Nate handed Moon his menu. “I’d like three eggs, over easy, country ham, grits with red eye gravy, and biscuits.”
Moon looked at me, pen poised. “What about chu, sweetie?”
Colleen popped in beside me, next to the window.
I jumped a little.
“What’s wrong?” Nate asked.
“Oh, nothing. Just a nerve in my leg. I’m fine.”
Colleen said, “Life’s short. Eat what you want and enjoy every bite. And order extra ham biscuits to go. I’ve been working on solidifying. I think I can eat.”
I smiled brightly at Moon and played with my earring. “I’m starved. I’d like two scrambled eggs with lots of cheese, country ham, biscuits and gravy.”
“All righty.” Moon scribbled my order.
“And Moon, will you wrap me up two ham biscuits to go?” My smile didn’t waver.
“Who’s that for?” Nate asked.
“Oh, you know. I might be hungry later on,” I said.
“I’ll put those in after I bring out your breakfast.” Moon Unit put one hand on her hip. “Did you meet him? I heard y’all had dinner at your mamma’s yesterday. What’s he like?”
Nate looked confused. “Who?”
“Merry’s new boyfriend. Joe Eaddy,” I said.
“Joe Eddie who?”
“His last name is Eaddy. E-A-D-D-Y.”
“Is he good lookin’?” Moon grinned slyly.
“He is quite handsome,” I said.
“You think they’re serious?” Moon asked.
“Glory, Moon, I don’t know. You know Merry.” I purely did not want to discuss my sister’s love life just then. I had my own to worry about, and a guardian spirit to deal with. “Yum. I just can’t wait for your grits and gravy. I was thinking about them the whole time I was running this morning.” This was the unvarnished truth.
“Oh.” She clutched her chest. “I am so sorry. Coming right up.” She spun away.
“So, I think I’ve worked something out,” Colleen said.
I set down my coffee cup very carefully. I looked at her, or out the window, depending on your perspective. I knew she could reliably read my mind. Can I agree to part-time in Greenville?
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve got a backup plan. But there’s a catch. I can only officially protect the person who holds your Gram’s seat—your seat—on the Town Council. If you give that up, well, there may be times you need me when I can’t come.”
I pondered what that might mean. Colleen had likely saved my life more times than I even knew. Then again, most people walked through this world without guardian spirits to look out for them. At least I was assuming they did. Except most people didn’t court disaster quite as enthusiastically as I did. Oh, for the love of Pete. I needed to live my life with the man I loved, even if it turned out to be shorter than it might otherwise have been.
Nate said, “What are you thinking about?”
“Think about this before you mention it to him,” Colleen said. “You’ve had a few close calls. I’m trying to look after you.”
My eyes grabbed onto his and held on tight.
“I was thinking about maybe…maybe we should revisit living in Greenville part-time. That’s reasonable. I’m truly sorry I’ve been so stubborn-headed.”
Colleen said, “Why do you never listen to a word I say?”
A series of expressions flickered across Nate’s face.
“At the risk of being redundant, Slugger, you are a confusing woman. I’m happy you’re feeling that way right now. But I think you should sleep on it and let’s see how it settles with you tomorrow.”
“He’s right,” Colleen said. “Sleep on it. And remember how no one died in that accident Thursday morning. And the ferry boat incident, and—”
“All right,” I said to both of them. My voice may have been sharper than the situation called for, so I reached across the table for Nate’s hand. “I’ll sleep on it.”
Confusion clouded his face. He looked out the window for a minute, then back at me.
“I’ve come up with something on Peyton and Peter Bounetheau.”
“Really? What?”
“They own a warehouse up Shipyard Creek a ways.”
“Mmm-kay.”
“They own it through several layers of holding companies—like they’re trying to keep it at arm’s distance.”
“What’s in the warehouse?”
“Funny you should ask. I paid a call last night. Sign says it’s Trade Winds Import and Export.”
“Any idea what they’re importing and exporting?”
“Not as of yet. The place has sophisticated electronic security—cameras with motion detectors and the like. Roll of barbed wire on top of the fence. And a few onsite individuals who patrol more regularly than one would expect for your garden-variety home décor inventory. These security officers are not the sort who wear uniforms with nametags. They’re the kind with prison tats.”
“Exactly how close did you get to these thugs?”
“Relax. I used the night vision binoculars.”
“Interesting. Could be drugs. Maybe guns, human trafficking. Nothing good.”
“My thoughts exactly. I followed two of the security staff at shift change. Guess where they went?”
“Where?”
“Bridgeview Village Apartments.”
I went cold, like someone had shoved me in a walk-in freezer and slammed the door. “Please tell me you didn’t follow them to Bayside at night.” The place was named Bridgeview Village now, but it had been Bayside Manor for many years, and most folks still referred to it as Bayside. If it was in the news, most likely someone had been shot, or the SWAT team had been called out, or a drug deal had gone south—or all three. A YouTube video had been posted of the Bayside brawl, a free-for-all with a crowd of angry women engaging in a violent disagreement in the parking lot last year.
He lowered his eyebrows, gave me a look that said, what’s wrong with you? “Bridgeview. I didn’t even get out of the car. I just followed to see where they went.”
