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

by Lyla Payne

  “He loved her, though,” I say. “He might have known better, but he couldn’t help it.”

  She shakes her head. “No.”

  “I have proof.” I don’t want to give her the journal but don’t see another way to convince her other than with Charlotta’s own words. I also have no idea if she can even hold it and read it, but given her abilities as a spirit, I’m guessing she can.

  I also don’t want to turn my back to her, so I scoot backward, opening the door and backing into the kitchen. Amelia must have moved the journals off the table to make room for dinner, but they’re on the buffet that holds a framed photo of my grandparents on their fortieth anniversary and the American flag they handed me at Gramps’s funeral in return for his service during WWII.

  It takes me a little bit to find the right book since they’ve been rearranged, but then I light on it. The last one, the one where Charlotta talks about finding out she’s pregnant and worrying over what to do. She never thinks, not for a second, that James will deny the baby or leave her. Her concerns center around what will become of them, and their baby, and how the news will hurt her family.

  I head back outside, where Mama Lottie is pacing. I watch as Frank tries to calm her down with random bits of conversation, but she’s ignoring him. The murderous looks she’s shooting his way feel heavy and pointed enough to contain curses of their own.

  She snatches the little book out of my hands, answering my question about if she’s able to hold solid objects without a word. I wait, trying not to start pacing myself, as she skims through the days and weeks leading up to the news. James is in the majority of the entries, because the two of them were spending almost all of their free time together and she was thinking about him whenever they were apart.

  Thunderclouds gather on Mama Lottie’s ebony face, settling dark shadows into the grooves as she reads. I see the moment she reads about the baby. About Charlotta’s dreams for the future.

  I wonder what happened between them and how Mama Lottie couldn’t know. She must know.

  “You see. You can’t curse the family, Mama Lottie,” I reason. “They’re your family, too. You have grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Did you know that? I could tell you about them, if you want.”

  “Those people will never be my family. They stole my James from me.”

  A slice of hot disappointment slashes through me. What if James had turned out to be a cad and not the man Charlotta believed him to be? What if he had run from Drayton Hall without a look back and Mama Lottie had been left behind, too?

  I hadn’t considered it. The way Charlotta talks about him, it seems impossible.

  “What do you mean? They were kids, they fell in love. It happens.”

  I duck, barely missing the journal she chucks at my head. I dive for it, my only thought to protect it so that Jenna doesn’t get into trouble.

  “You don’t know anything!” Mama Lottie shrieks, the sound like the fingernails of a hundred people against a chalkboard.

  She turns on me and my feet lift off the ground. My body flies backward, crashing into the door separating the deck from the house. Pain shoots through me and explodes in my head as the back of my skull cracks hard against the glass. I slump onto the cold planks, stars dancing in front of my eyes and the world spinning far too fast. There’s no way to get up, to even raise my hands to protect myself, as she towers over me, a blur of blackness and hate.

  Frank’s voice comes from far away, chanting words that don’t sound like English at a pace so rapid they tumble into one another, tangling into a heap. My throat closes. I can’t breathe knowing she’s going to finish this thing between us once and for all.

  Then she disappears as suddenly as she arrived.

  Frank’s at my side, checking my head and my pupils and dragging me to my feet.

  “Are you okay? Jesus, that was terrifying.”

  I shake my head and pull away from him, my whole body shuddering with cold that starts in my middle and flows outward, where it meets the night air. “I’m fine.”

  Am I? No way to tell for sure, but I haven’t joined my ghosts yet, and that’s something. I give Frank a sidelong look, second-guessing myself. He’d probably still see me even if I were dead, and in that moment, I need a second opinion like I need to breathe.

  “You need to go,” I tell him, prying open the door to the house—now webbed with cracks from the force of my body—and stumbling into the warm interior.

  The work Leo did on the windows and furnace helped, thank goodness, but I feel as though I’ll never be warm again.

