by Lyla Payne
“Look, it was nothing. They’re not going to convict me of anything. I kept my mouth shut at the station, and Will and Mel came to bail me out.”
“When was this?” Beau asks, suddenly pale.
“Last night,” I whisper.
“You called and I didn’t … I couldn’t answer.”
“Well, it’s a goddamn good thing you didn’t answer. Can you imagine the papers if you’d showed up at the jail? Where you know the majority of the cops, and supposedly bribed them and half of the city employees for good measure?”
“I’m sorry,” I fret. “I should have thought about that. But it’s no big deal, I swear.”
“It is a big deal. I should be there when you need me, no matter what’s going on in my life.” Beau reaches out and puts his big, bearlike hand over mine. Warmth floods back into my limbs, and the fear that was turning me into an ice sculpture starts to thaw. “Let me guess. This historic property is the Thomas Rose House?”
I give him my best regretful, sheepish shrug, and he chuckles, pulling me into his chest for a hug. I breathe in deep, enjoying the sweet, spicy smell of him and wanting to rip his clothes off more than ever. He may not agree with my tactics or my fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants way of following these silly spirits around town, but he’s getting used to it. He accepts it as part of me, no matter how irritated he gets at the occasional negative side effects.
And the fact that I don’t always come clean about what’s going on until after I get busted.
Brick opens his mouth, rage spilling from his eyes into his red cheeks and down into his fisted hands. He’s clearly about to blow his top but Beau leaps to his feet, scooting between us to block my view of his brother before the anger seeps into his mouth and he flings it at me.
“Brick, turn around and leave. As always, I appreciate the way you look out for your big brother, but this is my girlfriend. She’s important to me, and just because I’m in a bit of a tight spot currently, it does not mean that she has to change the way she lives her life. Got it?”
He says all this through clenched teeth, his entire body rigid from top to bottom, his posture almost menacing. I peek around his bulky frame to see if steam is coming out of Brick’s ears but am disappointed. He does look as though he’s the one resisting throwing me the bird this time.
“You’re making a mistake with this girl,” he says softly before his gaze slides to me. “If you care for him, you’ll understand what his ambition is going to require. And that you can never give it to him.”
He spins and leaves the room, slamming the door to the den behind him with such force that the pictures rattle on the walls. Beau’s law degree crashes to the hardwood floor, the tinkling sound of shattering glass punctuating his brother’s departure. My hands shake and my stomach twists into the kinds of knots only sailors can tie as Brick’s words really sink in, because he’s just so cotton-picking right.
We’re wrong for each other. We so are, but things have been going so well that neither of us has thought too hard about the long term. About what happens when our differences come to a head, when we have to stop sweeping the big questions under the rug in favor of sex and giggle fits and innuendo that sets my skin on fire.
Tonight, right now, isn’t the time to start examining things in earnest. Beau needs support and I’m going to give it to him. More than that, I’m going to clear his name if it’s within my power to make that happen.
“I’m so sorry, Graciela. I promise that once this is over you’ll never have to deal with my shitty family ever again.”
I slide my arms around his waist, looking up into his handsome, slightly too rugged face, and try on a smile. I pretend I don’t see the lingering hurt in the lines around his eyes, the silent wishing that I’d been honest, had let him be prepared for a fight he didn’t know was coming. “I don’t know if you can make that promise. Not if you want to keep me around.”
“I do want that.” He plants a kiss on my nose, his hands locked around my waist. “Even if you are certifiable sometimes. Thank goodness for William and Melanie.”
“That’s the truth. Even though Will gave me a longer lecture than you would have.”
He chuckles. “You seem to need someone in your life to be the voice of reason, since you’re missing yours.”
“Yep. I only have two devils.” I shake my head at his look of confusion. “Not important. What do you think about going to bed? I’m pretty tired.”
“I’m not tired, but you can always talk me into going to bed.”
He is tired. He’s exhausted, and despite his magnanimous way of handling tonight, I’ve made it worse. Again. Which is exactly why, in the light of what just happened, I should tell him about my deal with Clete, beg him to help me find the truth, and let Brick and the rest of the Drayton family throw their money and influence behind the investigation into Wellington.
