Quite Precarious (A Lowcountry Novella)

Chapter One

Beau

The chilly, wet breeze blowing through the French doors leading to the back deck doesn’t work to cool me off. Nothing can make me feel better about the way I’ve handled the events of the past two days, events that culminated in a confrontation that cost me the most beautiful, intriguing, maddening woman I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing.

The drink in my hand is empty, like the three before it. Even though I want another, or maybe to kill the entire two hundred-dollar bottle of whiskey in the kitchen, it’s time to stop. Disastrous day with Graciela Harper aside, there are people in my town who need me to be alert in the coming days. Melanie Gayle, Leo Boone—their freedom is on the line. They deserve a mayor with a clear head and eyes, even if his heart is more than a little battered. Nothing I can do about that, but it doesn’t have to cost others what it’s costing me.

A knock on the front door tightens my chest; hope blooms in its wake. The thought that it could be Gracie coming to apologize. and wanting to work all of this out, propels me through the living room and into the foyer.

When the door swings in without my opening it and my sister Birdie’s pinched

expression pops through the crack, all of that fragile hope—silly as it was--crashes to a halt. The result causes a sharp pain in my chest. I take some deep breaths as all of that hope turns inside out, imploding like a black hole, and manage to stay upright.

My obvious distress does nothing to dissuade the concern etched around my sister’s eyes, which study me with a mixture of pity and worry. “Are you drunk? I mean, I wouldn’t blame you. I’m just asking.”

Birdie pushes past me without waiting for an answer, the scent of her shampoo

mingling with the fresh smell of the rain blowing around in her wake. I take a deep breath and shut the door, trying to mentally prepare for a conversation with another person who isn’t Gracie.

It’s not over, Beau. It’s a break. You need time to wrap your head around all of this curse stuff. She needs time to come to terms with her life now. It can’t be over for good.

The silent pep talk helps to raise my head, straighten my shoulders, and follow my uninvited sister into the kitchen. She’s standing with her back to me as she fills an electric tea kettle and turns it on to boil, then grabs two mugs out of the cabinet before turning around to face me.

It takes everything in me not to squint and block my eyes. She’s too bright, too invasive. I’m not ready for this new, dented version of me to be seen.

“It’s cold outside, and that storm is gearing up to be killer.” Birdie shudders as shiver zips right down her spine. “Like actually cold. I hate this time of year.”

“I know,” I mumble, glad the conversation is about her. They usually are. Silly me, to think that tonight would be any different.

She frowns, as though she’s read my mind. “Are you okay? I mean, I don’t know

exactly what happened but Brick called and said Graciela is a hot mess. Which isn’t all that strange, now that I think about it, but I figured I’d better—”

“Birdie…”

“Sorry.” The kettle clicks off and she grabs two bags of tea from the drawer, dumps them into the cups, pours water, then slides one mug across the island toward me. “What happened? Did you break up?”

I can’t tell Birdie what happened because she can’t know about the curse. For one thing, she’ll think I’ve gone completely daft; and if, by some miracle, she believed that part, she would have one more reason to be against my relationship with Graciela.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in nearly thirty years of life, it’s not to trash the person you’re dating to family and friends. If or when things get better, it makes life awkward as hell.

That said, if I have to talk to someone about what’s going on—and I might go stark raving mad if I don’t—Birdie is really my only choice. My law school friends are spread out, and we haven’t kept in touch all that regularly. They’re remnants of the life of privilege and nepotism I’ve tried to leave behind. The other members of my family, particularly Brick with his odd behavior and penchant for hanging around Amelia these days, are out of the question.

Birdie—the picture of privilege and nepotism—raises her perfectly waxed eyebrows, still waiting for a reply. If there’s one thing a good lawyer learns, it’s when not to interrupt. And my sister, for all of her faults, is a very good lawyer.

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you broke up? That’s a new one.”

“We’re just…we had a fight. We’re taking a break.”

“What did you fight about?”

“Secrets. Trust.” I sink down onto the barstool and wrap my hands around the mug, feeling too hot under my skin to need the warmth. It gives me an odd sort of comfort, anyway. “Lucy.”

She grimaces at the last part, the brief twist of pain on her face a reminder of how much she loved my ex-girlfriend. At least as much as I had, which was no small amount.

Since Birdie had been in on the deception, she’d lost her friend, too.

“Yes, it seems Graciela heard about Lucy from you. ” My voice is too gruff, placing blame where we both know it doesn’t belong.

“Beau, I swear, I didn’t say anything to her. I wouldn’t do that.”

“She overheard you giving me the business for not telling her myself when I was in the hospital with that snakebite.”

“Sorry.”

“Yes, you sound like you really mean it, too.”

Birdie shrugs off my sarcasm, squeezing her teabag and tossing it into the trash. “You should have told her earlier, Beau. Secrets are killers. No one knows that better than we do.”

As hard as I try, I can’t remember the last time my sister had a date, never mind a serious boyfriend. Whatever damage growing up the son of Brand and Cordelia Drayton had done to me, growing up their daughter hadn’t been any easier. My siblings and I should be pictured under the term Intimacy Issues in the dictionary.

“I should have, but that’s kind of a moot point now that she knows.”

“And you’re taking a break. Her decision?”

I swallow, trying to wet my throat. The tea, a refreshing peppermint, helps cool me a bit. “Mine.”

“But you said she found out about Lucy.” The confusion on Birdie’s face is real. She’s not digging because she’s curious—she really wants to understand.

The realization tries to break through my last reserves of strength. But Birdie hasn’t picked up on the fact that I’m barely holding it together, and bursting into man-sobs isn’t something I do in front of my family. Or anyone.

I close my eyes and suck in a deep breath. Hold it, count to ten, breathe it out. Open my eyes, feel the pieces that were blown apart earlier today knit back together with crude stitches. They’ll have to be strong enough to hold until I can get rid of her.

“There was something else, something Gracie has been keeping from me, that set the damn fuse.”

“I can see you don’t want to tell me what it was, but I swear to God, Beauregard, if that woman was cheating on you with that, that…wandering Heron Creek minstrel, I will lose my shit right here in your kitchen.”

Her description of Leo Boone earns her a snort, which in turn earns me a smile. “No, nothing like that. It’s just…personal, for her. Not mine to share.”

“Fair enough.” Birdie nods, accepting the explanation. Privacy is my sister’s religion.

“Anyway, when I pushed her about being open and honest, she reminded me that she’s been through a lot in the past several months and possibly hasn’t taken the time to heal from her previous relationship, which ended in a pretty rough betrayal.” I swallow more tea in an attempt to do something, anything, to distract myself from bawling like an over-tired toddler. “And she threw the fact that I hadn’t been totally honest, either, in keeping Lucy from her, in my face.” Rightly so. I can see that, now.

“You know how I hate saying I told you so, dear brother.”

“That’s abundantly clear, as always, sweet sister.” My lips twist in a wry smile that surprises me as much as it seems to startle Birdie. It drops away as fast as it stole in. “It’s become clear that, while having issues in a relationship is normal, hers and mine clash in a particularly unsavory way.”

She thinks about that for a moment, sipping from her own mug. “Meaning she has trust issues and you have issues with someone not trusting you.”

I nod, not able to meet her eyes. “That’s about the size of it.”

“Sounds like a pretty big impasse to me,” is her only comment.

“We’ve already navigated more than a few. And most of them share my last name.”

“That’s not entirely fair. It’s really just Mother, and to be honest, I think she’s harboring a grudging respect for the girl underneath all of her bluster. You know how she admires people who have the gumption to stand up to her.”

Could it be true that my mother might come around as far as Gracie’s suitability is concerned? I shake my head, knowing that’s not going to solve anything. Not now.

“Fair or not, things have been shaky between us for weeks. This is just…” I run a hand through my hair, feeling how badly it needs a wash. The overwhelming urge to stand in the shower, to truly be alone with everything that’s happened and let go, tries to drown me. “It’s just how it is right now. We need to take some time.”

My sister gives me a look like she knows exactly how things will turn out, and how taking time off, or breaks, really means it’s over. Instead of voicing any of those thoughts—thank God—she grabs my empty mug and puts it with hers in the sink.

“For what it’s worth, it’s best that everything is out in the open. You know that.” She comes around the island and sits next to me on a second barstool. “If things are going to work out between the two of you, there can’t be any secrets. She has to be able to trust you with anything; you have to be able to side with her against Mother. Both of those are pretty tall orders.”

“I know. I just…I’m crazy about her.” Tears sting my eyes and I look down at my hands, blinking until they go away. “I’ve never walked away from someone I love, Birdie. It doesn’t make sense to my heart, even though my head agrees with the decision.”

Birdie doesn’t say anything. There’s nothing to say, of course. No way to make it better, and no one knows the value of silence better than my sister. She learned it from my father, who she favors in far more things than my mother. We can all thank the heavens for that, since one Cordelia Drayton is more than enough for any planet to handle, never mind a family.

“What’s new with you?” I ask, trying to end the conversation gracefully, and without losing it. We haven’t talked about anything other than my relationship, my health, or what’s going on with Graciela’s many legal issues in too long.

“With me? Not a whole lot.” She frowns. “I have to meet with the Middletons in a while.”

“Tonight?” I glance at my watch. It’s after five. “Little late, isn’t it?”

She flashes a rueful smile. “You’ve been out of the practice for too long, big brother.

Besides, Brick really shit the bed on their custody case, so some ass-kissing is in order.”

“That sounds delightful. I really miss working at the firm.”

“No, you don’t.” She pauses. “Do you know what’s going on with Brick? I mean, with the information Phoebe had on the Middletons, they would have caved anyway, but Brick really seemed pleased about it. They’re right to be upset. I would be.”

I waver, unsure how much to tell her. Then again, it’s not like secrets are easy to keep in our family, or in this town. “I’m not sure. He’s been spending quite a bit of time with Amelia lately, which is…odd.”

She sits up straighter, her chin jerking toward her spine in surprise. “He’s been what?

Why?”

“I haven’t the slightest idea.” I stop, rethinking that statement in light of everything that’s happened since Graciela came back to Heron Creek. “You know what, maybe I do.

Don’t you think Brick’s been…I don’t know, different lately?”

Birdie doesn’t know that Gracie confronted him about the death of Nanette Robbins at Drayton Hall. Doesn’t know my girlfriend saw the ghost of the girl who died while my brother lay unconscious, the girl my brother—perhaps rightly—has always believed he murdered.

He has been different since Gracie met that ghost, since the dead girl indicated that she doesn’t blame my brother. That she’s happy and has moved on, and maybe thinks he should, too.

“Maybe? I know Mother’s head spun off into another dimension when he put up that damned plaque for that girl on the tree out front.”

“Yeah. I think he’s finally come to terms with that whole situation. That he’s healing, and not using booze and God knows what else to fake it anymore.” I shrug. “Amelia’s been struggling with severe depression. I think maybe he’s paying it forward.”

“I’d say that’s wonderful, if a little surprising, but that he needs to keep his lawyer self separate from his new, in-touch-with-his-feelings self. It’s great that he’s getting past that horror show, finally, but he’s making my life harder in the process.”

“That’s what Brick does. Some things never change.”

“I almost wouldn’t love him if he wasn’t a pain in my ass.”

“We are so fucked up.”

Her hand covers mine in a rare show of affection. “Everyone is. But we’re going to be okay.”

I know she’s saying I’m going to be okay, no matter what happens with Gracie. No matter whether I’m a lawyer or a mayor or a senator or something else entirely—I’m going to be okay.

It’s weird, but hearing someone who loves me say that aloud makes it seem possible.

But it still doesn’t feel real. My soul is empty, my heart struggles to beat, and sitting here breathing, never mind talking, feels like jabbing hot needles under my skin, but it’s nice to have family, even if they are the Draytons.

We’re not so bad, maybe, in the grand scheme of things.

Birdie reaches into her bag and pulls out a deck of cards, dumping them into her palms and flipping them into a shuffle. I start to shake my head, wanting nothing more than that shower alone, but she ignores me and starts dealing.