  “Are you sure? I mean…” He glances at the clock above the sink and bites his lower lip. “It’s not like I can stick around all night, but you’re bleeding. Don’t you want me to drop you at the hospital?”

  I snort, then immediately regret it. I hurt everywhere, but especially my head. I reach up to touch the spot that’s throbbing and my fingers come away bright red. My stomach turns, and my fingers snag a dishtowel but I try not to let Frank see my distress. “I’m okay. Head wounds bleed a lot, but if I decide I need to go, Amelia can take me.”

  “Okay…” He follows me when I head out of the kitchen and into the living room. In the foyer, he stops with his hand on the door. “Graciela…that wasn’t good. She shouldn’t have been able to touch you like that. Carlotta isn’t a normal ghost, and I don’t want you interacting with her on your own again.”

  Not a normal ghost. Daria said some version of the same thing, and I have to assume both she and Frank have had far more experience dealing with spirits than I have. If neither of them have encountered anything like Mama Lottie before, then there’s no doubt in my mind that I should heed his advice.

  That said, what right does he have to give me advice in the first place?

  Anger, hot and fast, surges in my blood. “Thanks for your concern, Frank, but you missed my childhood, and with it, the chance to tell me what to do.”

  He winces. The blow is low, if what he says about my mother keeping me a secret is the truth. I don’t think it is, especially not if he knows something about Felicia and baby Travis. I would have been a toddler—impossible to miss.

  “Fair point. But that doesn’t stop me from worrying about you. And, for the record, I would care even if you weren’t my daughter. People who can do what we do are rare, Graciela. We look out for each other. I think you’ll come to realize that as you get more comfortable.” He twists, opening the door and sending a blast of chilly air prickling my overly sensitive skin.

  My vision blurs, and it takes me a moment to realize it’s because of my tears and not my head injury. Maybe I should go to the hospital, but the people at Heron Creek Hospital already think I’m bats. They’re probably just looking for an excuse to lock me up for a few days.

  Amelia. I just need her.

  “I don’t know if I want to get more comfortable,” I blurt out, unsure why I said anything at all.

  “Oh, sugar plum. You’re a Fournier. You don’t have a choice.” His lips twist into a grimace. “Don’t be mad at Henry for spying for me. You’ve seen yourself now—they don’t have another option. And he needs you.”

  With that, he walks out into the night and closes the door softly behind him. I bend over and put my hands on my knees, breathing until the house stops spinning and I can straighten up without puking. The sharp, shooting pains that race from the base of my skull into my lower back make moving a challenge, but as much as I want to hash out everything that happened with Millie, her seeing me like this would scare her.

  Instead of going to her room, I head up the stairs and into mine, shuffling straight into the bathroom to confront the damage head-on. I hate myself for looking for Henry but I can’t help it. The moment Frank said, He needs you, it was like a switch flicked in my soul. Like I can’t help it.

  In the mirror, my face looks undamaged but pale. Blood has matted my hair at the crown of my skull, which is tender to the touch, but other than being ashen and skitti
sh, the injuries will be easy enough to hide once I’ve had a shower. Under the spray, I watch reddish clots swirl around the drain and disappear.

  Just as Mama Lottie had. And before I’d been able to gauge if anything I’d told her about James and Charlotta would change her mind. Not only that, but she’d gotten away a second time without me securing her promise of when and how the curse against the Harper boys would be lifted.

  The memory of Frank muttering words that sounded foreign and fast slams into me. Had he sent her away the same way he’d brought her forth?

  A frown finds my lips. He shouldn’t have done that.

  That thought crashes with the mental image of her looming over me, fiery demon eyes daring me to say again that she’s vulnerable, that she’s anything but a faint, dark shadow of the terrified, sad girl who was taken illegally from her home all those years ago.

  Maybe he had been right to send her away. He could have saved my life.

  A chill attacks me. I haven’t been cold like this, not ever, except when the ghosts touch me. This is the same—freezing, like ice running through my veins instead of blood—and I turn up the hot water until my skin turns red, but it does no good.