But I don’t.
First, if Brick’s worth his salt, he’s already looking for alternate explanations. Second, I need proof. I can’t come to him with harebrained theories and ask him to do something for Clete without having anything to back up his claims. Proof that we’re going to get him out of this in one piece, big crazy dreams intact.
Beau sweeps me off my feet, carrying me into the bedroom and dropping me on the bed like a caveman as I let laughter overtake me. I shove everything else to the back of my mind and let him forget along with me, lost in pleasure and smiles and kisses and all of the things that won’t matter once he finds out his girlfriend has tossed him out of the frying pan and straight into the fire.
Well, in the words of history’s bitchiest literary heroine, I’ll think about that tomorrow.
Chapter Eighteen
Amelia might have agreed to counseling without argument, but that doesn’t mean we’re not fighting. We’re also not speaking, apparently, and since the only other alive person in the house is Aunt Karen, I’m about to lose my mind halfway through Sunday. Beau and I had a lazy morning and fixed brunch, but that was all the time Brick could manage to cough up without experiencing apoplexy, so I’m on my own for the rest of the day.
I ignore a couple of text messages from Melanie asking whether Beau and I had a chance to talk, and Detective Travis ignores a couple of calls from me, suggesting he either hasn’t found anything or has decided that getting involved wouldn’t look good, especially with the trial already scheduled.
My blood feels as though it’s trying to escape my body, leaving me itchy all over. Dr. Ladd is back, dogging my heels as I pace my room. I try a walk down by the waterfront, which does little to clear my head and less to get rid of my ghost. It does leave me sweaty as all get-out. A late lunch of tuna salad and grapes gives me bad breath but no peace, and by late afternoon I can’t sit around for another minute doing nothing.
Helping Dr. Ladd is out, at least until the heat dies down in Charleston. Henry still refuses to communicate anything remotely helpful, and even though the curse slinks through the grass, nothing Odette has said has given me any real ideas as far as solving that riddle.
Which leaves Beau’s case. The Carusos, the DA’s office. Lindsay.
I need proof. Clete and the other moonshiners hear things, and I’ve promised—in bad faith, of course, but that’s beside the point—to do something for them.
Maybe I can push for more than a name.
The number he called from the other day rings forever when I try it back from my cell. I guess moonshiners either don’t believe in voice mail or, more likely, the number belongs to the pay phone at that broken-down gas station a few miles from his house. Shanty. Whatever.
I toy with the thought of going out there to see him until it becomes a Thing I Am Going to Do, even though it’s bound to piss him off. Just the reminder that I can find him as easily as he can find me won’t ingratiate me with him, but maybe it’s time he admits there are two sides to this relationship. If I’m going to figure out how to get his stupid application approved, and I intend to do my b
est, then he needs to step up to the plate.
“I’m going for a drive,” I announce, popping my head into the kitchen.
Aunt Karen is at the sink peeling potatoes and Amelia’s at the table, a thick book open in front of her but her gaze trained out the window. For the first time all day she looks right at me, something other than vague hurt clouding her bright green eyes—suspicion.
I hold my breath, almost hoping she’s going to insist I tell her what’s going on, but after a moment she turns back to the pages. I cover my disappointment by shoving my driver’s license, credit card, and a twenty-dollar bill in my back pocket, then grab my keys off the hook underneath the corded phone—our own personal museum of relics, this house.
“I’m making meatloaf and mashed potatoes if you want dinner.”
“Garlic mashed potatoes?” I ask, unable to stop myself from sounding hopeful.
“Of course.”
“I won’t be gone long.” That’s the plan, anyway.
My car hasn’t made the last turn out of Heron Creek when my phone rings, the display blinking with the same number I tried calling earlier. I pull over into the parking lot for the community pier and answer, glancing over my shoulder. There’s no one around, but Clete calling now makes me wonder if I’ve given him too little credit. Maybe there are freaking bugs in my car or in my room or in our house… .
Take a chill pill before Dr. Farmer starts sneaking you the antipsychotics, Graciela.
“Hello?”