“I know you think you want to be alone, but you don’t. Not until you’re so tired you can’t help but fall asleep. In fact, pour us both a glass of that expensive whiskey you’re hiding.” She finishes. “In the meantime, let’s play some gin.”

“I thought you had to get to the office.”

“Eh, Brick can sweat it alone for a while longer.”

As I follow her orders on autopilot, too broken to argue, I stop for a moment to wonder how my little sister knows anything at all about handling heartbreak.

Chapter Two

Brick

My craving for a drink is nothing short of monumental. The Middletons are waiting in the conference room, but I’m hiding in my office like a scared kid who broke his father’s favorite golf clubs and is awaiting punishment when he gets home from work.

That said, I’m sweating from the alcohol withdrawal and my sister hasn’t shown up yet. Given that she ordered me in no uncertain terms not to go near our clients—any of them—without her present, I can pass this off as following instructions.

The Middletons already suspect my disgust over their rabid defense of their deplorable son, not to mention how they’re trying to steal their grandchild so they can fuck him up, too. Going in to face them with pit stains can only make things worse.

Instead of lying on the floor and praying for death, which is my backup plan if this whole AA thing doesn’t work out, I phone my sponsor. The man is a minimum-wage truck driver who thinks it’s acceptable for men to wear tank tops in public and the best holiday of the year is the start of deer hunting season—in short, not the type of person I’ve ever held an actual conversation with before joining the group—but he’s fifteen years sober and a surprisingly calming influence in moments like this.

“Brick? How ya doin’, buddy?”

He also calls me buddy, which I’ve almost learned to tolerate without wanting to stab my own eardrums with a letter opener.

“Not so good, Marv. Shaking like an old building without earthquake spikes.” It’s nice to have someone to be honest with, especially about my drinking. The people in my family would pretend I’m making a big deal out of nothing, that kicking a habit is easy, or roll their eyes at the idea that drinking to get through the day is anything other than normal.

It hurts like a bitch, both physically and emotionally, but it’s also nice to be fully awake to the world again. The agony will be worth it in the end. Marv’s here to help me face the demons. Kick them in the proverbial balls.

“Well, that’s known ta happen. Want to tell me about it?” His twang, along with the sound of the highway screaming past in the background, relaxes my shoulders the way only a double shot of whiskey could have done two weeks ago.

“I lost a court case today.”

Not technically true, since they settled and still have visitation rights, which is more than the Middletons deserve. But they would certainly call it a loss. So would I, a month ago.

“That’s rough.”

“Yeah, well, the bad part is I’m sort of glad, because they’re assholes.” I swallow a gulp of lemonade that does nothing. “And my sister is pretty pissed.”

“Well, did ya do your best? Because that’s all that matters,” he tells me in a voice most people reserve for their first graders the first time they fail a spelling test.

“I’m not sure I did.”

“Why’s that, now?” Marv doesn’t sound distracted, despite the fact that he’s working.

I try not to think too hard about the particulars of him being an alcoholic and a truck driver for the majority of his life.

“I guess I had an attack of conscience,” I hedge. I don’t want to talk about the reasons behind my sudden growth, not even with my sponsor. Not yet.

Marv’s better at reading people and timing than half the attorneys I go up against in the courtroom. He pauses like he’s waiting for me to say something more, and when I don’t, he plows ahead.

“That’s normal for this point in your process. We take stock, we make amends, we count our blessings…all of that leads to introspection, and ya know, sometimes we aren’t gonna like what we see when we look too hard.”

Leave it to Marv to use a word like introspection out of nowhere.

“I know. Trust me, there’s a lot about me that needs to change, but I think ruining my career would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.”

“You’ll figure it out. Remember, take it slow. One day at a time.”

I nod, closing my eyes for a moment and sucking in a deep breath through my nose.

The shakes in my hands have settled, and the sweat under my arms and on my forehead has gone cold. I can do this. If there’s one positive aspect of my stubbornness, it will be that I’ll be damned if an inanimate liquid is going to tell me what to do.

When my eyes struggle open, I find Birdie outside my office giving me her famous death stare. I feel better, regardless, and flash her a one-minute signal with a finger.

Not the one I’d like to show her, either. Progress.

I love my sister, but she doesn’t do subtlety. At my acknowledgment, she nods and turns her back on my glass office, giving me a moment of privacy. That is unlike her, but she must want to present the Middletons with a united front.

“Listen, Marv, thanks for answering. I’ve gotta run.”

“Anytime, my man. You know that.”

We hang up and I finish my lemonade, unsure if pretending there’s bourbon in it is a good or a bad thing, but it makes me feel a little better, anyway. Then I wipe my palms on my thighs, put my jacket back on, straighten my tie, and face my sister.

“Hey, Birdie. Where’ve you been?”

“Taking care of shit. As usual.” She casts a sidelong glance my direction, squinting the way she does when she’s assessing whether you’re ready for battle. “You look like hell.

What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” I haven’t told my family about AA, and have no plans to do any such thing. There will be questions about my turning down booze, eventually, but our festive get-togethers are few and far enough between that it will be a while. Plus, everyone else is usually so drunk they probably won’t even notice.

Birdie’s the only one I see on a regular basis. Even though our dad owns this firm, everyone knows he golfs six days a week and she and I run the place.

“Are you ready to eat some crow? Because you really stepped on your own dick

during this whole case.”

“I’ll do what I have to do to make them happy.” I rethink that statement, and decide to amend it. “As happy as possible.”

The truth is, Birdie doesn’t have anything to worry about. I promised Amelia that I would stay in the Middletons’ good graces long enough to figure out a way to get her friends off the hook for their fairly big indiscretions. It may not be possible—our clients have plenty of skeletons, but their ancestors spent generations building deep, dark closets to hide them in. Amelia and her pain in the ass cousin are sniffing around the scent, but without proof, they won’t scare the US Senator into submission. He’s got too much practice.

“Good. Let’s go, then.” Birdie gives me a curt nod, as close as she ever gets to a you can do this or a slap on the ass, and we walk side by side into the conference room.

Randall and Bette Middleton look pissed off and drunk, respectively, which is par for the course. He makes a living not showing up for votes in Congress, and she mixes so many prescription drugs with booze that she could probably qualify as a chemist in most states. The fading bruise on her cheek suggests their son didn’t come by his temper or his treatment of women by accident. They’re used to getting their way, and more than that, they’re not accustomed to people questioning them—losing the court case thing is bound to sting.

“Randall, Bette. Thank you for coming in so late. You didn’t have to do that.”

“Yes, well, I imagine you’d both be happier not discussing what happened with the Cooper bitch at all, but that’s not going to happen.”

My hackles rise at the verbal abuse of Amelia. I try my hardest to keep any reaction off my face but know Birdie feels me tense. She slides a little closer, until the backs of our hands are touching. It’s not an action meant to comfort as much as it is a reminder to keep my cool, and makes me immediately suspicious.

How would she guess that Amelia is my soft spot?

“We’re very sorry with the way things turned out with your case, Randall. Brick and I both.” Her hand gives mine the slightest nudge.

“Very sorry,” I add, too quickly. Chill out. “It’s unfortunate that the cousin was able to uncover certain things you’d rather not have made public. Otherwise, we had them on the ropes.”

“She’s unfit, that woman. Amelia,” Bette sneers, as though she’d like to spit right on the woman carrying her grandchild. The woman who was almost murdered—along with that same baby—by her insane son. “We have to try again.”

“You know we can’t.” Randall folds his arms, glaring at the cut-glass tumbler of amber liquid on the table in front of him.

I lick my lips, almost able to taste it as it numbs my throat, warms my belly.

“They don’t have proof of anything, and we’ve got leverage with those delinquent friends of hers. You said so,” she hisses, half mad from the drugs, her heels dug in like a traveling vacuum salesman with an eye on carpet stains and one foot in the door.

“They may not have paperwork to hand over to Congress so they can indict me, but they have plenty enough to stir up trouble on the Internet or the twenty-four-hour news cycle.” His voice pitches low, and soft. A sure warning that she’s probably going to get popped a few more times when they get home.

I’m guessing that’s why she stays so doped up. Based on her glassy eyes and slurred speech, she probably won’t feel it until tomorrow morning.

“We don’t think that it’s wise to go after Ms. Cooper again through the courts.” My sister’s tone would soothe a screaming baby, but that’s an easy trick compared to mollifying these two. “The judge was fair in granting you visitation once the child is old enough to be away from home, and with the regular check-ins and required therapy sessions, there’s a good chance Ms. Cooper could screw up on her own.”

“It’s not enough.” Randall throws back the drink in one gulp, unaware that droplets glisten in his thick, graying mustache. “We’re going to hurt her however we can.”

“We’re on your side, of course.” I keep my voice even, make eye contact. “What did you have in mind?”

“Are you on our side? It didn’t seem like it when you were handling our incompetent daughter-in-law with kid gloves and kissy faces,” Bette grumbles.

My neck feels hot, but even I’m not sure if it’s embarrassment or anger. “I beg your pardon. I fulfilled my contract and my duties on your case to the letter of the law.”

“We don’t pay you to follow the letter of the law, Brick. We pay you to win. No matter what that means.” Randall glowers my direction, the implications clear.

I pause, getting myself under control. Birdie doesn’t interrupt or try to bail me out, leaving me to wonder if she’s as interested in my response as they are. Something’s definitely going on with her, but knowing Birdie, it won’t take too long for her to come out with it.

My heart squeezes. My lungs are flat with the effort of breathing normally and I’m sweating again, this time trying not to punch him in his ugly face.

“I know you do, sir. I can only apologize for my shortcomings on the previous

proceedings, but if you’d like to tell us how you’d like to proceed going forward, I’m all ears.”

Birdie relaxes at my side, which must mean the performance was convincing, at least.

“We want to prosecute the friends to the fullest extent of the law,” he growls in response.

The news, not unexpected, is still unfortunate. Melanie Gayle and Leo Boone, while nothing but collateral damage to me, are important to Amelia. She and Graciela—that crazy loon—won’t be happy until they’re cleared of the charges against them.

Charges that are true. Breaking and entering. Theft. Collusion. They did it all, and by all rights and the laws of this country, should pay for it. The United States doesn’t give exceptions for committing crimes against people who damn well deserve it.

But the Middletons don’t play fair, so why should anyone else?

I’m still not clear on why I’m doing any of this—getting sober, having a heart, agreeing to try to undercut my clients. Clients who are also longtime family friends, and one of the most powerful families in the country, to boot.

An image of Amelia Cooper floats into my mind. Her green eyes crinkle at the edges, like she wants to smile but she’s forgotten how, and she toys with the ends of her sunshine-blond hair, uncertain. Scared, like maybe she’ll never remember how to do it again—be happy.

I know those feelings so intimately they make me ache even now. It’s impossible to say what she means to me. If she means anything, or it’s just my broken soul desperate to reach out and bring someone else toward the light, so I don’t have to go it alone.

All I know is that since I looked and really saw her for the first time, I feel like the light isn’t impossibly far away.

“Agreed.” Birdie frowns, an expression meant for me after my lack of response.

“They’re in the wrong. There’s proof that they violated your rights and we will make sure that no settlement is accepted this time.”

“It would help us if you could get us a list of anything they might have discovered in those files, or in your home, so that we can cut off any attempt to play hardball.” I clear my throat, ignoring the burning look of suspicion from my sister. “It’s possible that they’ll go after that proof now, and as your attorneys, we can advise you on how best to keep that from happening. Legally, of course.”

Mr. Middleton snorts. “Yeah, like I’m going to write down my indiscretions in so many words, nice and neat on a piece of paper that could end up in the wrong hands.

Whose son are you? Because I’m starting to suspect you can’t belong to Brand Drayton.”

“You don’t have to write it down.” Birdie comes to my aid, surprising me again. “But he’s not wrong. It’s our job to make sure there aren’t any surprises this time, and attorney-client privilege ensures you can trust us.”

