Not Quite Alive

by Lyla Payne

  “Yep?”

  “When those drugs went missing, you knew my dad was behind it.”

  He nods, watching me the way a hawk watches a rabbit to make sure it doesn’t escape.

  “How?”

  “Got my ways.”

  I want to throttle him. “Do you have proof? Or would you be willing to tell the FBI your story?”

  It’s hard to say whether the FBI would take him seriously as a witness, but it’s worth a shot. If Clete has proof that Frank stole the drugs, that would be one less worry on my plate.

  “I ain’t talkin’ to no feds,” Clete scoffs. “Less you got somethin’ real good ta offer me in exchange.”

  I sigh, realizing that he didn’t give me a real answer. Also that I don’t have anything he wants. He’ll be even less liable to help once he realizes I wasn’t even able to get Travis out of Heron Creek for good.

  The thought makes me pause, and I can’t help but wonder what will happen if Will one day does take over the police department—whether Clete will be okay with that, whether Will might find himself right back where he started, dealing with the moonshiner in ways that walk the line of legality. It’s depressing to think about, to be honest.

  “I’ll consider it,” I tell Clete. “If you really have something that could help me out of this pickle.”

  “I would think ya might trust ol Clete by now, Crazy Gracie. I never got nothin’.”

  As I let Big Ern walk me all the way back to the car—a small act of kindness he’s never given me before—I run through everything Clete said. My takeaway is that he very well might be able to help me out as far as the drugs are concerned, at least if I can show him there’s something in it for him.

  And that he seems to agree with Amelia, and Henry, too—whatever happened to Frank could very well have to do with me.

  Amelia’s car is still gone when I park my car in my grandparents’ driveway in Heron Creek, and when I realize that it’s only been three hours, I have a hard time believing it. Going out there, seeing Clete…it’s almost as if time stands still, or like stepping into an alternate universe. It feels like the trip must have taken all day.

  Cade Walters waves at me from his porch a few doors away. His friendliness, and his separateness from the rest of my life here, tempts me to join him for another drink or two, but then my phone rings with a FaceTime call from my boyfriend.

  No contest.

  I swipe open the call on my phone, holding it up in front of my face as I walk toward the front door. “Hey, handsome,” I greet him as I open the front door.

  “Gracie.” Beau smiles, but it seems tight. Maybe it’s only the small screen. “How are you?”

  “I’ve been better,” I confess, not wanting to pretend everything is going fine. Not with Beau. “It’s awfully good to see your face.”

  “Yours, too,” he says, his eyes tired. “It’s been a hell of an introduction up here.”

  I pause as I step into the house and turn on a few lights, wandering into the living room and spotting my laptop on the coffee table. “Listen, I just got home. Let me call you right back from my computer so I don’t have to hold my phone, okay?”

  Beau agrees and I grab a glass of water before settling on the couch and dialing him back from my Mac, ready for as long of a conversation as he has time to give me. Even though we’ve been texting regularly, ever since this thing with Lucy began, I’ve sensed a disconnect between us that feels as if it might be about more than distance.

  “How was your day?” I ask him first, because I want so badly to act like things are normal.

  I listen while he tells me about roll calls and arguments, about partisan bullshit and the fact that they haven’t voted on a single measure since he’s been there. It makes me want to be there to hug him. To find a way to make him laugh, so we can both forget, if only for a moment, that the last couple of weeks ever happened.

  “How about you?” Beau asks, carefully, when there’s a lull on the screen. The way he says it makes me suspect he knows quite a bit already—not about my visit to Clete, of course, but maybe Brick has spilled the disheartening news Amelia brought out of the federal building.

  Not to mention that I had to go into the local police station to be interrogated by one of my oldest friends.

  “My day? This one hasn’t been too awful,” I tell him, which is true. “I had the day off, of course.”

  “Yeah? I’m jealous. Tell me you spent it in front of Netflix with a tub of ice cream and I may weep.”