  Finally, I give up and twist the knobs to “off,” then grab the towel I left on the sink. Henry is still nowhere to be found as I yank on a pair of sweats, a hoodie, and thick wool socks left over from the winters I spent in Iowa. My need to relay the events of the evening to Amelia has eased, so in service of the unshakable cold, I take the time to gently drag a comb through my hair and blow it dry, wincing every time even a puff of air grazes the knot on the back of my head.

  It’s late, but my cousin won’t forgive me for waiting until morning. There’s not even much to report—Mama Lottie now knows about James, but it seems as though it’s only going to cause her to hate the Drayton family more, not less. I need to know what happened after Charlotta came out with the news of her pregnancy.

  Without worrying about the late hour, I shoot a text to Jenna. It’s not fair to keep asking her to put her position as the restoration expert at Drayton Hall in jeopardy for me, but I have nowhere else to turn.

  Hey. Wondering if the journals you brought are a complete set. They end when Charlotta found out she’s pregnant. Any idea what came after, if she didn’t write it down?

  I stare at the phone for a moment, waiting for the telltale three dots that say she’s responding but get nothing. Maybe the girl actually cut back on the coffee and got to bed at a decent hour. Or maybe she met someone. A smile toys with my lips on the way down the hall. It strikes me that while Daria and Officer Dunleavy would be an odd match, Jenna and Robert would be awfully cute. I should make that happen.

  Maybe you should keep him on the back burner for yourself, a devil sneers. Since you’re single now.

  I am not. I’m just…not sure.

  Thankfully, his twin decides not to materialize. He’s probably off boozing it up or roasting some sinners over an open flame, one for which I am envious.

  I open the door to Amelia’s room after my soft knock gets no answer, too keyed up even after the hot shower to even think about sleeping.

  “Millie, you’re not going to believe…” I trail off, noticing she’s not in her bed. The windows are shut because of the weather, but the curtains drift lazily in the corner. It freaks me out until I remember there’s a wall vent under them.

  I turn toward the bathroom, figuring she’s in there, but it’s dark. I investigate anyway, worry creeping in as I flip on the light. She’s not here.

  Trying not to panic, I search the rest of the house, top to bottom, my heart in my throat. The memory of Amelia nearly drowning in the river while Mrs. LaBadie was still custodian of the curse causes me to throw my coat and boots back on and run out the door.

  Millie’s not in the marshy, muddy land out back. She’s not on the dock, not among the trees, not in the river.

  Not in the house.

  She’s not anywhere. She’s gone.

  Chapter Ten

  It doesn’t take long to roust my friends from their beds. Thanks to Travis’s affinity for Amelia, all four members of the Heron Creek PD show up at the house in a jiffy, too. Normally, there are some stupid rules about missing persons and how long they have to be gone before anything official can be done. Not for the first time in my life, I’m glad to be living in a town this small.

  I know something has happened. Something bad. I feel it the way I feel my own heartbeat. Not only do pregnant women not disappear in the middle of the night, but Amelia would never do that to me. Not with everything that’s happened lately, and not with what Frank and I were attempting downstairs.

  Mel’s fingers thread through mine, holding on tight. Leo’s here, too, along with the cops, and even Lindsay Boone has shown up to help. I wonder where Marcella is, but the thought disappears before it finds a way out of me.

  “We’re going to find her,” Mel whispers.

  I nod, not able to look at her. If I make eye contact with anyone and see their pity—or worse, their fear—I will lose my shit so violently I might not be able to find it again.

  People mill around the living room, aimless among the nervous energy we’re sharing like dispelled breath. To my relief, Will and Travis finish conferring and then Will claps his hands to get everyone’s attention.

  “We need to spread out and search. Amelia has a habit of sleepwalking, so if we fan out we should be able to cover all of the ground she could have crossed on foot, especially if she’s not fully awake. Go in pairs. It’s late, it’s dark, and at the moment, we don’t know what we’re dealing with here.”

  We don’t know what we’re dealing with here.