The couple studies us for a long moment from their side of the table. Birdie and I never sat down, ambushed as soon as we walked through the door. Bette looks as though she might be nodding off, then jerks to the side, wide awake.

“Fine,” Randall says, grudgingly. “We can make arrangements to come in another time after Bette and I have had a chance to talk.”

They need to decide what to tell us about, or maybe what exactly could be garnered from those files or from their homes. They don’t know about the ex-employees the girls and Will talked to a few weeks ago, since they never had to fire that weapon in the trial, so they may not admit to those skeletons. The ones we need the most.

Still, this is good. I smile at the bastards and ignore the nervous waves washing off Birdie in the form of picked cuticles and a too-big smile.

Tell me everything, I think . Something in there will be exactly what Amelia and Graciela need to bring you down for good. The whole country will be better for it.

Chapter Three

Lindsay

I thought I understood exhaustion when Marcella was an infant and I was alone. Alone for the feedings, the colic, the endless diapers and sleepless nights. Then there came prison, and the long hours of staying up, listening for every little sound that could mean someone coming for me with a shiv. Or worse.

Turns out, all of that pales in comparison with worrying about your sweetest brother twenty-four hours a day.

Leo is the only person who stood by me through everything—the pregnancy, the

drugs, the worse stuff. Prison. The rest of the family has cut him off for his trouble, too.

At least, I think that’s how it went down. Knowing Leo and his rigid ideas of right and wrong, it’s probably as likely that he’s the one who stopped talking to them.

But now he’s the one in trouble. He’s the one who had a bullet dug out of his chest and then was led out of the hospital bed in handcuffs a few days later—all because of his blind devotion to Heron Creek’s prodigal daughter.

I know Graciela Harper can’t be held responsible. It’s not even fair to accuse her of taking advantage of Leo, because she’s always been too dense to pick up on his feelings, but she’s easy to blame. She’s a loon, always has been even before she started seeing ghosts, and has spent more than half a lifetime torturing my brother, knowingly or not.

I sigh, punching in the last of the lunch orders and checking the time on the machine.

We have a meeting with his lawyer in an hour, and getting all of my sidework done and checked out by my power-drunk boss is going to present a challenge. Waiting tables isn’t a bad job, and it pays decent money for a woman with no other skills and jail time on her résumé. I sincerely hope that it’s not the only work in my future, however, because dealing with the public every day, every week, every month will be the thing that lands my butt back in the big house, for sure.

And doing that to Marcella, to Leo, again isn’t an option. It can’t be.

I keep my head down as I finish my last table, clean my section and refill all of the little sugar caddies and salt and pepper shakers. Wipe the laminated drinks and specials cards. Suffer through my least favorite sidework—cleaning the tea and coffee machines.

Do my best impression of a sullen teenager while my boss runs fat fingers over the

menus, sniffs the insides of the coffee pots, and holds my sugar caddies upside down trying his best to dislodge them.

When he finds nothing to complain about, I check out and shrug into my coat, opening an umbrella to ward off the cold rain that’s dotting the sidewalk with wet splotches. The lawyer is meeting us at Leo’s house, which is nice because we don’t have to get someone to watch Marcella, but bad, because it means Marcella is going to have questions.

That poor girl. I mean, I’m living proof that a person can turn out a bad egg even with a decent start in life. That the opposite can also be true is the only thing that gets me out of bed in the morning. She has to be okay. She’s smarter than I ever was, that’s for sure.

Except for her strange, unwavering affection for Gracie.

It takes me twenty minutes to make the drive from touristy Driftwood to Heron Creek.

The sprinkles continue, but by the looks of the dark, ominous sky, the storm is going to get worse, and soon.

I love storms. It’s an excuse to curl up under a blanket with a hot drink, maybe a fire if Leo stacked the wood on the back porch like I asked him to last week. We don’t get the opportunity for nights like this one very often, not in coastal South Carolina. With the lawyer coming over and Marcella to distract, not to mention the worries weighing down my limbs, the relaxing portion of the evening may be a pipe dream.

Leo’s car sits in the driveway. I let out a relieved breath that he’s where he’s supposed to be, which means he’s picked up Marcella. I try hard not to show my relief when my brother is where he’s supposed to be, since he did a fine job taking care of my daughter the couple of years I was away, but the worry never goes away.

“Hey,” I say, dropping my purse and kicking off my orthopedic shoes on the tiled entryway. “Where’s Marcella?”

“In her room. I bought her a new book and she’s reading it herself even though I promised we could read it together at bedtime.” Leo gives me a half-hearted smile. We both know Marcie can’t read yet, not really, but she pretends with the best of them.

One of my brother’s arms is in a sling, pinned to his chest to help his bullet wound recover from surgery. He looks tired, with dark rings around his eyes and hair that could use a wash—he probably needs help, with one arm. Guilt washes over me, pinching my stomach with nausea. I should have thought about that and offered this morning.

We only have each other. I need to be better about being there for him now that I can.

“Do I have time to rinse the fryer-grease stink off me and change clothes before the lawyer gets here?” I pause, trying to remember. “What’s his name again?”

“Her name is Leatrice, and you have twenty minutes.”

“I’m on it.” There won’t be time to wash my hair, but the rest is possible. I peek into Marcie’s bedroom and smile at the sight of her snuggled under a blanket with a book, living out my recent stormy evening fantasy. “Hey, chickpea.”

“Mommy!” She grins, her silky black pigtails bouncing around her chin as she scurries off the bed and into my arms. The scent of her, all clean shampoo and baby skin, warms my heart. She makes the day easier, even with what’s still to come.

“How was your day?” I ask, after kissing the top of her head and she’s gone

scrambling back to her comfy spot on the bed.

“Good. We learned about weather.”

“You did?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Her tongue pokes out the side of her mouth as she goes back to her

book. I love that me coming home rates as a normal afternoon. That she’s feeling secure about me being here later when she’s done with her book and ready to chat.

The normalcy we’re building makes me smile.

“I’m going to take a quick shower, then Uncle Leo and I have a meeting in the

kitchen. We’ll have dinner afterward. Maybe a floor picnic, if it’s not too late. Sound good?”

She nods, tearing her eyes away from the pictures in her book about ladybugs long enough to look toward me.

I chuckle under my breath. “Finish your book. I’ll see you in an hour or so.”

The book will work out in our favor if it can keep her enthralled while the lawyer is here. Leo probably figured, and that’s why he bought it in the first place. They don’t usually purchase books, not with my daughter’s love of both the Heron Creek library and its kook of a librarian, so he must have had an ulterior motive.

I make it out of the shower and into a clean pair of jeans and a thin, comfortable sweater. My hair’s in a ponytail and my feet are in socks, but there’s enough time to get

Marcie a bowl of mac and cheese in case our meeting runs long, and remind her to stay in her room before the doorbell rings.

In the front room, Leo’s shaking hands with a tall black woman with light skin and a waterfall of braids down her back. She exudes a professional vibe in her lilac pencil skirt, flowing cream-colored blouse, and a heather-gray jacket. The fact that she made it up our broken sidewalk in nude heels makes me both respect her and wonder who she’s trying to impress—because the Boones have never been the kind of people that inspire others to put on airs.

We might be from the wrong side of the tracks according to some people in this town, but neither Leo nor I ever minded. Our family is real.

At least, that’s how I felt before they abandoned me over a few dozen bad decisions.

“Hi, I’m Leatrice McClean.” Her tone is warm as she reaches out a hand that envelops mine in a firm handshake.

“Lindsay Boone.” I hold my breath, never sure these days who has heard my story.

I get a wide array of reactions around here even if no one has said anything rude.

Some people are surely harboring distaste, but if one thing has never changed about Heron Creek, it’s that we take care of our own.

“Is there somewhere we can sit and talk?” she starts, transitioning smoothly into business.

“Right this way.” Leo leads her into the kitchen and they settle around the table. My brother looks nervous, the lines around his eyes and mouth deeper than they were twenty minutes ago.

“Would you like something to drink? We have water or juice, beer. I think wine.”

“I’d love a glass of water, or some lemonade if you have it.”

“Just a sec.”

I grab a beer for Leo, pour a lemonade for her and decide to have one of my own—

with a healthy splash of bourbon. The two of them are talking softly when I slide the glasses onto the table and take a seat, listening in an attempt to catch up.

“They have a decent amount of physical evidence, with the bullet the surgeons pulled out of your shoulder matching the ballistics report on the Middletons’ gun. Now, we can

fight that, at least try to get the hospital to admit that they could have mixed up the report, but that will only work if they had at least one other gunshot victim the same night.”

“How likely is that?” I ask, wondering how many people are shot in Charleston on the average night, and what the chances are that they went to the same hospital as my brother.

“Not very,” Leatrice admits. “But we’ll check on it.”

“What else?” Leo’s voice is thin, as though he knows there must be something else.

“They’re building a circumstantial case regarding your connection to a…” She pauses, checking what must be notes on her phone. “Graciela Harper and her cousin Amelia Cooper. The Middletons’ daughter-in-law?”

“Ex-daughter-in-law, but yes.”

“You’re close with the family?”

“I’ve known them just about my whole life. But like I told the police, this is a small town. I don’t know if they can prove that we’re particularly close.”

“Look, Mr. Boone.”

“Leo.”

“Leo. I’m your attorney. It’s my job to be on your side, and to provide you with the best defense possible. I can only do that if I have all of the facts.” She purses her lips, tilting her head to the side as she studies my brother like she’s wondering how much he can take. “It’s not a great case to begin with, and any surprises will be the death of us.”

“He’s in love with her. Graciela,” I blurt out, avoiding Leo’s gaze in favor of focusing on the lawyer. “I don’t know how many people know it, but they spend quite a bit of time together. Play tennis, get into little bits of trouble here and there. They’re friends.”

Leo doesn’t argue or defend himself against my accusation. I’ve never said it out loud before, what I know about his feelings for Gracie, but there’s no point in denying it’s the truth.

“Okay, but what about the daughter-in-law? She’s the real connection.”

Leo shrugs. “We don’t have a relationship per se, but everyone knows Gracie would do anything for her.”

“And if people assume you’ll do anything for Gracie, then they’ll have their connection.” I draw lines between the dots for Leatrice, even though she seems bright and

they’re fairly obvious. We can’t afford any miscommunications. I’ve had my fair share of trials that haven’t gone my way in the courtroom so in this, I’m the expert.

“No one else in town would claim I’m in love with her. They’d say we’ve been

friends, of a sort, since childhood, same as everyone else in this town.” He closes his eyes briefly, tapping one finger on the table. “People would also say that Gracie and I have a long history of getting into trouble together, or at the very least, that we’re not so big on following the letter of the law.”

Leatrice waves a hand. “Kids’ stuff. Neither of you have been arrested as adults, and there’s nothing recent on your records. You might have been close as children, but she’s only returned to town a few months ago, and before that you hadn’t been in contact for years, correct?”

My brother actually looks sad, as though he hates remembering those quiet gaps of time when Graciela Harper disappeared from his life. “Correct.”

“Okay. They might try to play that card, but there’s no reason for a jury to believe you and Miss Harper are any closer than anyone else who grew up together in a small town. I think we can fight that.” She licks her lips and takes a swallow of her lemonade, like she’s stalling.

The sense of foreboding, as thick in our house as it was in the air this evening, puts tension between my shoulders. Leatrice is the weatherman, and she’s about to tell us how bad the storm is going to get. Even my little brother, who has far less experience getting bad news from lawyers, senses the shift in her attitude and sits up straighter. Some of the fatigue falls away from his face, replaced by trepidation as he presses his lips together.

“It’s not good. If we can’t cast a shadow of a doubt on the ballistics, you’re likely going to be convicted of breaking and entering. They’re not charging you with theft, since the Middeltons haven’t, as of yet, found anything missing.” Another pause, this one shorter. “I would expect that story to change at some point during the process. They’ll find something missing—jewelry, papers, antiques—to make it worse, even if they have to make it up. It’ll be your word against theirs, and I also expect them to come out with forensic evidence that you were in the house.”

