father, but he thinks he is—and whatever he came here for is real.”

  “My gut says you’re right. But that doesn’t make it less scary. Or less weird.” I nod at Frank’s empty bourbon glass, the strands of his hair still trapped underneath. “Check it out.”

  She peers closer, then reels back, an almost comical look of horror on her face. “Is that hair? Like, out of his head?”

  “Better out of his head than somewhere else.” I snort. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to do with it.”

  “Get it tested for DNA, obviously. Frank’s trying to expel any worries you might have as to whether or not he’s actually your father. Don’t you want to know?”

  “Yeah. Yeah, I do.” I need to know. If we’re going to move forward, form some kind of relationship—or more importantly, talk about my ghostly abilities in the context of family and genetics—this is a first step. “How do we even go about this?”

  “That’s what Google is for, Grace. I swear to the good Lord above, sometimes you haven’t got the good sense God gave a goose. Or you’re just a little too comfortable living like the rest of this town—fifty years in the past.”

  “Hey, don’t knock the past. It sure was simpler.”

  She shakes her head, lips pursed. “No, it wasn’t. It only seems that way looking back.”

  My phone buzzes with a text message, and I look down to see that it’s from Will.

  Hey. Mel said she talked to you earlier about having a chat with Travis about jobs at the station. No go or yes go?

  I don’t care how long I live in Heron Creek, I will never take Will’s friendship—or Mel’s—for granted ever again. It feels good to know that they can talk about me, that I can help them, without weirdness.

  Or at least with minimal weirdness.

  Yes go. Talking to Millie about it now and will keep you both updated.

  Word.

  I snort for the second time in as many minutes and flip the phone over, ignoring the missed call from Beau that must have come through while I was focused on Frank. I’ll call him later. If it was something important or he wasn’t feeling well, he would have followed up with a text.

  “So, according to Mel, Will is thinking about applying at the police department.”

  The news surprises Millie less than it shocked me. Now that I’ve had time to really think about it, I think it’s a good fit for more reasons than his law-loving heart. For one, there aren’t many jobs in Heron Creek that are stable and pay decently, and two, Will’s political science degree is, sadly, not good for much. Not to mention there’s not much danger in policing this small town and he’ll have job security. Win-win.

  “I mean, good for him. And honestly, it seems like a no-brainer. There’s not a person in town who likes following the rules like Will Gayle.” Amelia shrugs, looking a little longingly toward the sip of bourbon and ginger still in my father’s tumbler.

  “I know, right?” I mumble, my chest tight.

  Except a couple of weeks ago, he broke some major laws—for me. For Beau. And now he’s lost his job, and his family is in even more trouble than they already were.

  Black, sticky guilt tries to swallow me. Amelia shakes her head at me from across the table. “They’re going to be fine. Mel’s been offered the job at that accountant’s office, too. Harrington.”

  “She told me. It’s a good start.”

  “They’re not your responsibility, Grace. Will made his own choices.”

  “I know. And come tax season, everything will be looking up.” I give her a smile that’s hopefully braver than it feels. “Will wants to know if you’ll talk to Travis. Find out the scoop on whether they’re hiring and put a good word in for him, that sort of thing.”

  The colored spots return to her cheeks. The shrug she gives me is meant to be nonchalant but my cousin doesn’t quite pull it off. “Sure. I can do that. Talking up Will isn’t exactly a challenge.”

  “Right.”

  Her reaction to any mention of Dylan Travis distracts me, gives me pause. I don’t want to bring it up because it’s so clear that Amelia has more important things to focus on than a little crush. Her depression doesn’t seem to be getting better no matter h
ow she tries to act like it is, and even though Travis’s presence in her life seems to help with that, I don’t know… It’s just odd for her to even think about romance right now. Or for me to encourage it.

  Of course, I might be totally wrong. It might be the perfect distraction, exactly what she needs.

  My soul starts to hurt because there was a time when I wouldn’t have had to guess what the best thing was for Millie. I would have known. She would have known.

  As I leave her outside to go in and change for my night out with Daria, my heart drags behind me. I don’t know how the girls we were got so far away from the girls we’ve become, or how to drag them closer again. All I know is that I couldn’t love her more if I tried. That has to count for something.

  Daria’s place of business-slash-house looks the same as when Leo and I were here a few weeks ago—cluttered and dusty, the magazines dated last spring. Her hair is back to her normal, close-cropped blond and she’s back to sporting normal clothes. Her jean shorts are a respectable length, if a tad ratty, and her black tank top matches her fingernail polish.

  “Oh good. You’re here. Do you want something to drink?”

  “Water?”

  “Water? Are you kidding?” Daria shakes her head, striding over to a wet bar in the corner of the room. “I always have a drink before I go on a spirit walk. Calms the nerves, opens me up a little. Try it.”

  Huh. I never would have thought that my problem is not drinking enough. Maybe my drunkenness and brief flirtation with alcoholism is what made it so easy for Anne to find me during my first weeks back in Heron Creek.

  I have my doubts but accept the gin and tonic—horrible drink—that she sets in my hand. “Can you tell me anything about where we’re going? Or is this, like, a test or something?”

  “This is a job that I’m being paid for, not amateur hour for you. I only know what the homeowners have told me, which isn’t much since I prefer to know as little as possible before I walk a property. I’ll often research it afterward to put together a file of my findings and recommendations, but it’s better to go in with a blank slate.”