  I squeeze Mel’s hand tighter and try my best to believe Amelia has just wandered off again and we’ll find her lying in the grass at Mrs. Walters’s house or taking a midnight stroll along the river in town.

  The thought that Mama Lottie was here before Millie disappeared roils in my stomach. No one knows that but me, and there’s not much point in making it public. My friends believe me, about the ghosts, but they haven’t met Mama Lottie. They don’t understand what she’s capable of, and more than that, they don’t need to. This is my burden—mine and Amelia’s. If we don’t find her sleepwalking, it’s not like I can form a posse to hunt down a ghost anyway.

  “We’re going to find her, Gracie.” Will’s in front of me now, his blue eyes determined in the middle but scared around the edges, where lines have found the sensitive skin over the years.

  His face is dear to me, his words more so, and for a second I let myself feel like he could be right. I nod, then catch sight of someone tall coming in through the foyer—Beau.

  A strangled sound gurgles, unbidden, from my throat, and my friends follow my gaze.

  “I wonder how he knows,” Mel murmurs.

  Beau knows everything that goes on in Heron Creek. It’s like he’s got a bat phone or something, though if he does, I’m not sure who would be on the other end of it.

  Mel lets go of my hand and gives me a shove. “Go and greet him, Gracie. It’s your house. He’s here because he cares.”

  It takes a moment to get my legs and feet to respond, but they eventually bring me to Beau. His eyes search the room until they find my face, and relief crumples his features. He’s always had a way of making me feel like, if not the only girl in the room, the most important girl in the room.

  We meet by Gramps’s old chair while everyone pairs up and pulls on their coats and gloves. I walk into his arms as if nothing bad ever happened between us, and he folds me up tight against his chest.

  “I just heard. Do you have any news?”

  I shake my head, my cheek rubbing against the soft material of his down coat, and hold back tears. They won’t help. “We’re going out to look. In case she’s sleepwalking again.”

  He rubs my back for another couple of seconds before pulling away to look me in the eye. Beau’s maple syrup gaze is steady. I cling to it
, desperate to find a way to right the rolling sea beneath my feet.

  “You don’t think she’s sleepwalking,” he says softly.

  I bite my lip, thinking silly things like what if I jinx the search. I don’t want to lie to Beau, though. The need to have someone to discuss the ramifications of what happened when Frank was here is overwhelming. “I don’t know. We… My father was here. We talked to Mama Lottie, and she got pretty mad.”

  My fingers unconsciously go to the bump on the back of my head, and I wince. Beau’s features darken, his eyes hardening into amber jewels.

  “She hurt you.”

  He reaches for me, but I back up, shaking my head. “It’s no big deal. Frank got rid of her, but after that…that’s when Amelia was gone.”

  “Did you try calling him? I assume you have a way to get in touch.”

  I nod, blinking away more tears. Apparently the well is not yet tapped out. “Three times. He’s not answering, but I left messages.”

  After what happened, it’s hard to say whether or not Frank will call me back again if I want any help related to Mama Lottie. He put on a brave face, but he is scared of her, too. And he should be.

  She should scare us all.

  “Well, let’s not jump to conclusions, okay? Amelia has struggled with sleepwalking, and she was alone for a while without anyone checking on her. Chances are we’ll find her.” He glances down at his watch. “Go get your coat. We should hurry since the temperature is still dropping out there.”

  He’s right. We shouldn’t waste any more time, and it looks as though the others are ready to go. Beau and I join them in the foyer. Will assigns people areas to cover as they leave, until finally it’s just him, one of the Ryan twins, Beau, and me left in the house.

  “Gracie, you and Beau walk along the river, okay? We should cover as much of the undeveloped ground as possible.”

  “We can trace it all the way from the Harpers’ dock to the land behind my place,” Beau suggests in a quiet voice.

  Some of his calm hops over to me, soothing the acid building up in my stomach. It can’t settle the bouncing desire to get out there, to be doing something, and I tug him by the hand.