“I was careful,” Leo says, quietly. It’s his first admission that he was, in fact, in the Middletons’ house, but no one is surprised. “And if it helps, I can tell them what I was doing there, so they’ll know I didn’t steal anything.”

“Let’s see how things go.” Leatrice stows her phone back in her purse, the only instrument she brought for the interview tonight. “I wanted to be honest with you about how things are looking right now, and we’ll be in touch as the trial gets closer. I know this should be obvious, but in the meantime, don’t talk about the case with anyone. Don’t leave town. Don’t give the cops or the Middletons any reason to come after you again.

Got it?”

Leo nods. He doesn’t move to show his attorney out, even after she stands up, so I push back my chair and lead her to the front door, thanking her quietly before sending her out into the rainy South Carolina night. I take a moment for myself, pressing my forehead against the door and taking a couple of deep breaths.

This is bad. If nothing changes, and no pleas are offered—which Leo doesn’t think there will be, given the outcome of Amelia’s custody case and how pissed the Middletons are about being beaten—my brother is going to jail.

Tears sting my eyes at the thought, for so many reasons. First off, I’ve been to jail. It does things to you, even when you deserve to be there. Even if you’re strong, even if you’re dumb enough not to be terrified. Then, there’s Marcella. She can’t get me back just to lose her uncle, the man who has been the blessed constant in her life all this time.

I take another minute, pull myself together, and then walk back to the kitchen. Leo’s right where I left him. When his gaze raises to mine, it’s angry.

“You didn’t have to say that. About Gracie.”

I slide into the chair and gulp the rest of my spiked lemonade. “She’s your lawyer, Leo. She’s not going to take out an ad in the Creek Sun.”

He looks uncomfortable, as though I’ve stripped away a layer of skin, and for a moment, I feel badly. He’s kept the secret locked away for so long, hidden so deep that most of the time I think he’s able to convince himself even he’s unaware of it. But the guilt falls away fast enough, in favor of a familiar anger. Which is much more deserved.

“I can’t believe you’re willing to go to prison for her. I can’t believe she’d let you get yourself into this situation. I hate her.”

“Don’t hate her, Linds. It was my decision. I just…it’s hard to say no to Gracie.”

I snort. “Let me try next time.”

“Look, you don’t understand my loyalty to her. Fine. But you’re a mother. Wouldn’t you do everything you could to keep Marcella safe? Those people can’t get their hands on Amelia’s baby. Surely you agree with that..”

“It’s not your problem, and you’re going to pay for it with your freedom.” The tears are back, jamming a lump in my throat. I swallow hard half a dozen times, angry at myself for being such an emotional baby now. “You could have just said no.”

Leo’s expression turns sad, edging toward pity. “This isn’t you. You’ve been gone a long time, and I know Mom and the boys turning their backs on you still hurts. But we’re a community. We’re family, me and Gracie and the others, and there was a time when you would have done anything for the people in this town—even the ones you didn’t like.”

“I hardly remember that girl.” There’s a hard edge to my voice that I don’t like.

Hardly understand.

His hand covers mine, and shame heats my face. I should be the one comforting him right now, not the other way around. “I do, Linds. We’ll find her. Give her time to stick her head out into the light again. She’s had it kicked quite a few times lately.”

We sit there like that for a long time. I have no idea how much time passes, but then Marcella is there, the book in her hand as she climbs into my lap and asks if we can have a floor picnic and if Uncle Leo is still going to read her the book.

In a breath, the night is normal again. I’m not a broken shadow of the girl who grew up in Heron Creek. Leo’s adoration for Graciela Harper isn’t about to land him in prison.

We’re a family, the three of us, and we can pretend we’re not more aware than most that that fact can change in an instant.

Chapter Four

Travis

The Ryan twins are out helping the pastor over at the Baptist church make sure the weatherproofing around his old-ass windows will hold through the storm. William Gayle checked out an hour ago to pick up his son before heading home for the evening. That leaves me alone at the station even though I’m not supposed to be working tonight.

It would have been nice to get home before the storm rolled in, but in truth, it doesn’t matter all that much. My property manager takes care of any weather damage. I don’t have a kid or a pregnant wife to worry about, and the only thing waiting for me at home is a package of ramen noodles and some cheap beer.

Though my tenure in the Heron Creek PD started out with far more excitement than I could have anticipated in a town of two thousand, today has been quiet. In fact, if it weren’t for one resident in particular, there wouldn’t be much to talk about at all.

A frown finds my face at the mere thought of Graciela Harper and what a pain in my ass she’s been since I arrived. Funny, I suppose, when she’s the whole reason I came here.

It’s still strange, that it gets dark so early. My stomach and internal clock insist that it’s well past dinner, but my phone promises it’s not even six-thirty. The gathering storm doesn’t do anything to help matters, with thick, dark clouds blotting out the rising moon.

I ignore the grumbling in my belly. The only other option is to dig around the break room for some leftover food or resort to the vending machine, and that’s its own kind of minefield. This coming from the guy who eats dinner straight from a box more nights than not. That’s how bad it is in there. I’m convinced that the Ryan twins and their good physique can only be explained by genetics. Or voodoo.

My laptop fits on the desk with my work computer, and I open it after double-

checking that no one else has wandered in. I could use the desktop for personal email and the like—everyone else certainly does—but there are some things that need to stay private. There was a notification on my phone earlier that my parents emailed, but there hasn’t been time to read it until now. And again, maybe it’s paranoia, but I prefer not to open sensitive data on my cell. Skynet and Edward Snowden and all of that. The government might deposit my paychecks, but that doesn’t mean I trust them with everything.

A guy whose past has a few dark spots needs to be more careful than most.

The email is there, bold and with the strange ability to catch my breath in my chest.

It’s not that I don’t love and appreciate my adoptive parents, there’s just something about the mere existence of the only people in the entire world who know every last thing about me that sets my teeth on edge.

The subject line of Hello, Son tells me nothing except that my mother is the one who wrote it. My father never calls me son—it’s always something like sport or buddy or some other nickname better suited to a five-year-old. More proof that while they’re nice people, they were not meant to be my parents.

I take a deep breath and click open the email, scanning the few short paragraphs first to get the quick relief that comes with reassuring myself all is well. Instead, my stomach drops as the words Graciela, email, and isn’t it wonderful jump off the page. I clench my teeth and go back to the top, reading more carefully this time.

Dear Son -

We received the email from Graciela, and are so happy that you decided to connect with what remains of your birth family. It must be fate, her ending up in South Carolina, too, when all this time we thought she stayed in Iowa after her mother’s death. Isn’t it wonderful?

I advised her that she has your father’s and my blessing as far as beginning a relationship with you, and that we would have encouraged it sooner if Felicia had been amenable. We hope that things are going well, and would love to hear from you or arrange a visit soon.

All our love, Mom & Dad

The message is short. I come to the end far before my brain can compute how any of this happened. I read it a second time, and then a third, before it occurs to me that she dropped the necessary information right up front—that she received an email from Gracie.

I snap the laptop closed and sit back in my chair, my mind a whirl so violent it feels like it’s been kicked up by a Tasmanian devil. Why would Gracie email my parents?

What had she said that made my mother spill the beans about my adoption, or had my parents seen her name and just assumed? How had she even found my parents, and more than that, what else did she know?

My records were sealed for various reasons, but I wouldn’t put anything past my half-sister. Her training as an archivist has made her more resourceful than most, though knowing our mother and hearing the stories about Gracie’s childhood in Heron Creek, I’m not sure she didn’t have a running start where nosiness and digging in her heels is concerned.

Most days, those are traits that inspire admiration. Heck, even on the days she’s made my job as town detective so much harder than it has to be, even when she’s scared the shit out of me trying to get herself killed, and even a few days ago, when she informed me she’s known for a while that the local criminal element is looking for a way to get rid of me…I’ve admired her. Been proud of her, even, but this? Digging into my past, tricking my poor, clueless parents, violating my privacy?

It boils my blood until the under side of my skin feels scalded. I want to punch the wall, rip something apart with my bare hands, maybe march over to her house demanding answers.

How dare she?

But you’ve known almost your whole life that you have a sister. Her mother kept that from her, so why shouldn’t she have a right to know?

I bat away the rational thoughts. Gracie’s lack of information isn’t my problem, and it was never my decision. If she wants to be mad let her be mad at Fe.

Or, let her be mad at you for coming here to meet her, to get to know her, but declining to tell her the truth about who you are.

Shut up, I hiss at the annoying conscience chirping in my ear like that damn cricket from Pinocchio.

The Ryan twins slam through the front door before I have a chance to get hold of my emotions, which are careening off the walls. Luckily, the two of them don’t notice much that’s not part of their job. Or female. The smell of Indian food, odd and out of place in Heron Creek, almost sends me running for the bathroom in sympathy. The restaurant just opened up and, since it’s not run by Indian people, I’ve avoided it.

“Hey, Travis! We got an extra thing of lamb curry for you!” Tom beams at me like he’s brought home the World Series trophy for the hometown team.

“Thanks, I’ll pass.” I get up too fast and grab my jacket off the back of the chair. It falls on the floor and I step on it trying to pick it up. By the time I manage to get it on, they’re both staring at me. Great. Even their thick melons have realized something’s up.

My face feels hot. “You two are on duty alone until Gayle comes in at five am. You can go home, but you’re on call.”

“Yeah, we know how the overnight shift works,” Ted drawls, slower than even normal and sounding far too amused. “We’ve worked here longer than you have, remember?”

“Just make sure you don’t fall asleep with your phones in another room this time,” I snap, trying to redirect their attention.

Their stupid grins say I’ve accomplished the opposite. The best thing to do is just to get the hell out of here, so that’s what I do, landing in my car and getting back to my rental house without much memory of the trip. An hour later the ramen noodles are still in the package and there are three empty beer bottles on the counter. The storm hasn’t moved all the way in, but the splatter of fat raindrops against my cheap, single-paned windows promise it’s not going to pass us by altogether.

I stare at my phone, a twist in my guts that makes even the thought of eating painful, no matter how hungry I was a few hours ago. The Ryan twins should be okay—with the first big storm of the season rolling in, the few troublemakers in town should have other things to keep them occupied. Unless someone dies. Like the pastor of an aging church, being the detective in this town is more often than not about calling the coroner’s office.

Hell, that’s all I’d be doing if it weren’t for my sister.

I glare at my phone now, wondering why Gracie hasn’t called. Wondering why her cousin— my cousin—hasn’t rung to tear me a new asshole or cry in my ear or scream obscenities or something. What were they waiting for? Is it possible Gracie hasn’t opened the email from my parents? That it never made it? Got deleted on accident?

Not knowing is driving me mad. One glance in the mirror reveals bloodshot eyes and hair sticking up six different directions, and even I can tell my breath is rancid.

Calm down, Travis. No matter how pissed they are, they can’t hate you forever.

They’re family. That’s why you’re here—to meet your family.

I take a deep breath. Brush my teeth, comb my hair. Change into clothes I haven’t sweated through, swap my contacts for glasses. The unsteadiness of my gait convinces me to slow down further. I cook the ramen. I make some coffee.

Once I’m calmer, with food in my belly to soak up some of the anxiety and alcohol, I start to go over what I’ll say when Gracie’s in front of me. It’s best to do this in person.

I’ll go over to their house, and when one of them opens the door and sees it’s me, it should be obvious whether they know or not.

By now, I’ve figured out that Gracie and her mother weren’t particularly close. I don’t think that will matter once my bombshell drops—no one likes to face the cold, hard truth that maybe she never knew her mother at all. That her mother never trusted her enough to tell her about an older sibling, one given away in a fit of responsibility.

If they don’t already know from the errant email, that leaves me with some serious decisions to make. Coming here, it had been my intention to tell both Gracie and Amelia of our familial connection. If Gracie’s been poking around in my past and that email from my parents is on her phone, it won’t be long until she finds out, anyway.