  That makes me laugh, and my heart lifts the slightest bit. “I wish. But even if I had, it wouldn’t have been nearly as fun without you here.”

  “If I were there, we wouldn’t have been watching so much television. You should take this opportunity to really get caught up on some shows,” he teases, and the shine in his eyes tells me that he’s feeling the lightness, too.

  What I wouldn’t give to be that carefree woman, able to waste an entire day now and then without anyone—dead or alive—knocking on her proverbial door. That’s not my life, though. Not right now. The sadness that creeps into Beau’s eyes says he knows that as well as I do.

  “That’s true…but I went out to see Clete, anyway. Got my exercise and fresh air and all of that.”

  “Oh?” Cautious Beau is back. He looks as though he wants to lecture me, or to ask whether I went out there alone, but he does neither. “How’s that crusty old criminal doing?”

  “The same, except he may be giving up tobacco.” My smile falls away as quickly as it tried to materialize. “He says he doesn’t know anything about who might have killed Frank, but he insinuated that it might have something to do with his decision to come and find me.”

  Beau’s eyebrows go up, and our gazes connect. “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know, but Amelia kind of thinks the same thing after Henry informed me he thinks I killed my father.” My heart aches at the memory. “Not that I hit him over the head, but that something I’ve done or said, or maybe just something I am, led to that moment.”

  He doesn’t respond right away, and the longer the silence stretches, the more it makes me want to scream. There has been too much of it lately, too much time for questions and questions and more questions to rattle around in my head.

  “I want to say that sounds crazy,” he finally starts, after much deliberation. “But after what Clete said last week, and what Will told you about that call…maybe you’re right. But who, Gracie? Who wants you arrested, and why?”

  “That’s the million-dollar question,” I sigh. “And I honestly have no idea.”

  Clearly, he doesn’t either. Beau is a smart man—it’s one of the more attractive things about him—and I know that he’s gone through the same list of known suspects that I have.

  “Oh! There is one thing.”

  I go on to tell him about my chat with Will, and how the FBI is hinging their accusations on the videotape they say I could have tampered with, a tidbit I’ve been thinking about off and on since Will brought it to my attention.

  “Well, first of all, they’ll have to connect the drug case to Frank’s death, so they’re probably not as close as you think to making an arrest. So the real question is, who had access to that tape?”

  “I’ve made a list in my head, but none of the people on it seem like suspects.” I sigh. “Me, of course. Daria. Travis, the Ryans, and anyone else who was volunteering at the police department that week. The people at the hospital, before they turned it over.”

  “Well, if none of the names you know seem like they could be behind the attempt to frame you, maybe it’s time you find out exactly who would have pulled the security tape at the hospital.” Beau frowns. “Because I agree, none of those people seem like possible culprits. Maybe Daria? I mean, we don’t know her that well.”

  I thought the same thing myself not a week ago when I stopped by her trailer. Even though it’s hard to consider, aside from
Travis, she’s the person on my list whom I know the least about. I’m dismissing Travis because I finally know why he’s here, and though it does have something to do with Frank Fournier, Travis is the last person who would have wanted him dead. The answers to my half-brother’s questions perished with our father, which is one of several reasons it doesn’t make sense to assume it’s him.

  Of course, it doesn’t really make sense that anyone would be, not with the information I currently have.

  “Brick and Birdie are putting their investigator on both things, too, so hopefully they’ll turn something up.” Beau sighs. “I hate this for you, Gracie. I hate not being able to fix it.”

  “Oh, Mr. Mayor.” I pause, wondering if I should correct myself and call him Senator, but don’t. I need familiar patterns right now. “I wish you could fix it, too, but just knowing that you’re on my side helps immensely.”

  “I’ve been on your side since we met. I’m not going anywhere.” He smiles, and this time it’s not quite so worried. It’s trying to be reassuring, but it doesn’t quite make it there, either. “I got an update from Afghanistan today.”

