Not Quite Clear (A Lowcountry Mystery)
Page 1
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!
Secrets Don’t Make Friends
Secrets Don’t Make Friends
Secrets Don’t Make Friends
Also By Lyla Payne
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright 2015 by Lyla Payne
Cover Photography by Iona Nicole Photography
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, Cheryl Heinrich
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 Gone
Quite Precarious (December 29th, 2015)
Mistletoe & Mr. Right
Sleigh Bells & Second Chances (October 6, 2015)
SECRETS DON’T MAKE FRIENDS
Secrets Don’t Make Friends (November 17th, 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 12th, 2016)
THE HISTORIANS
Return Once More (October 20th, 2015)
To anyone out there who has a ghost or two of your own. Gracie and I wish you the best of luck in figuring out how to get rid of them, and move on with your lives.
Chapter One
If anyone had tried to tell me six months ago that one day I’d be standing in front of a ghost discussing whether or not to help voodoo curse my boyfriend, I would have laughed till I cried. So little time has passed, but so much has changed. There is nothing in the world I believe impossible.
Case in point: Right now, a dead voodoo queen named Mama Lottie is staring me down, waiting for my answer.
I squeeze my fists together, palms slick with sweat. My gut screams that throwing my lot in with this ghost can lead to nothing but trouble. After all, I don’t understand why she’s so keen on helping my cousin Amelia and me break our family curse. Yet my brain—and my heart—know that we’re not all going to survive if we keep trying to go it alone.
“Graciela, I suggest you answer the nice woman so we can get the hell out of here,” Daria hisses, her eyes wide. There’s a sheen on the medium’s forehead that, like my own, probably doesn’t have anything to do with the muggy October night. Her nerves skitter off her skin, lifting into the starlit night and over to me, prodding me to make a decision.
Mama Lottie watches me from under her loose, dingy white turban, her dark eyes enigmatic. They sear my skin, as though lifting it away to peer at the blood and bones underneath so as to better understand how to manipulate me.
A million questions flit through my mind, too many and too fast to catch. They start and end with why: Why should we trust her? Why would a woman who can break a centuries-old curse need help from me to curse someone else? And why do I have an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach that agreeing will steal what’s left of my soul?
“Graciela,” Daria says again, a tremor in her voice that’s impossible to miss.
My own heart skids around in my chest, as anxious to get out of here as the rest of me. A slow smile spreads over Mama Lottie’s face, her round cheeks glowing pink, teeth so white they’re brighter than the moon. I realize my head is nodding and force it to stop.
“I have to think about it,” stammers free from my chest and into the night.
The hesitant response doesn’t seem to upset her. It doesn’t dislodge her smile, either, though a sharp glint shines in her eyes as she studies me more closely, moving a few steps toward us. Daria backs up, and Mama Lottie opens her mouth, talking, but unlike a few moments earlier, I can’t hear her.
I inch closer to Daria since she’s the one who can usually hear the ghosts. “What’s she saying?”
“She says she’ll give you seven days to make up your mind, and in the meantime, she’s going to give you a good-faith demonstration of her ability to follow through on her end of the bargain.” Daria swallows, tiptoeing a few more steps away from the ghost, toward my car and the promise of escape.
“Okay. Whatever.” My eyes are locked on Mama Lottie’s smile, which strikes me as ghoulish and sinister.
Maybe that’s just how it looks in my mind but she scares me, and she terrifies Daria, who has far more experience with this sort of thing than I do. Then again, this ghost has done nothing but help me since the first moment I saw her. Now that I know she hates the Draytons, though, it seems more than slightly likely that even though she meant to save me from that poisonous snake, she was less than concerned about it biting my boyfriend, Beauregard, of the aforementioned Draytons.
Confusion tangles my logic, trying to trip me up, and I swallow hard before cutting a glance at Daria. “Is she… Will she let us go?”
Daria pauses, closing her eyes for a count of three before slowly nodding. “Yes. She wants you to give your help freely. It seems to be important to her. We can go.”
“Let’s do that, then.” I take one last look at Mama Lottie, indecision twisting my lips. “Thank you. I just… This is a lot. I know we need help, but I need to talk to Amelia.”
The spirit nods, and Daria and I beat it across the lawn at Drayton Hall with squishy, fast footsteps. Her fingers dig into my forearm when I reach for the car door, dragging me to a stop, and she holds on tight when I try to jerk away.
“What are you doing?” I demand.