I still don’t know how and why she’s been snooping, and that churns up a cloud of worry. My detective gut—which is solid, despite my frequent troubles at work since the start of my career—says it has to do with this whole thing with Clete.

As crazy as Gracie and her antics made me, it doesn’t change the fact that I want to know her. And Amelia. The second relationship has been going better, but it was clear right off the bat that the two of them are as thick as thieves.

I couldn’t stand the thought of them circling the wagons to shut out the latecomer. The guy who doesn’t belong, whose presence will rock the boat.

I’ve been that guy my entire life. The boy who’s nothing like his parents—not in looks, not in beliefs, not in conscience. The adopted boy in a town where everyone else’s great-grandparents put down roots.

I came here hoping to find a place that feels like it fits. Heron Creek, in many ways, reminds me of the small town in Texas where I grew up. Living there was like never being invited into a clubhouse when everyone else has the key to the door. The difference could be Gracie. Amelia.

Family.

If only I had the courage to look them in the eye and ask for the secret password.

Chapter Five

Amelia

Sitting hunched over the computer makes my back and neck ache. My eyes are dry and my wrists are sore, but putting down the laptop means giving up. There have to be rumors out there about Charlotta and James, or the families of Drayton slaves or freed workers who have put together their own histories dating back to the plantation era. I’m not the expert my cousin is at digging, or at research, and it’s easy enough to see that I’m out of my depth, because if those things are out there online somewhere, I can’t uncover them.

There’s no reason to believe that anything we find will convince Mama Lottie to abandon her desire to curse the Draytons. Just because there’s an African-American in their lineage…from what Grace has told me about the woman and how she’s all over that family like a duck on a junebug, we’re going to have to do better than that.

I sigh and take a deep breath, taking a moment to stretch out my kinks. It’s been hours since Brick left, since Grace shoved this laptop into my hands and told me to start looking, but a quick glance at my watch says it hasn’t been that long since she walked out the door. The thought of her out there, on her way to tell Mama Lottie why the curse didn’t work, makes me feel sick to my stomach.

There’s a little clump of hair from the illegitimate line of Draytons in my cousin’s purse, which on a normal evening would be disturbing enough but these days it barely registers on the weirdness scale.

While it’s true that Grace’s penchant for trouble has enchanted me since forever, this whole thing is a little different than petty theft as a child or some good-natured destruction of public property. She’s out there, about to help an evil spirit put a curse on the family of the man she loves like she’s never loved anyone, and acknowledging that fact knocks the wind out of me like a physical blow.

Grace had loved Will—was crazy about him, drunk on him, needed him like oxygen—

but we were all kids, and naďve ones at that. Their perfect, nostalgic, first love was real, no doubt, but not built to stand any serious tests. A fact they proved themselves when they both moved on without putting too much time and effort into letting go.

But Beau? What’s between them is real, real. The kind of real that’s going to take weeks, maybe months, and possibly therapy or a regression to drinking a couple bottles of wine every night to shake.

The look on her face tonight when she came downstairs and found Brick here was like an arrow to the heart. As much as he helps me—and it’s immeasurable—we’re not going to be able to stay friends if she and Beau can’t work things out. I won’t do that to her, no matter how he feels like a life preserver in an angry sea.

My chest hurts thinking about giving up his texts and phone calls and reassuring presence. I’ve never been through one of those twelve step programs, but based on what I’ve heard and seen, Brick feels like my sponsor—my depression sponsor.

Depression. The word sounds slimy in my head, and I imagine it will taste awful on my tongue the day I finally get enough courage to name my monster aloud.

Brick gets all of it without me having to say anything, and best of all, he doesn’t force me to do anything, not even talk, if I don’t feel like it. His encouragement is given in the

way only another survivor can provide. Brick has scratched his way out of the darkness and behind him, there are little pinpoints of light for me to follow. If he leaves, and the whole thing caves in on my head, there won’t be enough air to find my way back.

Not again.

I’m texting Mel about Beau and Gracie when the doorbell rings, startling me out of my pity party. All of my worries over Grace crash back into the empty space. She wouldn’t be ringing the doorbell, but no one else should be either. My heart squishes into my throat as I slam my laptop closed and race into the foyer.

Don’t let it be a cop. Don’t let it be a cop. Cops mean death and accidents and trouble with a capital T.

I fling open the door to find…not a cop. Instead it’s a tiny Asian girl bouncing in a pair of beat-up, high-top Chuck Taylors. She cocks her head at the sight of me, a frown touching the edges of her crimson lips as her gaze slides over my belly and back to my face.

“You’re not Gracie,” she comments, shifting to adjust the weight of the armload of books she’s carrying.

“No. Who are you?” Leaving her out in the rain is rude, no doubt. If I could see ghosts the way Grace could, I’d bet my Grams is standing over my shoulder trying to swat me for forgetting my manners, but there are too many variables in our lives.

Then again, even if she’s here to kill me or deliver a special new curse from the ghost of Mrs. LaBadie, this chick is tiny and I’m basically the Hindenberg. I could probably knock her sideways off the porch with a gentle swipe from my pregnant belly, but why not at least ask what the heck she wants first?

“I’m Jenna Lee,” she replies in a perky voice that matches her wide open face. “Who are you?”

The name rings a bell, but my addled baby brain takes its sweet-ass time extracting why—Grace was working with her. I snap my fingers, opening the door wider to let her past. “The brilliant preservationist from Drayton Hall! It’s nice to meet you, finally. I’m Amelia. Grace is my cousin.”

“I should have known.” Jenna nods at my belly. “She’s been worried about you.”

“Grace needs to spend more time worrying about herself,” I mutter, giving Jenna a tight smile to try to dislodge some of the concern in my tone. “Can I take those from you?”

The books shift again, inches from tumbling onto the floor. They look old, but not so old they belong in our library archives or anything, and Jenna doesn’t seem too worried about bending corners or dropping them.

“I just need somewhere to put them down. Gracie asked if she could borrow them.”

“Sure. Follow me.”

Jenna trails me into the kitchen, confirming my observations about her load when she dumps the lot of them in a heap on the table. She stretches her back, groaning a little bit, then gives me a wry smile. “I’m aging too quickly, always bent over things out there. I’ve been meaning to lobby for extra health insurance.”

A snort escapes. “Good luck with that.”

“Cordelia doesn’t hate everyone as much as she hates your cousin. Gracie’s special.”

Jenna’s smile disarms me. It lets me know whose side she’s on, and Grace trusts her.

“That she is.” I’m tired to the bone but at the same time, amped up. It’s because my cousin is out there, on her way to meet the devil, and I’m sitting here on my hands. As usual. My hands go to my stomach in a protective motion that must be coded into female human DNA as I nod toward the books. “What’s all that?”

“Diaries. Charlotta Drayton wrote them.” Jenna holds up a hand after taking a look at my face, which I realize too late includes a dropped jaw. “She didn’t tell me why she’s so interested in the woman, so don’t spill unless you want her pissed at you.”

“She didn’t?” It takes all of my willpower not to snatch them and start reading. We know Charlotta is the one who started the illegitimate line, but we don’t know anything about the father. James.

“No. She has some cockamamie idea that she’s keeping me safe even though I told her that if there’s some dangerous people—dead or otherwise—roaming the Hall grounds, it would be better, at least in my mind, to be in the know.”

“I tend to agree with you there, but Grace is stubborn.”

It’s Jenna’s turn to snort. “That’s like calling a cougar a pussycat.”

“You’ve got her pegged, I’d say. She liked working with you. Said you were her kind of people on more than one occasion.”

“She talked about you, too. I mean, before she opened her mouth and told Mrs.

Drayton a few things we’d all been wanting to say for a very long time.”

Out of my memory comes conversations with Grace about this girl—how brilliant she is, about her thesis project that will certainly land her a job at any historical site in the country, and how she’s a little too enthusiastic about playing cloak and dagger. An idea catches in the back of my mind, flickering. Tempting me to come a little bit closer.

I run a finger over the journals, my curiosity quickly overtaking any fatigue. Jenna rubs her delicate features like maybe she’s not feeling the same second wind, and in that moment I decide to do what Grace didn’t—let her in.

We need help, and from what my cousin has told me, Jenna knows about everything there is to know about that property. The history of the place isn’t her specialty as much as the structures, but she’s smart, she’s curious, and she wants to help.

“I’ll make you a deal, Jenna. I’ll tell you why Grace needs to read these journals if you help me read them. Tonight.” Maybe if we both scour we can find something that will help my cousin before she sacrifices her entire future to a witch.

It’s probably a dumb idea. There’s no reason to think knowing more about what

happened between two people a hundred years ago will do anything to change the path Grace is on with Mama Lottie.

There’s no reason to think it won’t, either.

Since my cousin returned to South Carolina, I’ve seen a ghost. I’ve almost died, I’ve killed a man. Almost lost my baby to a voodoo curse on more than one occasion. It’s been a long learning curve, but we’ve both gotten to the point where no angle is too strange to run down.

I raise my eyebrows at Jenna, who’s studying me with a sparkle in her dark eyes that promises she’s going to say yes. I’m not sure what to make of her, traipsing around in a pair of leggings, a long t-shirt bearing a picture of Robert E. Lee with Most Likely to Secede underneath it, and an army jacket. She gives off a good vibe, though.

She shrugs. “Throw in some coffee and you’ve got a deal.”

“Great.” I get to work on the coffee, gritting my teeth as the warm, nutty smell fills the kitchen. A little less than three more months and I can have a cup of my own. “Are those her real journals? They don’t look that old.”

“No, they’re copies. The originals are locked up in family archives. These have never been released to the public, for obvious reasons.” She pauses, maybe wondering how much Grace told me, then keeps going. “The admission of the daughter having an illicit affair with a black guy isn’t part of the narrative they want to tell.”

Her enthusiasm for history and easy judgment of the people most often writing it reminds me of Grace. It makes me smile. “Have you read them?”

“Not all of them.” She shrugs, grabbing for her coffee and wrapping her hands around the hot mug. “She wrote a lot, and most of it is day-to-day stuff—ordering new furniture, china patterns, things like that. Not really my thing.”

I get myself a glass of herbal tea before settling in beside her, determined to do something to help even if it turns out to be nothing in the long run.

“Well, let’s dig in.”

Chapter Six

Will

“I cannot believe you’re being so cool about getting tossed in a goddamn prison cell.” My wife wears an expression of exasperation so intense that every instinct I’ve developed during my tenure as her husband warns me to back away slowly. I can’t. No matter how hard I clench my teeth, words keep slipping through. “Prison, Mellie. Is that how you want your daughter to see you for the first time? Behind bars?”

I can’t stop tears from wetting my eyes. Seeing her in that jail cell did something to me that can’t be undone by her calm or Gracie’s promises that she can fix it.

“Oh, I think they still let you give birth in a hospital even if you’re in prison.” She pauses, eyeing me with a mixture of pity and irritation, and throws up her hands when my reaction doesn’t materialize. “Come on, Will. We’ve been through this. We agreed we had to help Gracie, and I don’t know what you’re all pissy about now. It was all fine when you were the one risking your life and giving up your job.”

“I was not risking my life, and prison was certainly never on the table.”

“Oh really?” Her eyebrows go up as she puts on her innocent face.

I back up a few steps until my back hits the kitchen counter, but there are still only a few feet between where she sits at the kitchen table and me. Mel kneads a ball of bread dough with too much calm and I suppose she’s right—the chances I took to help Gracie get the information to help Mayor Drayton out of trouble could have landed me in hot water.

But they didn’t.

A closer look at Melanie says she’s not interested in the distinction. A deep sigh finds its way out of my chest. “Fine. You’re right, we’ve both taken chances, but—”

“So help me, William Gayle, if you say something right now about you being the man and Grant needing me more than you, I’m going to be madder than an old wet hen.”

