Not Quite Right (A Lowcountry Mystery) (Lowcountry Mysteries Book 6)

by Lyla Payne

  “It’s okay. I know you’ve been busy…dealing with stuff.” He steps over the threshold and pulls the gray stocking cap off his head. It leaves his black hair mussed. The cold outside made his cheeks pink, and with that, the hat, and his navy peacoat, his eyes look impossibly blue.

  “I have, but that’s no excuse. Have you met with your lawyer?”

  He nods, rubbing his hands together. He needs a pair of gloves. “Yeah, a couple of—”

  “Grace, where in Sam Hill are your manners? Let Leo in and give the man some coffee. It’s about as cold in this drafty house as it is outside!” Amelia shouts from the living room. She’s not keen on getting her butt out of that chair, apparently.

  Or out from under the blanket, more likely.

  “Says the woman who left Travis on the porch in a storm,” I mutter under my breath, shooting Leo an apologetic look. “Sorry. Do you want some coffee?”

  “That would be great.” He follows me through the living room, stopping to say good morning to Amelia and apologize for waking her with the doorbell.

  “It’s all right. I shouldn’t be sleeping so late anyway. I have to be at work at ten.” She puts down the footrest of the recliner she’s lounging in, throws off the blanket, and then shivers.

  “Here, let me help.” Leo reaches down and grabs her hands, hauling her to her feet with exaggerated effort and a loud groan.

  She swats at him. “You should know better than to tease a pregnant woman about her weight.”

  “I know better about a few things I can’t seem to help.” He grins, the roguish one, and a twinge of jealousy tickles my chest.

  “Well, work on it,” she tells him, but she’s smiling, too.

  Almost eight months pregnant and she’s still charming men in the effortless way she has her whole life. I shake my head, not envying her for it. For Amelia, charm is second nature, like breathing. Or seeing ghosts, for some of us. There’s no point in wishing for someone else’s gifts. Besides, I’ve used hers to my own advantage on more than one occasion.

  Millie leaves the room, shooting a look over her shoulder at the two of us that I can’t quite decipher. I frown, then stride into the kitchen and pour Leo a mug of hot coffee—two sugars, no cream—and set it down on the table.

  “Do you want to sit?”

  “I actually came to see if you wanted to go for a run. I know it’s unlikely since it’s cold outside, but I’m tired of being stuck in the house.”

  The storm might have broken the night before last, making room for sunlight and cloudless skies, but the plunging temperatures lingered. Too cold for South Carolina at any time of year, but particularly rare in the days leading up to Thanksgiving.

  Thanksgiving. Are we going to do anything for that? If we don’t make plans here in Heron Creek, Aunt Karen is going to insist we drag our sad, single butts to her house to sit in misery with family. It is the great American tradition, I suppose, but if it can be avoided, so much the better.

  “Don’t act like you know me or something, Leo Boone. A run sounds great.”

  His eyebrows shoot up in surprise, then lower in suspicion, because despite all of my bluster, Leo Boone does know me. Well enough to realize that I don’t run unless things are chasing me and that I’d rather stomp on my own toes than spend time outdoors when the temperature drops below sixty.

  At least, that describes the Graciela he knows, the one who resides in Heron Creek. There’s no way for him or anyone else to know that David, my ex-fiancé, and I ran half marathons on the weekends. No way to explain how, if you can’t exactly get used to the cold so sharp it feels as though it bruises your skin, after a while it’s easier to ignore. My life in Iowa had never been important to my friends in South Carolina. In their minds and mine, I was one of them. I belonged here, regardless of how many months I spent away each year. I believed it, too, and still do, and moments like these, when it’s clear that there are parts of myself that feel separate from them, are jarring.

  “Really?”

  “Sure. As long as we can go slow enough to talk because I want to hear about your lawyer and everything. Let me go change.”

  He sits down and wraps his big hands around his coffee mug in silent acquiescence. I run upstairs after casting a longing look toward my own half-drained cup, but I’m more than ready to shake loose the stir-crazy feeling making me jump at every tiny sound.