  I perk up, happy for news that has nothing to do with me. Anxious to have this woman who magically finds things locate Lucy so I can move at least one thing permanently off my plate. Henry, I think, is on his way out. At least, I thought so before he showed up accusing me of having killed his puppet-master. Sheesh. If he really believes that, you’d think he’d be more grateful. It’s not like he ever seemed to like Frank.

  “Oh?”

  “Nothing huge,” he says quickly; a warning not to get too excited. “She met with Brick’s investigator, apparently caused some kind of scene in a cafe, and took off for Pakistan.”

  I pause, wondering whether he’ll be any more forthcoming about Mallory Flores and her background now that his brother and sister aren’t listening. “You think she’ll find Lucy?”

  “I think if anyone is going to find Lucy, it’s going to be her.”

  “So why are y’all just calling her in now? I mean…how long has Birdie known her?”

  Beau chuckles, shaking his head. “Gracie Anne, I can see right through you, you little gossip monger. You’ve no doubt asked my brother and sister about Mal and have been stonewalled, am I right?”

  “Well…”

  “Look, you’re my girlfriend and I love you. I’ll tell you everything I know about Mal, but you cannot let on to my sister that you know—it’s really her story, and ninety-nine percent of the time I would respect that.”

  “I’m part of the one percent?” I joke. “I don’t know if I like that.”

  “It’s working in your favor, so just go with it.” The smile slips from his face and he runs a hand through his hair, leaving it mussed.

  I close my eyes and take a deep breath, imagining that he’s here and I can smell his shampoo and his cologne, that his big, heavy hand rests on my knee while he gets ready to tell me secrets only lovers are privy to. Then I open them and meet his, seeing in them how much he misses me, too.

  “We met Mallory a couple of years after Lucy disappeared, I guess. Birdie was working a criminal case, and someone referred her to Mallory when the investigator was stymied finding a key piece of evidence. It was all very mysterious—a woman, he claimed, who could find anything.” Beau smiles, a nostalgic glow to his face. “And damn if she didn’t find exactly what Birdie needed. They got close during the case, and dated for about a year afterward. They stopped seeing each other when Mal refused to search for Lucy the first time we asked, actually.”

  “What?” I feel the confusion on my face. The last piece of information trumps even the tidbit before it, which is that Birdie has dated women in her life. To be honest, my brain accepted that without so much as a blip—the strange dynamic between them indicated lovers, maybe, or definitely something more than friends. “Mallory acted like she’d never heard of her the other night when we were briefing her.”

  Beau nods. “Doesn’t surprise me. She’s a good person, and she tries to do the right thing, but she’s handicapped by an unidentified mental illness that wreaks havoc on her brain.”

  “Really? She’s not diagnosed?”

  “No. Doctors don’t want to believe her, because what she can do defies explanation and they hate that. But you only have to spend five minutes with the woman to realize that she doesn’t process the world the way that the rest of us do. It makes her special, but sometimes it also makes her miserable.” He frowns. “She’s better now than when she was a child, from what I understand. And the bottom line is that, based on my own personal knowledge of the cases she’s worked on and helped solve, she’s never not found something she went after. So yes, she’ll find Lucy.”

  I can’t help but think there’s a hesitance to his final words. Whether it’s because he’s not sure their friend Mallory will be able to do what she says, or because he’s not sure that he wants her to, is a mystery that keeps my eyes open, my heart unsure, long into the night.

  Chapter Nineteen

  I’m in the too-long line at Westies the next morning—thanks, cold snap—when Leo walks in with Victoria. It’s eight in the morning, she’s wearing scrubs and he’s fresh out of the shower, leaving little room for speculation about the fact that they’ve come from the same place.