“I was going to say, we’ve done it for a good reason, but I hated to see you like that.” I rub my hand over my face, listening for my mother’s car for a second before slumping into the seat next to her. Mel’s knee is warm under my palm and I give it a squeeze. “I know you think it’s archaic and dumb, but I’m a man. Wanting to protect the woman I love is coded into my DNA.”

“Which is why you want to protect Gracie, too.”

“We both love Gracie—that’s why you were staring at us through a set of bars. But it’s nothing compared to how I love you, Mel. You’re the mother of my children. I like our life together.” I squeeze harder, trying not to lose it in the face of this mountain of shit we’re facing. “I know we have to help Gracie. She’s family. But I don’t want to lose mine in the process.”

Her hand covers mine, chocolate eyes wet as they latch on to my face. “You’re never going to lose me, Will. Not even if you try.”

Though they’re just words, her conviction allows me the slightest sense of relief. Mel believes this is all going to work out, and she’s the one who was arrested for snooping through her boss’s records. Maybe it will.

That doesn’t change the fact that she got fired over it, and we’re in a deeper financial crisis than ever even though I got the job at the police department. I may be happier, but it doesn’t pay seventy percent of what the state did.

The respite from worry is brief, but I don’t realize that it’s all over my face until my wife reaches up and tries to smooth away the wrinkle in the middle of my forehead.

Her lips touch mine, trembling slightly, and I grab onto her for dear life.

“It’s going to be okay, handsome,” she reassures me with a smile after we pull apart.

“Gracie’s got more than a few tricks up her sleeves, and we’re all working on it. Okay?

Beau recommended a great lawyer, and she’s representing Leo, too. I’ll meet with her tomorrow and we’ll figure it out. Those assholes are not going to win.”

I keep my mouth shut about the inconvenient fact that she’s guilty as sin. So is Leo.

They might have done what they did for the right reasons, but that doesn’t change the fact that they broke the law. If they don’t find a clever solution, they’re both going to prison.

“Will. Look at me.” I do, because her face helps me focus. “I just heard your mother’s car, which means Grant will be in here any minute. We have to trust Gracie, and God.”

“In that order?” I manage a smile, even though the words are thin.

“Maybe.” Her lips twitch in response and she presses them quickly against mine for a second time. “We’ve been in worse scrapes.”

I frown as my mother pushes open the front door and Grant, a bundle of sticky energy and blond curls, streaks toward Mel. It might be true that we’ve been in worse scrapes.

Mostly because of our friendship with Graciela Harper.

“Hey, buddy! Oof!” I stagger backward dramatically as my son barrels into me,

squeezing me around the waist. I ruffle his soft hair, a wistfulness for a simple life breezing through me. “Did Grammy feed you dinner?”

“Yep! French fries!”

“Okay, well, how about you go get into your jammies and pick out a book?”

He pouts at having to come home and go straight to bed. “Can I have a snack?”

“Don’t even try it, Grant Richard Gayle.” My mother gives him a look and, after all these years, a quick bolt of fear flashes through me. “You had cookies at my house. Now scoot.”

He obeys without a second thought and I wonder for the millionth time since

becoming a father how to copy my mother’s parenting mojo. She makes it look easy—so does Mel, on most days.

“Brush your teeth!” my wife yells after Grant as he stumbles up the stairs, trying to force his three-year-old legs to take them two at a time.

“We had more than French fries for dinner.”

Melanie smiles. “I know you did, Marianne.”

My wife steers my mother back to the front door, chatting easily along the way.

Normally, I’m the one asking her if she wants to have a cup of coffee and a chat, if she’ll stay awhile, but tonight we need to be alone.

The thoughts in my head, when they turn loose the vision of my wife in jail, keep turning to Clete Raynard. I was happy to get out of his territory and from under his thumb when I took the job for the police department. Still, the man has knowledge and experience that has helped us out on more than one occasion, and it’s hard not to think he could do it again. He runs illegal moonshine, among other things, and even though no one disputes the man is breaking the law, he remains free to go about his business. In public.

Well, I’m not sure I would call his mountain shack exactly public, but it’s still applicable.

Clete, were he here, would probably be all too happy to remind me that the difference between him and Mel or Leo is that he doesn’t get caught. He might have been able to give us some advice beforehand, but as they say, that goose has been cooked.

We really need to think ahead the next time we’re considering becoming criminals.

“I’m going to check Grant’s teeth. You coming up to read to him?” Mel’s back, her soft hand rubbing circles on the small of my back.

I have no idea how long I sat here fretting, but my mother has left. “Yes. Let’s go together.”

We haven’t gotten to the bottom step when there’s a knock at the front door. I stop, sigh. “Mom must have forgotten something. I’ll get it.”

Mel keeps going, scooting away faster after I give her butt a swat. She shoots a look over her shoulder like I might enjoy her revenge for that little move later tonight. If she doesn’t fall asleep first, with a book in her hands and her glasses slipping down her nose and onto her growing belly. We haven’t quite gotten to the horny stage of pregnancy, but I’m looking forward to it.

Hopefully she’ll be living at home still, I think dryly as I trudge back toward the front door. I might have performance anxiety in the context of a conjugal visit.

It’s not until I pull it open and see my boss standing on the front steps that it occurs to me that my mother has a key and never knocks.

On second glance, it’s clear that something is wrong. He’s disheveled, his hair wet and out of place. I think hard, but can’t remember ever seeing him without a tie, not to mention his shirt has come untucked at some point. He’s not on duty—the twins are pulling the overnight shift—but the sight disturbs me all the same. The smell of toothpaste doesn’t do a whole lot to mask the stench of booze coming off of him. The total package seizes my muscles with dread.

“What’s up?” I ask, trying not to wrinkle my nose.

“Can I come in?”

“Yeah, of course. Sorry.” We’ve got a big enough Southern porch to keep the rain off, but the evening has grown chilly with the storm. Travis stomps past me, pausing on the mat to wipe his shoes in a vain attempt to dislodge all of the mud. “Better just take them off, if you don’t mind. Mel is a little crazy about the floors.”

I am, too, but mainly because we spent thousands of dollars swiping my parents’

threadbare carpets for new hardwoods.

Travis slips out of his boots without protest, then steps aside to let me lead him into the kitchen.

“Do you want a drink?” I ask, against my better judgment. It seems like maybe he’s had too many already.

My concern is unwarranted as he shakes his head. “No, thanks.”

It’s odd, watching my boss drop into a chair at my worn kitchen table. Like having a random audience member walk onto stage during a play. I’ve always sucked at improv, but my instincts say to let Travis lead the conversation. He’s out of sorts, making me feel like maybe the ground underneath us is littered with unexploded mines, and I can’t help but go over the day. Had I done something wrong? Why else would he be here?

“Have you talked to Gracie today?”

I have to stop and think about it, even though the question shouldn’t surprise me. If Travis’s presence here isn’t about me, then of course it’s about her. She’s not the only person who causes trouble in town, but Gracie goes big or goes home with everything in her life. Other than her, we’ve got only run of the mill stuff in Heron Creek—domestic disputes, missing dogs, the occasional drunk and disorderly or elderly person that’s wandered off—and I think Travis would prefer the mundane.

“No.”

“So she hasn’t said anything to you about me?”

Yikes. Tread lightly, Gayle. Gracie’s your friend, but Travis is your boss and you sure can’t afford to lose your job now.

Then again, even though Gracie has said things to me about Travis—things that would certainly piss him off—I’m not sure what he knows.

“Um…” I sit across from him, trying to buy some time—a fruitless exercise since he’s got far more experience in interrogation. At least on his side of things. “Look, I’m going to be honest. Gracie’s my friend, you’re my boss, and that makes the question a little awkward. If you have a specific question, I’ll try to answer it.”

He pauses, biting down on his lower lip as his gaze skims the kitchen. I hold my breath, wondering if he’s found out about her deal with Clete to try to dig up dirt on him.

Or if she’s actually found dirt since our last chat, and has implemented some harebrained scheme to blackmail him.

In addition to my friendship with Gracie making this uncomfortable, my relationship with Clete doubles it down. I may not work in the mountains anymore, but I have a gut feeling my place in the local police department only makes our acquaintance more valuable to Clete. I haven’t gotten rid of him forever—it’s only a matter of time before he comes asking for favors from me, too.

I’m the last person Travis should trust with any sort of secret, but I can’t tell him that.

“Has she said anything to you about my past? Before I came to Heron Creek, I mean?”

I shake my head after I shake off the surprise. A ball of dread drops into my stomach, because this sounds exactly what I feared. “No, nothing at all. If she tried to, I’d tell her it’s none of my business. Sir.”

The smile he gives me is a thin acknowledgment of my attempt at keeping this

conversation professional. He’s not thinking clearly, and I’m trying to do it for both of us.

When he opens his mouth again, I have the sinking feeling that he’s not going to let me.

“She contacted my parents and learned…something I should have told her myself.”

Confusion twists my expression. What should he have told Gracie? What about his past could possibly concern her? “Sir?”

“I was hoping to get in front of what she knows, is all. My mother confessed one thing she accidentally spilled the beans about, but there are other…indiscretions lurking in my past. I’d rather not confess everything to Ms. Harper, as some of it doesn’t concern her.”

“Only some of it?”

“Yes.” He digs the heels of his hands into his eyes, which are bloodshot. Travis isn’t drunk, though. At least, he’s not now. “Graciela is my half-sister.”

The room is so silent I could hear a pin drop, or the scurry of the feet of the mice I don’t have the heart to trap under the sink. In fact, it takes several moments for me to

decide I heard him right and for the information to realign the world in front of me so that words can form.

“And you haven’t told her? Is that why you took the job here?”

He nods, looking miserable and smashed by regret. “I planned to tell her, I

just…things weren’t exactly easy for me, stepping into town with her the suspect in a murder case.”

“I’m pretty sure you were the only one who really suspected her,” I mutter, even though it’s probably bad form considering his current state of mind. “But I understand how that would be weird. What about since?”

Gracie, with all of her mother issues, would have gotten her knickers in a knot just finding out Felicia hid a brother from her. Learning that he’s been in town basically spying on her is going to have her pitching a dying duck fit.

“I know. I know, I should have told her myself. It’s complicated.”

He pauses, and in those seconds, every last molecule inside me wants to tell him to shut his mouth. Not to tell me anything Clete could use to get him fired, or worse, but to say something would mean admitting our connection, and my wife was just fired. She’s about to go on trial for theft.

I can’t lose this job.

“This is really none of my business, Travis…” I try, a last-ditch effort.

“Well, hell. I don’t have anyone else to talk to, and you know Gracie about as well as anyone. So shut up and at least pretend to give a shit for a few minutes, will you?”

I nod, unable to do anything else. It’s not that I don’t care. I’m a pretty caring guy, actually, and it’s clear Travis needs a friend—he doesn’t have any in Heron Creek, not that he’s gone out of his way to make them.

“I’ve known about Gracie her whole life. Felicia had an open adoption agreement with my parents—their idea, not hers—but she was insistent that the two halves of her life stay separate.” He glances toward the fridge. “You know what? I will take a beer.”

“Sure.” I hesitate, wondering whether this new level of our relationship means I should express concerns about his sobriety.

“I promise not to get sloppy and emotional on your kitchen floor, Gayle,” he says, reading my mind. He pops open the cheap aluminum can and takes a swig, then settles his expression into hard lines of determination. “I’m not going to pretend it didn’t mess with me, knowing that Felicia gave me away and then decided to keep the next one. Like she was just waiting for the better kid to come along.”

“I’m sure that’s not true. I don’t know how well you knew Fe, but based on my own limited experience, she didn’t have plans, exactly. It was more a fly by the seat of her pants life, and if you actually talked to Gracie about all of this, she’d tell you that she never felt exactly wanted, either.” Please just talk to Gracie about this, please just talk to Gracie about this…

“That may well be, but young Dylan didn’t understand that his mother was a human being the same as everyone else—that she made mistakes, had problems, all that. He felt abandoned and unwanted, even though my adoptive parents were…adequate.” He pauses, as though the admission that the people who raised him hadn’t met some expectation takes a moment to swallow. “I acted out. Got into my fair share of trouble that was expunged when I was eighteen—”

“You are related to Gracie!” My attempt to distract him with jokes is forced, and it fails, anyway.