  I’m wearing fleece leggings and tennis shoes, and wrapping an ear warmer around my head as I stroll back into the kitchen five minutes later. “Ready?”

  His coffee is gone, both his and my mugs rinsed in the sink. He nods.

  “You know,” he comments, “it really is cold as shit in here. Is your heater working?”

  “It is, but it’s anyone’s guess for how much longer.” I zip up my sweatshirt and throw up the hood. “I think it’s the old windows as much as the furnace.”

  “I could take a look sometime. Maybe caulk them or do some repairs, if necessary.”

  “You know how to do that?” I ask, leading him back toward the front door, where Leo shrugs back into his hat and coat.

  “Yes. I’ve worked as a subcontractor on several restoration jobs in the area, plus I do repairs for people on the—”

  “On the side?” I finish with a smile. “Someday, Leo, when things aren’t so crazy, you’ll tell me why you do half a dozen things on the side instead of one thing in the middle.”

  “I think I’m safe. I’ve known you your whole life and things have never been less than crazy.”

  I open the front door and flinch at the gust of air that blows into the foyer.

  Leo laughs, then steps around me and onto the porch. “Come on, pansy ass. I’ll even let you set the pace.”

  The only thing my stalling accomplishes is that Mrs. Walters has had time to shuffle to the end of her driveway to collect her recycling bin by the time we jog past her house.

  Leo stops and grabs it out of her hands. “Let me take that inside for you, Mrs. Walters. It’s too cold for you to be out here with no coat.”

  She takes his chiding about as well as she takes anything, but she doesn’t snarl at Leo the way she does at me. The wrinkled old woman only frowns and relinquishes her hold. “That’d be much appreciated, young man. I only hope your good manners haven’t caused you to spend time with people best left to their own kind.”

  Mrs. Walters huffs at his lack of response, probably thinking that I’ve got some kind of evil power that keeps all of these friends of mine from running off into the hills.

  Leo shakes his head, shooting me a look of apology as he takes the plastic bin up to the house and sets it just inside the front door. “You have a good day, ma’am.”

  “Thanks for standing up for me.” I start jogging again as soon as he steps onto the sidewalk, headed in the direction of the park. I’m not sure how far or how long he feels like running, but now that I’m out in the cold and my muscles are waking up, the farther the better.

  I’d never liked running, but I liked the way it made me feel.

  “I figured there was no use getting into a big thing with her. That’s our routine. I do something nice or say hello, she tells me what a good boy I am and what a mistake it would be to get involved with a girl like you, and we agree to disagree.”

  “I’m not sure she’s aware of the last part,” I huff, wondering why it bothers me at all what she says to Leo. He’s a grown man who can make his own decisions as far as who he spends time with and how.

  We run in silence for a few blocks, doing our best to learn each other’s cadence and pace since we’ve never done this before. It isn’t long before we’re staying next to each other with little effort. I’m surprised by how much it hurts to run, and how out of breath I am, but it has been a long time since I’ve done any sort of exercise at all, save the occasional tennis match with Leo.

  And running from crazy people trying to kill me, but adrenaline works for that.

  “So how did the meeting go with
your lawyer?” I ask.

  “I mean, she seems competent but doesn’t have much hope for my case. They’ve got DNA, I’m pretty sure. She wants me to think about pleading guilty—telling them why I was there so we can prove I didn’t steal anything.”

  I think about that for half a block, my stomach in knots. “I’m not sure the Middletons will settle. And knowing them, something valuable will turn up missing, regardless of whether you took it or not.”

  It would likely find its way into Leo’s possession, too, but I don’t voice that particular paranoia.

  “Mel came by a couple of nights ago to talk to me about what we could do to maybe help ourselves, because we agree with you. The Middletons don’t play fair, so why should we?”

  “You mean, go after Senator Middleton’s indiscretions.”