Colleen shimmered. “Make him understand. His life depends on it.”
“Nate. Promise me. Promise me you will not go back there for any reason. Stay off North Romney Street altogether.”
“Slugger, calm down. All I did was a drive-by.”
I was on the verge of hyperventilating. “You don’t get it. SWAT doesn’t like to go in there—but they do. The police keep the street blocked off so there’s only one way in or out. Management hires off-duty police officers to patrol it in addition to the surveillance cameras and additional regular patrols.”
“Sounds like it would be hard for anybody to commit a crime with all those cops and cameras around.”
“There’s a reason all of that is necessary. To be fair, a lot of folks arrested there are from North Charleston. But the trouble still goes down in Bayside. There’s tension between the police, both on duty and off, and the residents. It’s just not a good situation for anyone. Some of Merry’s kids live there, and she’s told me heartbreaking stories.” Merry was the executive director of a non-profit organization in Charleston that worked with at-risk youth. “Heaven knows, my heart hurts for the good people who live there, folks without any other recourse—especially the kids. It’s Section Eight housing. But it has a very long, violent history. This is not the kind of place you go asking questions at night. You drove out by the grace of God. Don’t go back. Promise. Me.” I grabbed his arm and clamped down hard.
“Okay, okay. I promise.” He gave me a look that said he thought I was way overreacting.
“If that’s where this case takes us, I’ll give Colton Heyward his money back. We’ll just turn over what we know to Charleston PD and walk away.”
“All right. Slugger, I’ve never seen you this rattled.
”
“I need you to take me seriously. Your life depends on it,” I said, taking Colleen at her word.
“I won’t go back.” He sat back in the booth and studied me carefully, like I was a puzzle he was trying to solve.
I took a few deep breaths and a sip of orange juice. After a few minutes, I said, “What the hell are the likes of Peyton and Peter doing mixed up with folks from Bayside?”
“That would be the question of the day,” Nate said. “No doubt they know what’s going on in that warehouse, or why go to so much effort to hide that they own it? If the warehouse was simply an investment, and they leased the space, there would be no reason for all that paperwork.”
“Agreed. Only there’s no evidence whatever they’re doing is connected to Kent.” Moon Unit approached with our breakfast. “Shhh.”
“I’ll put your to-go order in now, hon. Can I get you anything else?” she asked.
“This looks fabulous, Moon.” My appetite had gone clean out the window.
“Mmmm-mmmm.” Nate smiled at Moon. “This looks mighty fine. Thank you. I think we’re all set.”
“Just wave at me if you need anything.” In a whirl she was gone.
Nate dug in. I tried a few bites and found my appetite could be lured back. We ate in silence for a few moments. Colleen stared longingly at our food.
“Could be Kent stumbled onto whatever illegal activities her uncles are involved in, and they found it necessary to deal with the situation,” Nate said.
I mulled that. “I say we run down every other possibility. If we come up with nothing else, we put it in the report and let the police and God sort it out.”
“What’s the downside to giving Colton Heyward what we have on them? He’ll take it to the police. Meanwhile, we work the other scenarios.”
“All right. But we’ll need documentation on the trail that ties them to the warehouse. And your report from last night’s surveillance,” I said.
“We take that to him now, we’re keeping him in the loop. He’s happy, right?”
A warning light flashed in my head. “Riiight. Except, you know he’ll confront Peyton and Peter. And they’ll know exactly where his information came from.”
“We’ll just have to convince him how it’s not in his best interests to get us killed.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Why not just give it straight to Sonny? That seems safer to me. We can still give it to Mr. Heyward in our final report if we don’t come up with anything more likely.”
“That’ll work.” A few bites later, he said, “So tell me what you’ve got.”
“Nothing quite so dramatic,” I said. “I did talk to one of Matt’s neighbors who puts Ansley’s car at Matt’s house from around nine the night Kent disappeared until sometime the following morning.”
“How did she explain that?”
“She hasn’t yet. Up until the Peyton and Peter revelation, I thought she and Matt must be involved with Kent’s disappearance. I wanted to sleep on it, talk to you, before I tipped her off.”
“They could still be behind it. Just because Peyton and Peter are embroiled in one illegal enterprise doesn’t mean they also made their niece disappear. Matt and Ansley—that’s still a plausible narrative.”
“If one or both of them are involved, they either helped her disappear, covered up an accident, or covered up a crime of passion,” I said. “And it almost had to have gone down in his house.”
“Want to search it?”
I put together the perfect bite of eggs, grits, and gravy, delivered it to my mouth, and savored the mix of flavors. I studied the ceiling. “Charleston PD looked at Matt hard. He’s not stupid. If something happened to Kent in his house, the only evidence remaining by now is the kind we’d need Luminol to find.” Often accidents and crimes of passion resulted in bloodstains. It was virtually impossible to clean up all the blood unless you knew what you were doing. Matt and Ansley were not pros at crime scene cleanup.
“And we don’t need to be spraying a crime scene with Luminol. We could screw up evidence in the process.”