“Where ya headed, crazy lady?”
Another glance behind me, even squinting this time, reveals nothing more than the first. “Are you watching me?”
“I got eyes everywhere, you know that. Or maybe you think ol’ Clete just runnin’ his mouth with nuthin’ to back it up?”
“No, I definitely don’t think that.” I pause, wondering how far to push him. “But I don’t appreciate being watched. I’ll certainly think twice about being helpful to or making deals with people whose idea of a good time is stalking me.”
“Ain’t no stalker,” he grumbles. “Happens I’m in Heron Creek myself on some business and saw ya headed my direction. Unless you and Big Ern got sumpthin’ goin’ on that’s a secret from ol’ Clete.”
That makes me snort. I can’t help it. “That’s not happening.”
“Maybe it’s Cooter, then. He has been thinkin’ bout gettin’ him some new teeth. That for your benefit?”
“Clete, stop. I was coming to see you, okay?”
“What fer?”
“I’ve got lots of questions and no answers. I mean, my friends and I are going out on a lot flimsier limb for you than you are for us, that’s all.”
There’s a long pause on the other end of the line. I can’t hear the sound of a car engine or air-conditioning, so either he’s pulled over, too, or he was never in a car to begin with. There’s no way to guess whether he’ll talk to me or not, but the sailor nerves in my belly keep on twisting their fancy knots anyway.
“Where you at? You pull over?”
“Yes. At the community pier.”
I can almost hear him shake his head, and I wonder what my familiarity with moonshining rednecks says about me. I also wonder whether Clete and Big Ern will start wearing shirts, maybe to business meetings at least, if they become legit moonshiners.
Legit moonshiners. It’s almost disgraceful. They should be ashamed of themselves, calling themselves outlaws and then filling out paperwork with the great state of South Carolina asking permission.
Oh well. It’s all about the cash.
“Pier’s too busy, ’specially on a Sunday. How about your place?”
“My cousin and my aunt are there. Nope.” I stop and think, deciding quickly that my own turf is the best place to meet him even if we can’t use the house. “We’ve got a private dock, though. Just half a mile or so behind the house.”
“I can be there in ten.”
He hangs up before I can remark that anyone can be anywhere in Heron Creek in less than ten minutes. I take a few deep breaths and resist the urge to check my entire person and car for bugs, thus avoiding the loony bin for another day. Still fighting the good fight on that front.
I’m home in five minutes but don’t want to leave my car in the driveway. I mean, Aunt Karen probably won’t really care where I’ve gone or call out the guard or anything, but the fewer questions the better—that’s my motto. Leaving it around the corner or down the street has its own perils, since most places are within binocular distance and Mrs. Walters will be home from church by now. Then again, it is prime nap time for people like me—and people over the age of sixty—so I park the car around the corner from my grandparents’ house. It’s hidden should my cousin or aunt wander outside—unlikely—and out of direct sight of the immediate neighbors.
Maybe I am getting paranoid. Maybe I should be.
Clete’s not at the dock when I get there, my legs and ankles stinging from wading through the knee-high river grasses and weeds. This place feels like freedom and smells like my childhood, but there’s too much anxiety, too many unknowns rippling through me for it to provide any happiness. The mysteries crowding me wink off the gentle waves, surfing the salty breeze as it threads through my hair, taunting me like little fairies. There are clues I’ve missed, pieces of truths that went unnoticed, rocks that settled before I could search underneath them.
I’m sitting on a dock knee-deep in questions that suck at me like muck in a bog, and time is running out. Maybe not for Dr. Ladd or Henry Woodward, although historically, just because my ghosts are dead it doesn’t mean their issues aren’t pressing, but certainly for Beau. Maybe for Amelia and her baby, too.
“Evenin’, darlin’.”
I whirl, startled even though there’s no reason to be, and spy Clete strolling toward me. He looks so at home in this setting I almost believe he’s always been here—frayed jean shorts, ratty sandals, a homemade sleeveless shirt that shows far more of his scrawny frame that anyone needs to see, and a filthy cap that showcases his impressive, greasy brown mullet.