  I see him nod out of the corner of my eye, not a bead of sweat on his face as his breath plumes out in the morning air. His pace is easy, measured, and leaves me with the feeling that he’d be going faster if I picked up the pace.

  “We tried that, though.” I pause, sucking in air. “There’s no proof.”

  “We want to try again. Talk to that guy, the one who had the information about the pharmaceutical companies.”

  I search my memory and manage to extract a name. A feeling of triumph makes me want to fist pump—I’m not that old yet, after all. “Paul Adams. You think he remembers more?”

  “No, but I think maybe he knows more than he thinks. Or could give us names of people who do.”

  “It’s worth a try. Did Mel tell you that Brick is playing double agent and trying to get information straight from them that we could use?”

  “No.” Leo’s face twists with confusion. “Why would he do that?”

  “I don’t know, to be honest. Amelia has him wrapped around her little finger, the way she does everyone, but sometimes it seems like more.” It seems like she likes him, too. My lips pull into a frown at the stray, silent observation, one I’ve been unwilling to voice. And still am. Instead, I make a face. “He calls her Amy.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned. I mean, my opinion of him changed after you told me about what happened to him when he was a kid, but I’m still surprised. He seems pretty damaged.” He shrugs. “The more the merrier when it comes to figuring out how to stay out of jail. And he’s got access that could really help us.”

  “True.” It doesn’t sit well with me, but it’s likely nothing more than my own prejudice. At any rate, both Leo and I know the guy has a heart. “On all counts. He is damaged. I think that’s what’s drawing him and Millie together.”

  “Hmm.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Nothing, Gracie, just a hmm. It’s interesting. You never know what’s going to draw people together, that’s all.”

  I think about that as we enter the park, in silent agreement to do the walking-path loop before heading back to the house. Amelia should be going to work, and I plan to shower before digging into Charlotta’s journals again. Maybe Leo will want to stay and help.

  The fact that I really, really want him to digs discomfort under my skin. After what happened with Beau, the idea of depending on another person sets my nerves on alert. But Leo is already here. He’s already part of my life, and somehow, without me noticing, he’s become a piece that would send the rest tumbling down if it went missing.

  Chapter Five

  Leo agrees to stay and help me read through some more of the journals, but the smell of him after his shower is distracting. He’s wearing a clean pair of track pants and a thin, long-sleeved Heron Creek High School Baseball shirt that he had in his gym bag. The shirt, at least, looks as though it might have survived since his days walking the halls.

  His cheeks turn red when I tease him about it. “I’ve been coaching the baseball team. On the side.”

  There’s nothing to do but shake my head. I’ve lost count of Leo’s jobs, but this one seems to suit him. The boys probably think he’s awesome.

  “Um, maybe I’ll run to the hardware store,” he says after taking one look at the mess of the journals on the table.

  “You’re not going to read with me?” I raise my eyebrows. “Can you read, Leo?”

  He grabs his belly, issuing a fake silent laugh at my teasing. “I can, but…I don’t know. I’m better with my hands.”

  For some reason, the kitchen feels hot all of a sudden. Maybe he doesn’t need to go to the store at all, since the heat seems to be working now. I wave him off and he grabs his coat, checks his pocket for his wallet, then gives me a salute before heading back toward the foyer. It might be paranoia, but while a fresh pot of coffee brews, I follow his steps, making sure to lock the door behind him.

  Mechanisms won’t keep out ghosts, and I have my doubts about voodoo or its practitioners, but being alone, the locks make me feel the slightest bit better anyway.

  I try not to focus on the fact that no one, except maybe Henry’s ghost, is in the house, and I trudge back to the kitchen, pour myself some coffee, and sit back down at the table with Charlotta’s journals. I pull a random one out of the pile, check the date on the first page, and decide to see what’s going on in her teenage life—she and James had gotten romantic around the ages of fourteen, but in a bumbling, childlike way. The history lover in me is fascinated by the ways in which fourteen-year-old children are both more and less worldly than kids today. Not that I have a ton of experience with kids today.