“When I left Texas and took a job in Arkansas, there was an internal affairs

investigation that forced me to resign or have it on my personal record.”

“Travis, stop. I don’t want to know anything like that, and you don’t have to tell me.” I lean forward, put my elbows on the table, and give him a good stare. “I get what you’re saying. You’ve always felt like you didn’t belong, like you weren’t wanted, but you’ve known Gracie exists. Maybe you’ve thought, all these years, that she might be the family you missed out on even if her mother was a selfish rat. And she was. So why not talk to Gracie?”

“I guess as long as she doesn’t know, I can keep believing it will all turn out the way I want.”

“Look, Travis. Gracie…she’s tough on the outside, and she’s a little harder than she was as a kid, but that girl would do anything for family—even her extended version of it.

She’s going to pitch a fit about you lying to her about why you came to Heron Creek, and keeping this secret for so long, but she’ll forgive you. She’s a good girl.” A bang from upstairs reminds me that I’m supposed to be saying goodnight to my son, an evening ritual that I hate to interrupt, even for a conversation as odd as this one. “Can you give me a few minutes to say goodnight to Grant?”

“I should get going.” He stands up and pats his pockets as though looking for his keys.

“Travis, you don’t have to leave. If you need…” The truth is that he does need to leave. He needs to get the hell out of here before he says something he can’t take back.

So far, all he’s really told me is that he’s got a juvie record—which Gracie and Clete already know—and that he’s her half-brother, which I don’t think would be of particular interest to Clete.

Well, maybe it would be of interest, but I don’t see how he could use it as leverage.

I rethink that as I let Travis back out into the gathering storm and trudge up the stairs to spend some time with my family. Because if there’s one thing that’s always true about Heron Creek with Graciela Anne Harper living here, it’s that anything can happen.

Chapter Seven

Leo

I sit in Marcella’s room a long time after she’s fallen asleep. My sister probably thinks I’m hiding, avoiding a longer talk about the case against me and how we’re going to pay for it, among other things. Maybe she’s not totally wrong.

But it’s also peaceful in here, with nothing but the sound of the rain pattering on the windows and the deep breaths sighing from my niece’s perfect little form. The only illumination comes from her princess nightlight and the occasional flash of lightning through the trees.

I can’t help but feel as though I’ve spent too much of my adult life sitting in the dark.

Life had been so simple when I was a boy, even though our family produced too many kids, not enough bedrooms, and ran short on cash more months than not. I did well in school, got in an appropriate amount of trouble, had friends and enemies and plenty to keep me busy. My family was big and loud and noisy and annoying as shit, but they were there for me.

When all of that changed, it cast me adrift. As though someone had cut my moorings and I’d lost my grip on the docks, slipping out to sea with the tide, too far gone to find before anyone noticed. If anyone had noticed at all, which remained to be seen. Even Lindsay hadn’t been there for me, not at first. I’d forgiven her because she’s had her own troubles, a mountain of them, and since she’d been forced to pay for them she’d been the one person I could count on.

Strangely, Gracie’s return to Heron Creek felt a little bit like she’d wandered down to the docks and picked up an old mooring line, giving it a tug. It’s somehow still attached to me after all this time, that life I once had—and also the one I’d fantasized about more times than I cared to remember—but the rest of the lines were missing. I don’t know whether Gracie’s friendship is enough to pull me all the way back to shore, but I do know that these last six months, I’ve had more than one reason to get out of bed in the morning.

I’ve been thinking about what I want to do with my life, other than whatever I feel like that day.

It’s a start. Or at least, it was until this whole getting shot and arrested thing.

The sounds of my sister rustling around the kitchen making grown-up dinner tells me it’s time to move. As nice as it would be to stay in here listening to Marcella breathe for the rest of the night—or maybe the year—we need to discuss how I can possibly get myself out of this situation.

I’m guessing the evening will also feature more glowering and snarky comments

about whether or not helping Gracie is worth giving up my freedom, followed by me trying to keep my mouth shut because neither of us is helped by me voicing the truth.

Which is an unequivocal yes.

Lindsay says she doesn’t get it, but I think she would, if she would get over her decades-old prejudice against Gracie and remember what it’s like to have people in her life she’d do anything for—including her daughter. My sister hates Gracie because Lindsay is the only person who has been aware of my feelings since the beginning, when it was just a silly twelve-year-old crush. She saw the heartbreak of the Gracie and Will

dynasty, and the pretend dismissal when she left Heron Creek and never looked back. I’m not sure whether she thinks Gracie is aware and torturing me on purpose or is simply, blissfully, unaware. While it’s nice that Lindsay’s on my side, we both know her blinders when it comes to my only real friend in this town are substantial.

“Sleep tight, monkey,” I whisper, leaning over to kiss my niece’s forehead. I freeze as she stirs before settling back into sleep, and then slip off the bed and out into the hallway.

In the kitchen, Lindsay is stirring a boiling pot of spaghetti even though it’s after eight and we both have acid reflux issues that keep us up even if we drink milk for dinner.

“You want to open that sauce for me?” she says without making eye contact, nodding toward a jar of Prego on the counter.

I pick it up, twist the lid, and dump it into the pot waiting on the stove. It’s thick and chunky, its smell too tomatoey as it starts to heat up—nothing like the tang of sausage and spices that rose from my mother’s batches of homemade pasta and sauce. My mouth waters at the mere memory, and for a second, then another, I let myself wonder how she’s doing.

“Smells good,” I comment to have something to say to my sister and to force my thoughts into the present.

She snorts. “Yeah, right. Our Sicilian grandmother is literally rolling over in her grave.

She’s probably going to start haunting your girlfriend.”

“She’s not my girlfriend.” The defense comes fast, out of habit. Lindsay might be the only person who knows the truth about my feelings, but she wasn’t the first or last person to tease me about my complicated friendship with Graciela Harper.

“I know. That’s the saddest part about this whole thing.” Lindsay dumps the noodles into a colander in the sink, shaking it to dislodge the extra water. My grandmother would have drained it over a pot. She believed in saving the pasta water for the sauce—just in case.

Of course, she was raised by Depression-era parents. Her mother washed an entire sink of dishes in no more than two inches of water.

I sigh, doing my best to ignore her barbs, and stir the sauce until it boils. Once we’re sitting at the table, steaming plates of pasta in front of us, my stomach growls. Apparently it doesn’t care so much whether the sauce came from a jar or the noodles are a little too sticky.

While we’re eating in silence together around the table, I can almost glimpse the way it could be for us if life would cooperate. “I’m glad you’re here, Linds.”

“Don’t butter me up, Leo. And besides, I’m sure having your sister and her four-year-old living with you puts a damper on your lifestyle.”

“My lifestyle? Of doing odd jobs and doing research on how many first dates a guy can go on in a row?”

“That’s your own fault. There’s nothing wrong with these girls you’re taking out.

What about the yoga instructor? What was her name?”

“Taylor.”

“Right, Taylor. What was wrong with her?”

I chew my food, pretending to think about it. There’s nothing wrong with Taylor, or Shelby from Riverside, or anyone else I’ve been out with once or rolled in the hay over the past ten years. But there’s no spark, and that’s enough. “Nothing. She’s not for me, is all.”

“Hmm,” is my sister’s only response to that as she twirls up another forkful of spaghetti. “Marcella go right to sleep?”

“Yeah. She’s getting better and better with you home.”

“I can’t believe she’s going to be in kindergarten next year. It’s insane.”

“It really is.”

She pauses. “Let’s talk about how you’re going to be here to take her first day of school picture.”

“And cut the crust off her sandwiches because you’re too mean to do it.”

She purses her lips, sitting back in her chair. “You spoil her, Leo. That’s not how we were raised and it’s not going to do her any favors.”

“It’s bread crust, Linds. If it makes her feel like I listen to her and I love her, I don’t think it’s a reason to call DFS.” I copy her pose, crumpling up my napkin and dropping it on my plate. “And I think we have a shot at winning this thing, because there are things that my attorney doesn’t know.”

“Such as…”

I can tell she’s barely holding back a lecture about being open with my attorney, but this situation is more sensitive than my sister seems to realize. Randall Middleton is a sitting US Senator, and he’s had the job for over a decade. That means he has power, of course, but he’s also got plenty to lose.

It also means that pissing him off more than I already have would likely lead to my losing valuable body parts, so even though I’d like to punch him in the balls and run, this requires delicacy. Which is what I tell my sister, who squinches up her face trying to understand.

“And you and Gracie Harper are so gifted when it comes to delicacy. Please. Leo, just tell me what’s going on. You can trust me.”

“Okay. You should know that before we took that rather extreme approach of breaking into the home of a United States Senator, Gracie and her little band of miscreants did try to gather information to convince the Middletons to back off the old-fashioned way.

Amelia’s lawyer told them it was hearsay and wouldn’t work to convince a judge, and that we needed proof.”

“Which is when you tried your hand at cat burgling.”

“Can you zip your flapping lips for five seconds and let me finish?”

She sticks her tongue out at me, then makes a motion like zipping her lips and throwing away the key.

“Thank you. Yes, that’s when we reverted to breaking in, but you’re missing the point.”

It doesn’t take her long to find it. “The crew of miscreants found some good dirt when they went digging in Charleston?”

“Yep. The kind of dirt that could ruin a career, if we can prove it.”

“So, you’re hoping that if you can convince the people who have said dirt to go on the record, you can convince the Middletons to drop the charges in exchange for his career.”

“I think we’re going to need to take it one step further. Middleton is powerful, and he’s entrenched. A few rumors, even if people are willing to gab to the media and they sound terrible, aren’t going to take him down and he knows it. We need proof.” I tap my fingers on the table, sure this could work but wondering how we’re going to find tracks that have surely been covered by experts.

“How are you going to get it? And are you doing this alone?” Her implication is clear, but it’s nice that she allows it to go unspoken for once, anyway.

“I don’t know about Gracie—she’s got some weird and wild shit going on even

though Amelia’s court case is sorted—but I think the Gayles might be willing to help me look into it.”

“Yeah, because Melanie’s not in enough trouble for sticking her nose where it doesn’t belong.” She cocks her head. “Besides, they’re Gracie’s friends, not yours.”

The barb hits right where she intended—in my chest, and it stings. I shake it off before she can give me her patented, satisfied smirk.

“Right, but we’re talking about Mel’s freedom, too. She’s in at least as deep as me, and the Middletons aren’t going to let her off the hook unless we force them. They’ll help, and they’re good at it.” Plus, Will’s more comfortable going to that old coot in the mountains, and he might be just the kind of help we need in a situation like this one. “I’m going to ask them.”

Lindsay folds her arms over her chest. “So, Gracie got you into this mess, but she’s not going to get you out.”

“I didn’t say that. I said I’m going to do everything I can to help myself, because we’re Boones and that’s what we do. I’m not going to prison. I’m not missing Marcie’s first day of school. She’s had too many people duck out of her life and I’m not going to be one of them.” My throat tries to close but I swallow, bending my emotions to my will with years of practice. “I promise, Linds.”

“You can’t promise that.” Her eyes fill with tears as she slumps in the chair, giving up on being angry with me in favor of her true reaction to all of this—fear. “I don’t want us to be apart again. I want us to be together.”

“I want that, too. This is a real way to fix it, not pie in the sky.”

“How, though? Guys like Middleton don’t get busted by people like us. They make people like us disappear.”

I swallow again, ignoring a black, clawing breathlessness in my chest. Her fear infects me, maybe awakens terror already lurking inside me, because she’s not wrong. The Middletons should be feared. If they want to, they can do a lot worse than send me to prison or ruin my life. They are the kind of people who make bodies disappear, and the kind of people who don’t have to answer questions about it later.