“Hey, Clete.” I force myself to stay seated on one of the worn benches along the water, erected for fishing and watching children swim. The last thing I want to do is let him see that he makes me nervous. “What gives?”
He shrugs, leaning over the river to spit tobacco juice into the brackish water. “Nothing. You got a nice place here.”
“Thanks. It’s not really mine.”
Clete looks me up and down in a way that could be lewd but strangely feels more fatherly. “Yes it is. Maybe not officially or in the county records office or whatever, but it’s yours.”
It’s silly but this backwoods hillbilly saying that I belong here, that I look like a Southerner and a South Carolinian and, most importantly, a daughter of Heron Creek, fills my chest with both panic and pleasure. They’re like butterflies, their wings beating at each other as they grapple for dominance inside me. Neither wins before Clete raises his eyebrows at me, and I know it’s time to put up or shut up.
Shit or get off the pot, as Gramps would say.
“What else do you know about this Chandler Wellington dude? If he’s on the take from the Caruso family, how? Why? What’s his interest?”
“Money, I ’spect.”
“Clete, I need proof. Just claiming that it was someone else at the DA’s office taking those bribes and doling out unfair sentences isn’t going to help. Without more than that, Beau’s going to look like a desperate man trying to throw anyone else under the bus to cast a shadow of doubt.”
He studies me for a moment. I feel the weight of his gaze even though I’m looking out over the water, glaring at those little fairies skipping across the waves. Taunting me.
“I heard he and one of the Caruso boys go way back. One of them uppity boarding schools, sumpthin’ like that. Don’t know what kind of deal they got or why a fancy lawyer kid would keep doin’ favors for a lowlife, but that’s what I got.” He peers at me when I
look back, and our eyes lock. “Here’s what I do know, Crazy Gracie. Boys with names like Chandler Wellington don’t do nothin’ out the goodness of their hearts. Nope. It’s money, one way or another. ”
I turn that over in my mind, let it sink in. “You’re saying either there’s money in it for Wellington or Caruso’s got him over a barrel somehow. Blackmail.”
“Mmm-hmm.” He nods, stuffing another hunk of tobacco in his lip. “Maybe both.”
We both stare out at the river now, and a sideways glance leaves me wondering what he sees when he looks out over this strange leftover saltwater path that defines our little town. Heron Creek isn’t Clete’s home. I’m guessing when he needs answers, when he needs to feel better about whatever sorts of things get under the skin of outlaws, he goes and watches the sun set over the mountains. It’s just as beautiful, I’m sure, but this is the place that wraps me in comfort.
“Thanks, Clete. You’ve given me a place to start, anyway.”
“Our deal’s still on?”
My stomach lurches. “Yep. One application moved to the top of the pile.”
He moves closer, his stale breath hot on my bare shoulder as he pauses behind me. “Not just to the top of the pile, Crazy Gracie. I want one of those nice, big stamps says ‘Approved.’”
I nod, praying he can’t see my pulse pounding in my neck from such a close distance. If he does, he doesn’t say a word about it, just strides back up the creaking wooden planks and out of my life.
For now.
Aunt Karen always serves dinner on old-folk’s time, which means if I run into town to try to catch Travis before his shift ends I’m going to be late. That said, with Amelia barely eating and Aunt Karen never able to shake a lifetime obsession with counting calories, there will be plenty of food left. Mashed potatoes, garlic or otherwise, never warm up quite as good as they were originally, but I suppose mediocre starch is a small price to pay if it helps Beau.
Twilight creeps over Heron Creek like a silver fog of magic rolling through the streets. Lights turn on, the gauzy glow from windows joining with the fading spill of sunlight to turn the town, which has seen better days, picturesque. The old homes with their peeling paint, businesses with letters missing from their cheesy signs, giant oak trees lined up like sentinels and dripping globs of Spanish moss onto the cracked sidewalks all adds up to a Norman Rockwell wet dream. For all of the downsides to living in a small town and as much as I know Will’s right about me having to think about a real career at some point, I love this place. Leaving was one of the biggest mistakes of my life, and at the moment, I can’t think of one single thing that could convince me to do it again.