“Precisely.” I chewed a bite of biscuit. “And if we don’t come up with something else pretty damn quick—preferably Kent—we have no choice but to tell Colton Heyward about the baby. Once we do that, he’ll go straight to the police.”
“And they’ll arrest Matt within ten minutes.”
“At which point they’ll get a search warrant, and go over his house with a fine-tooth comb. Best we not disturb anything there.”
“Agreed.”
“I think it’s time for me to talk to Ansley.” I looked at Colleen. I could use her help with Ansley.
“And we need to make an appointment to speak with Colton Heyward tomorrow morning if possible,” said Nate. “That’s as long as we can put off telling him about the baby. We’ve sat on that for nearly two days already.”
“All right. I’ll make the call.”
“Meantime, I’ll get the documentation ready for Sonny. That will take most of today.”
“I know that’s a lot, but do you think you could squeeze in talking to the other artists who were with Evan Ingle that Friday night at Bin 152? I haven’t had a chance to verify his story.” I flashed him my best pretty-please look.
He gave me a look that said he knew what I was up to. “As I am not immune to your feminine wiles, I will find a way to work it in, provided they are available and willing. Names and contact info in the file?”
“Yeah.” I grinned a silly grin. He was not immune to my feminine wiles. That was welcome news, since he hadn’t exactly jumped all over my earlier offer to live in Greenville part-time. “Thank you so much.”
“My pleasure to assist,” he said in a tone that suggested other things he might assist me with.
Moon Unit arrived with a to-go bag and our ticket. “Here you go.”
Nate paid at the register, good-naturedly parrying all attempts from Moon Unit to discuss his residency status. He might not want to live full time in Stella Maris, but he could never claim he wasn’t welcome.
I waved the bag of biscuits at Colleen. If she wanted what was inside them, she was going to have to help me out with Ansley.
Fourteen
My Escape was parked on the street a few doors down from The Cracked Pot. Before I had my seat belt buckled, Colleen faded into the passenger seat. “Okay, watch this.”
I cocked my head at her and waited. At first I couldn’t tell a difference. Then gradually, she appeared denser, until she looked just like any mortal human.
“Wow,” I said. “That’s what you mean by solidifying?”
“Yep.” She grinned. “It’s an advanced skill. Takes tons of practice. What did you do with the biscuits?” She looked around the car.
“I have them in my bag.”
She looked past me, to where my purse was wedged between me and the door. “Let me have them.”
“In a little while. First we need to talk about what you have up your sleeve relative to where I’m going to reside. Then I need your help with Ansley.”
“Really? You’re holding my biscuits hostage? After I saved your hide yet again just a few days ago? Really?”
I sighed, cut my eyes heavenward, pulled the biscuits out and handed her the bag.
She held it like it was a precious butterfly that might float away if she moved suddenly. “Oh. I’m so hungry.”
I was having a hard time processing ghosts—whatever—with an appetite. “Seriously? Do guardian spirits get hungry?”
She gave in and tore open the bag and unwrapped one of the biscuits. She rolled her eyes and moaned when she took the first bite. The look of sheer ecstasy on her face called to mind a whole nother experience—something I liked even better than biscuits.
I said, “I’m guessing that’s a yes.”
She swallowed. “We crave things that we miss from when we were human, but we don’t actually feel hunger, or any kind of pain. The next world is infinitely better than this one. But they don’t have biscuits.”
“Can other people see you now—when you’re solid?”
“They can. Except most people see what they expect to see, and hardly anyone would recognize me anyway.” Posthumous Colleen was a perfect version of mortal Colleen. Her skin was clear and luminous, her red curls long and shiny. Her figure was lean, her movements lithe. And she was right in that no one in town would be expecting to see her. She’d been gone quite a spell.
“Enjoy your biscuits. I need to take care of something right quick.”
I texted Ansley: Need to talk ASAP. How quick can you meet me at Lighthouse Park?
It was a few minutes after nine on Sunday morning. I’d expected Ansley to be with her parents, in a pew a few rows behind Mamma and Daddy at St. Francis Episcopal. Surprisingly, she texted me back right away: See you in ten.
I started the car and headed towards the city park just south of Devlin’s Point. “Help me out here. What is the tactical advantage for a guardian spirit in solidifying? Like you once told me, your most reliable skill is eavesdropping without being seen.”
“I can talk to humans this way—aside from you. In my normal state, I can only see and talk to you.”
“Who do you need to talk to?”
“No one right now. But you never know when I might need to distract someone while you’re someplace you’re not supposed to be.”
“Hmm…I can use you for diversions now?” I parked near the lighthouse, rolled down the windows, and opened the moonroof.
“Sometimes. Depending on what you decide.” She bit into the biscuit.
“About that.”
She was inhaling the biscuit, eyes closed. “Can you hear me?”
She nodded, but kept eating.
“It seems to me if the goal is to keep someone in my town council seat who will protect the island, several other candidates could do this as easily as me. Candidates with no desire to live anywhere else.”
Colleen swallowed a bite. “The problem is that nearly everyone is persuadable with the right argument. Sometimes people think they’re doing the right thing, when they’re really being manipulated. You’re stubborn.”
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