“We have to ground.” Her features are pinched, complexion pasty. “Do it well, Graciela. Close the door tight.”
I may be confused about what to do about Mama Lottie and her offer, but Daria doesn’t have to tell me twice that the voodoo ghost following me home isn’t ideal.
Five minutes later we’re both in the car, the windows down, the fresh air making it easier to breathe. My fingers shake no matter how tight I grip t
he wheel, and from the passenger seat, the sound of Daria taking deep breaths in through her nose and out through her mouth starts to unnerve me.
“It’s okay, right? She’s not going to get us or anything?”
She gives me an incredulous look. “Get us? No. She’s not a vampire.”
“You know what I mean.” I pull the car back out onto the highway, heading for Daria’s place of business instead of home to Heron Creek, where I want to go hide my head under the covers like a kid who’s convinced the monsters in the closet can’t see her if she can’t see them.
“I don’t know what she’s capable of, honestly.” Daria’s fingers tap an incessant rhythm on her knees. “She’s not here, though. I mean, with us.”
“That doesn’t mean she won’t show up later.”
“That’s more your issue than mine, dollface.”
The glib and vaguely dismissive tone is more familiar. It releases some of the tension balled up in my neck and shoulder blades, oddly comforting. “I’ll keep you apprised.”
We ride in silence for the better part of the ten-minute drive to her office. House. Both, as far as I can tell. I throw the car into park but don’t switch off the ignition or make a move to get out.
Daria reaches for the door handle, then pauses. Her eyes search my face, calmer now and back to seeking some sort of answer I seriously doubt I have.
“What are you going to do, Graciela?”
I pause, wondering how to put my jumbled feelings and thoughts and instincts into words. “Um, I have no earthly idea. Basically.”
She nods, still watching me too closely. “Look, I don’t blame you for wanting help on this whole curse thing, not if it’s even half as bad as you seem to think. But that woman… I don’t trust her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Spirits are usually pretty straightforward. They want something or they’re holding on to something, and one emotion typically rules their essence. Mama Lottie…she can hide. Her body, her intentions, her thoughts—even her words, the way she did from you when she wanted to.”
“You said she’s powerful.” Daria nods, and I straighten my back, calling on courage that’s struggling to materialize. “That’s exactly why I need her.”
“I guess that’s true. I think she can make things happen, for what it’s worth. I’m just not sure they’re going to be exactly the things you’re expecting.” She pushes open the door without waiting for a response. It slams shut behind her.
“Join the club,” I mutter to no one in particular, checking the backseat out of habit to make sure no ghosties have decided to hitch a ride the way Anne Bonny did my first week back in Heron Creek.
I wait until Daria’s safe inside her office before taking a deep breath, putting the car into reverse, and heading home.
It turns out that my old Honda pilots me to Beau’s home instead of the one my grandparents used to share. Odd, since I don’t live with him, and honestly I can’t really imagine myself in the stately mansion along the river, no matter how beautiful it or the man who resides inside happen to be. I used to have those dreams—the giant house, the sweeping porches, the whisper of a salty breeze through the Spanish moss—but now, I don’t know. It’s not as though I’d turn it down, but maybe I think there’s more to happiness.
His house looms in the night, beautiful and quiet. Safe. The sight of it makes me rethink everything, because if a place can somehow wrap a soft, silent comfort around my body, maybe it could be the secret to said happiness.
Tonight, Heron Creek as a whole does its best to hold me up. To make it better. My knees shake on my walk toward the house, and not only because a dead voodoo witch just asked me to put a curse on my boyfriend’s family.
More than a little bit of the fear, trepidation, and dread lingers from the not-quite-finished discussion Beau and I had earlier today regarding the future of our relationship.
It’s not over between us. In my heart, maybe it won’t ever be, but tonight Mama Lottie made it clear that one or both of us is going to have to make the choice between love and family sooner rather than later. As much as I love Beau, as important as he’s been in bringing me back to life these past four months, Amelia is everything to me. My entire life, she’s been the supports under my foundation, the voice of confidence in my ear when my own was misplaced, and the friend who told me every single dream I ever had was possible.
How can I not be there for her now? How can I turn my back on Mama Lottie if she can really do what she says, can rid us of the curse that is literally killing my cousin and her unborn son?
There’s no choice for me. Not really.
I shake off the dread as it trickles down my spine, feeling around under a planter full of leggy petunias for Beau’s extra key. My fingers close around it, sweeping up some dirt in the process, and shove it into the lock with shaking fingers.