  Teenage Charlotta had been dreamy-eyed but cautious, all too aware that her father would never approve of her feelings for James. They delighted in spending time together, she and James, and touching hands and cheeks. No kissing, and certainly no talk of intimacy beyond that without marriage.

  Of course, we know they did engage in nonmarital intimacy, and the leap beyond what was acceptable makes me want to know her all the more. She was a brave girl, Charlotta Drayton, following her heart instead of custom, and it had cost her—in the terms of the time—a future.

  Frustration that the journals stop before we know what happens to James runs hot in my veins. Had she ever regretted her choices? Had they ever seen each other again? Did she know what had become of him? Had he known about the baby?

  They are questions that will probably always elude me, and nothing pisses me off more.

  Sighing, I flip forward a few pages to the days after her fifteenth birthday and stop on an entry that takes place in the late summer:

  16 August, 1899

  The heat is so suffocating that there’s no benefit to being indoors. The entire family has taken to sleeping out on the piazza on pallets, which means little chance of my sneaking away to see James, but the slightest breeze through the pecan and oak trees brings immeasurable relief. It’s afternoon now, when the heat becomes visible in waves hovering above the packed dirt on the lane and the grasses in the field.

  James and I meet across the river, some distance from my family home, toward the place that once belonged to the Middleton family. They still own the land, I suppose, but the Union army burned most of the house. When I think about the marvelous library the Middletons had amassed, volumes brought from all over the world, my heart feels its loss. Why would men burn books? Why ruin valuable antiques and put a beautiful home to the torch, instead of using those things to their advantage?

  So much about the war makes little sense to my girlish head. At least, that’s why Charles Jr. says I don’t understand—because men do things when their blood boils that their heads can’t make sense of, either. He doesn’t know much about women, I don’t think, because sometimes the unfairness of this world makes me so hot I’d like to strip naked and swim in the river like a wild child, just to show people the angels won’t rain down hellfire because of it.

  I don’t see why God would put people on this earth and make them different colors just to keep us apart. We’re all his children, that’s what the Good Book says. We’re to love one another—who’s to say what kind of love he means? My daddy? My
mama? The preacher? Surely not.

  All I know is that the pure, undiluted joy that pummels me at the sight of James rowing across our little branch of the Cooper River cannot be wrong. It cannot be a sin to love another person so much that you’d do anything for them, that you’d die to keep them from hurting.

  “I’d rather live alone on this plantation my whole life than pretend to love someone other than you,” I told James this afternoon, my eyes so starry he blurred around the edges.

  He’s so beautiful. I don’t think he believes how he appears to me, no matter how many times I tell him. It vexes me how no one else can see it—not Bessie and certainly not Charles Jr., though he loves James almost as much as I do. As if such a thing were possible.

  “I don’t want to think about you alone, Charlie.” He always calls me Charlie. It’s his particular name for me, regardless of the fact that Papa and Bessie often shorten my name to Lottie in affection.

  I think it’s because of his mama, though he doesn’t much like to talk about her.

  His mouth turned down at the edges as he contemplated the future drawing nearer to both of us by the day. I longed to turn his lips up into a smile. I long to do other things with his lips, things Mama would flog me for thinking, but there’s no way to stop. Even if I wanted to, which I don’t.

  “You’d rather think of me loving someone else? Even if it’s pretend?”

  “No. I don’t want to think about tomorrow at all.”

  I know James wants to go to school up north. He doesn’t want to be a worker, or a sharecropper, or anything else that colored people are allowed to do around here now that the North won the war. He’s smart. He has ambition, and I love him for it. But I know it will take him away.

  He knows it, too.

  What he doesn’t know is that I’m going to run away with him. No one does. It’s a secret, warm in my heart like the flicker of a new candle growing stronger with each breath of oxygen I provide. I want to hold it there for a while longer, nurture it into a fire so strong and so bright that no amount of blustering or tears can snuff it out.