  There’s no reason to be unhappy about her spending the night. This is good news for Leo—it shows that Lindsay is getting on board and they’ve introduced Victoria to Marcella, which is a major step forward. But even though I would never say this aloud to anyone who would judge me for being an awful person, my first thought is that I’m going to hate Victoria even more if she takes my place in Marcella’s heart. Right now, I’m her favorite non-family person and I love it.

  “Morning,” I mumble as they take their place behind me in line.

  They both say hello and leave it at that, all of us perhaps the sort of people who would rather not engage in conversation before coffee. There’s plenty of other interesting stuff going on in the coffee shop—the trio of old ladies who enjoy people-watching an average of six hours a day, not to mention Travis skulking at the other end of the counter, stirring milk into his tea with his shoulders hunched up like he’s waiting to be attacked. I recognize everyone else as well, of course, and most of them nod or say hello before turning back to whisper to the others at their table.

  “Are they talking about you or me?” Leo jokes, his blue eyes kind as they connect with mine.

  “Ha. Normally, I’d say me, and it still could be. Since you two are here together and all. Depends on what sort of scandal people are into this morning.”

  “Why are we a scandal?” Victoria asks, her lips screwed up in confusion.

  “Oh, you know.” I wave a hand. “You’re here together first thing in the morning. Clearly sleeping together out of wedlock. But don’t worry. They got over that with Beau and me pretty fast.”

  “Yeah, because they love the mayor,” Leo says. It’s hard to say if he’s being a grump or still teasing, but I don’t have long to puzzle it out because it’s my turn to order.

  “Aww, come on, Leo. People around here love you just as much,” I reply once we’re all on the other end of the counter waiting for our drinks.

  Leo makes a face at me, and I can’t help but wonder if the people of Heron Creek would embrace him even harder if he didn’t insist on living like a drifter, even though he’s never left home. Last week, when he intimated that he was jealous of my calling, that my ghosts have given me the type of purpose that eludes him, I wanted so badly to ask him about his own passions and what happened to them. I chickened out, but if I’m really Leo’s friend, if I care about him as much as he cares about me, I’ll ask eventually.

  Travis tips his head and says good morning on his way out, presumably on his way to work, since he’s already dressed in his uniform. Our eyes meet, and I can see that he wants to say something more—maybe make plans to get together and
talk about Frank’s past—but doesn’t want to in front of Leo. Which is silly. He should know Leo and I don’t have any secrets, but whatever.

  I give him a nod and a tight smile, hoping to communicate that I’ll call him when I’m alone.

  Which I do, as soon as I get to the library. He does have files for us to go through, and we make plans to order pizza and go through them later tonight, then maybe try to summon Lucy together so she can show him where she died.

  The rest of the morning and afternoon slide by without much fanfare. It’s Monday, which tends to be our slowest day of the week, and this one is no exception—Amelia and I spend most of our time shelving, cleaning, and reorganizing the break room so we don’t give in to the desire to curl up on the beanbags in the kid area and take a nap.

  We’re climbing into the car to go home after what seems like the world’s longest day, one not even interrupted by interesting emails from Clara or from the editor at the Journal of American History, when my cell phone rings. I turn on the engine so my old car’s heater can struggle to life and then answer.

  “Miss Harper?”

  My heart skips at the sound of Agent Warren’s voice on the other end of the line. “Yes?”

  “We’d like you to come in and take a look at a few things we found on your father’s body.”

  “Okay. When?”

  “As soon as possible.”

  “I should be able to come tonight,” I agree, then glance at Amelia and bite my lower lip. “If my lawyer can make it.”

  “Great. See you then.”

  He hangs up without so much as a goodbye, leaving me to face my very curious cousin. I sigh at her expectant look. “Agent Warren wants me to look at the things they found on Frank.”

  “Well, that’s intriguing.”

  “Definitely.” Now that my cousin said that, I’m starting to see the upside to this visit as opposed to crapping my pants that I won’t make it out without an ankle monitor. I have faith in Brick and Birdie—maybe too much, but what the hell—and whichever of them goes with me won’t let that happen.