The entryway is dark except for the silent flash of the alarm system on the wall to my left. Despite the fact that my brain is not known for performing under pressure, I remember the code and punch it in before the shrieking result can wake up the neighborhood, then breathe out in the blessed silence. No one stirs—not Beau, not any undead visitors who might feel like interrupting my need for soft covers and strong arms.
I take a moment and close my eyes, assess the status of the door in my mind, the blue one that helps keep the ghost world penned behind it. It’s closed tight, and the longer I turn my thoughts inward, the more certain I feel that Mama Lottie hasn’t trailed me back to Heron Creek.
The reassurance opens my eyes, touches my lips with a smile, and urges my feet toward the soft carpet on the stairs. I feel my way up to Beau’s bedroom and strip off my shirt and shorts, leaving a tank top and underwear. He’s fast asleep on his back, breathing deeply with one big hand resting on his broad chest. One dark swath of hair flops across his forehead and all the worry wrinkles, showing more often than not these days, are flat and smooth.
He’s so handsome, and like this, I can see the man he might be if he weren’t dating me. Carefree, happy. Obviously the sex wouldn’t be as good, but maybe that’s not the most important part of a relationship. It sure is nice, though.
I’m slaphappy—too tired to think straight. He stirs when I peel back the covers and slip in beside him, his legs warm against my cool ones, but he doesn’t wake. Part of me wants to wake him up with my hand, or my mouth, or just by staring into his face like a creeper until my presence startles him, but before I can think too hard about it, my eyes fall closed.
Chapter Two
The sweet whisper of lips against the side of my neck wakes me the next morning. I keep my eyes closed but a smile tugs at my mouth as Beau’s lips skim my jaw and settle on my earlobe. His whiskers tickle and a giggle slips loose, opening my eyes and falling straight into his honey gaze.
The smile on his face answers mine. He props up his head on one hand, leaning down to press a kiss to my lips. “This is a nice surprise. Different than surprise sex in the entryway, but still good.”
Despite the lighthearted tone and the sun streaming through the windows, depositing happy yellow puddles on the warm hardwood floors, there’s a heaviness between us that’s never been so prevalent. The other day, sitting at the pockmarked table in my grandmother’s kitchen, we’d almost called this whole thing off. Now I was waking up in his bed, snuggled in his arms, but the troubles and differences and pressures that had led us to that moment haven’t disappeared.
They’re here, and so are we, and how does that work?
He reaches out a finger and smooths the skin between my eyebrows. I try to relax my face, realizing that every worry tumbling through my mind must be showing.
“Don’t worry so much, Gracie Anne. We deserve a few days of peace, at least.”
We do. More than anything, we do, but there’s so much he doesn’t know. Mama Lottie’s voice reverberates in my ears, so loud and clear I wonder for a second whether she’s found a way inside my head.
My gaze finds Beau’s again, and I force a smile. “You’re right. And do you know what would give me a lot of peace right now?”
One of his eyebrows goes up in an adorable quirk. “I have several ideas based on past experience.”
“Hmm. I was thinking pancakes at Debbie’s, but I’m willing to entertain your suggestions.”
“Are you now?”
His arms go around me, bare and warm from sleep. Then our mouths connect, his tongue finding mine, and all thoughts of curses and ghosts and even the trouble between our families recedes to the dusty, unused corners of my mind.
We discard the sparse pieces of clothing between us, and the sensation of skin against skin, of our body parts so tangled together it’s hard to tell who is who, floods me with pleasure so perfect tears gather in my eyes. This man in my arms is so much more than I deserve, and in return, he gets a whole lot of weirdness and grief.
I hold on to him for a long time after it’s over, while our heartbeats thud against each other and our breathing slows to a normal pace. Our skin is hot where we’re still touching and his stubble scrapes my cheek, but I don’t want to let go. I don’t want to let Mama Lottie and her curses out of the recesses of my mind and into the daylight. After all, I don’t even know what she’s going to ask me to do. I mean, taking down the Draytons could mean any number of things.
Wow, you’re really getting good at lying to yourself, the devil on my left shoulder, who I’m starting to think is eating a few more donuts than the other, snorts.
It’s probably because you have so much practice lying to your boyfriend, his thinner twin adds.
“I love you, Gracie,” Beau says, thankfully interrupting my demons. “Let’s go see a lady about some pancakes.” He eases back, rubbing his hands through his too-long, chestnut hair. “I’m going to hit the shower.”