But I have reasons to fight, and so does Melanie. Will has connections through the police department and with the criminal element, who we might be able to convince to help us…if we have something to trade. Despite what I told Lindsay, and what she thinks, Gracie cares about both of us and she’s not going to let this go. She has

some…interesting abilities at her disposal.

Maybe it’s time we urge her to use these ghosts, if that’s what she sees, to her advantage. They’ve spent months in the backseat, giving Gracie directions. I can’t help but wonder what could happen if she starts demanding some of them pay a toll.

Chapter Eight

Brick

“You should go check on your brother.” Birdie snaps shut her briefcase, looking more tired than I’ve ever seen her, at least in public. The only time I can remember seeing her this ragged is after Lucy disappeared all those years ago.

Her mention of Beau—I assume she’s talking about him and not the brother none of us have seen for the better part of a decade—startles me out of my post-‐meeting high. The potential of beating the Middletons at their own game had even eased the throbbing headache of alcohol withdrawal.

The mention of my brother and the out-‐of-‐nowhere thought of Lucy, a woman who nearly blew our family apart, makes my head pound.

“Why does Beau need to be checked on?” I glance out the giant, spotless conference room windows at downtown Charleston, frowning at the streaks of rain slipping down the glass. In the distance, whitecaps surf the harbor, smashing against the seawall that protects some of the city’s most iconic architecture from drowning.

For now. “It’s going to pour.”

“Just trust me. The two of you have things to discuss, and he could use someone to drink with tonight.”

I flinch. She notices, her gaze narrowing, but chooses not to comment. More proof that something’s off with my sister.

“Is it Graciela? Did something happen?” I don’t really need to ask. The rigid shock on Amelia’s cousin’s face earlier tonight, when she found me in her living room again, said it all. They were in trouble. Maybe not over, but close, and even though I don’t know what cut those last strings, Beau’s got to be upset.

“Yes, something happened.” She picks up her briefcase and flicks off the lights in the conference room, holding the door for me. “I was there earlier. You should go.”

“Fine.”

We part ways in the parking garage, both of our cars thankfully safe from the growing winds and plump raindrops slicking the streets. Thunder booms, rattling the car windows as I speed down the highway toward Heron Creek, a shit little town I barely knew existed as a kid. Somehow, I find myself spending way too much of my time driving to and from it these days.

My brother’s house looms at the end of the block, set on a huge corner lot overlooking the Charles River. Even I have to admit it’s a nice piece of real estate. For Heron Creek.

Darkness hovers behind the windows but the porch light burns bright against the falling rain. I knock, and when there’s no response, I ring the doorbell. Nothing. The slightest kernel of worry drops into my gut, but my brother has a tendency to be a bit of a drama queen when things don’t go his way. Instead of panicking, I pick up the little turtle on the porch railing, grab the spare key, and let myself inside.

The silence picks at my comfort, and the darkness leaves me feeling like a little boy scared to put his feet on the floor because of the monsters under the bed. I flip on lights as I walk through the foyer, dining room, kitchen, and living room—all of which are empty.

I find my brother in his office-‐slash-‐den, his cracked voice breaking the eerie quiet when my fingers land on the light switch.

“Don’t.”

“Why are you sitting in the dark?”

The tinkle of melting ice against the side of a glass tells me he’s shifting on the leather sofa. “Because it’s my goddamn house and I want to. Is that okay with you, Brick? What are you even doing here?”

“Birdie suggested you could use some company. Or a drinking buddy.” Now I’m the one thankful for the darkness. He won’t be able to see me not drinking, but in my current state, even holding a glass of booze will be too big a temptation.

“Please. You don’t drink anymore.”

I startle, then snap on the lights and risk my brother’s wrath. He growls and squints, and I get a good look at his greasy hair, rumpled clothes, and bloodshot eyes.

“You look like hell.”

No comment, just another growl as he slams the rest of his drink. He and Birdie are both having rough days, it would seem.

“How do you know I don’t drink anymore?” I try instead, since he doesn’t want to talk about him.

“The reunion. You had ginger ale in a whiskey tumbler all night, then switched to water after everyone else was too smashed to notice.” He glares up at me. “And you’ve been sweating a lot. More of an asshole than usual. Classic withdrawal symptoms.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

He shrugs, all of the irritation fading from his expression as he slumps back into the cushions. “Figured it was a good thing, and you had your reasons for hiding it. Or, reason.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” I bristle, realizing too late that being defensive will do nothing but confirm his suspicions.

And if Beau has thoughts about my sobriety and the motivations behind it, and he and Birdie had talked earlier, that could be the reason she was acting so odd at the office.

“Oh hell, I don’t have the energy for this,” he grumbles, his voice thin and tired.

“Whatever your reason for kicking your addiction, it’s about damned time. Booze is great and all, but you were using it to suppress your feelings. A time-‐honored Drayton family tradition, I know, but maybe you can rise above.”

I raise my eyebrows. “Like you’re doing tonight?”

“Give me a day to wallow. I’m allowed.”

The soft leather sofa sinks under my weight. My brother stares despondently at the empty drink in his hands from the other end, a look of hopeless loss on his face

that triggers all of my instincts to put as much space between us as possible. We’re not a touchy-‐feely family. We hide our problems—drink them away, usually, but if that doesn’t work, we choose solitude. As children, we went into our rooms and closed the door if we wanted to cry or rage. Our parents created an atmosphere of competition between us, which meant if Beau or Birdie was in trouble, if they’d disappointed Brand or angered Cordelia, it was an opportunity for me to step into the limelight. Comforting our sibling would do nothing but cost us valuable time.

I wonder what ol’ Marv the truck-‐driving AA sponsor would have to say about that.

What I say about it is that it means these are uncharted waters. I have no idea if the Drayton siblings can overcome years of conditioning, but I do know that not one single part of me likes seeing my brother like this. All…humbled.

“You’re right, you’re allowed.” I lick my lips, trying to avoid staring at his glass.

“Want to tell me what happened?”

“Not really. I spilled to Birdie earlier, she can fill you in. But the short story is that Gracie and I are taking a break.”

“A break? Or…”

“I don’t know. I said I needed some time. I didn’t use the words it’s over, but I don’t know how we reconcile our issues.” He laughs, but it sounds more angry than anything. “It figures that I would finally meet another woman who makes me want a future with her, only to have it derailed by the first.”

That’s the second reference to Lucy tonight. It’s starting to make me paranoid—she’s been gone three years, but for our family, she’s always lurking in the corners of the room. “What does Lucy have to do with anything?”

“Gracie found out about her, so I had to spill the beans.”

“Spill the beans?” Despite the fact that we never talk about Lucy as a family, surprise that he didn’t talk to Graciela about it numbs my thoughts. Beau seemed serious about the strange new addition to Heron Creek almost from the moment they met. He’s one of the most honest people I know. “Why didn’t you tell her yourself? It’s not like you have a dark past.”

“How can you say that? My selfishness and lies got the woman I cared about kidnapped.”

My eyes start to roll, but the wrecked expression on his face stops me. “You’re serious? Beau, come on, man. You guys had a fight. You broke up. It might have been your fault, but that’s hardly a new story. She’s the one who ran off to Syria.”

“Iran.”

“Whatever. She’s the one who ran off into a war zone. She’s the one who chose to stay after the US issued an evacuation notice. Lucy, bless her heart, made her own decisions. You can’t blame yourself for them.”

“This coming from the guy who has spent half a lifetime blaming himself for the death of a different girl.”

Normally, the mention of Nan and what happened at Drayton Hall the night she died would have sent me into a rage. Throw things, yell, leave…anything to avoid even having to think about it for more than ten consecutive seconds.

But things have changed. Oddly enough, thanks to my brother’s strange, maybe ex-‐girlfriend.

“I guess that makes me uniquely qualified to say it.” I run my hand through my hair, then clench it in my lap to try to eliminate the shakes. “But I actually am responsible for Nan’s death. She wanted to change her mind and I pushed her. I did it because I thought I was being a good friend, and because I thought I would be with her on the other side, whatever that means. But that doesn’t change the hard facts.”

Silence hangs between us in the too-‐bright room. I feel exposed and cold, and wish the lights were still off because now he’s the one looking at me too closely. I realize I’ve never said any of this before to anyone except my AA group, and that even though Beau and the rest of my family know the truth, hearing me say it out loud must be shocking.

“I killed her,” I say again, maybe more for myself than him. “I’m sorry for that. I spent a long time wishing I’d died, too. Wondering why I was too much of a pussy to go through with it that night, and the next day, and the day after that.”

It’s weird, but being so frank allows more of the pain those memories cause to leak out of me. Like what happened with Nan had created a wound that had been festering for over a decade and all it needed was to be lanced open—exposed to the clean, fresh air—to begin to heal.

“I’m glad you’re alive, Brick.”

“Thanks. I think I’m starting to be, too.” I swallow, daring to meet his gaze. We’re so similar in many ways, but for so many years our differences have been keeping us apart. “I have Gracie to thank for that. She’s not a bad woman. Off her nut, sure, but good.”

“I know.”

“So, what happened?”

“Nothing, really. She’s got trust issues because of what happened with her ex. I pushed her into a serious relationship too soon and then blew my top when she kept things from me.”

“Because you have trust issues, after not being honest with Lucy,” I guess, correctly by my brother’s grimace.

He nods. When he meets my eyes again, they’re soft with regret. “I’m sorry if all of this affects your…friendship with Amelia.”

My whole body freezes. For a second, it’s as though I’m hovering above the sofa, watching my tormented brother trying to comfort me for a potential loss that hadn’t even landed on my radar.

“My friendship with Amelia…” I repeat like a dolt.

“I can’t imagine Gracie’s going to be too keen on having you around. Not that she was to begin with,” he explains slowly, looking a little concerned about my reaction.

“Are you okay? What’s going on with the two of you, anyway?”

“I don’t know.”

“Come on, you can do better than that.”

“It started out as some kind of weird thing, like calling to like. My depression has been long, and overly medicated, but it’s a part of me. I recognize that raw edge of pain in her and it…I don’t know. I thought I could help her, and when I started to, it was like doing the right thing for Nan, in a way, even if it’s too late to save her. I can save someone.”

“That makes sense. I know you’ve been helping her. She’s much better.”

A smile finds my face, despite the shock of the past minute or two. My heart beats harder once, twice, at the acknowledgment that Amelia is better, because she was on the brink. Scary close to that black moment where the only thought in your head is how everyone would be better off without you.

I’ve been there. I didn’t have anyone to pull me back after Nan was gone. The thing that saved me was pure cowardice, which presented its own psychoses going forward.

Amy had her baby. That little guy saved her, and now she would be around to save him.

“I’m glad.”

“Do you have feelings for her?”

There’s no easy answer. Unlike my admission about my depression or about what happened with Nan Robbins, this, I’m not ready to talk about. Not ready to name aloud, or even look straight in the eye. It’s been a lifetime since I had a relationship that lasted more than a couple of weeks, or amounted to any more than some brief satisfaction between the sheets.

Amelia is fragile. She’s on a precipice, and even if she’s decided to climb back down, there’s a long way to go before she finds solid ground. The ground underfoot is rough, littered with loose pebbles easy to slip on and fall. She’s about to have a baby and only God—and maybe her cousin—knows exactly what demons haunt her at night.

Despite all of that, I don’t have a single desire to run. I want to be there for her, hold her hand, give her a hug for every tiny win.

I don’t know what to call that, really.

“I care about her. I want to see her beat this thing.” Beau raises his eyebrows. I shrug. “That’s it. Well, plus she’s funny. You know I enjoy humor.”

“You wouldn’t know humor if it walked up and licked your eyeball.”

“That’s not funny. It’s disgusting.”

“Thank you for proving my point.”

Beau falls silent again, rattling what’s left of his ice around and watching the storm grow ferocious outside his office windows. Lightning flashes, thunder rolls, and I find that sitting in silence with one of my siblings can actually be peaceful.

A long time passes before either one of us speaks. I don’t know what he’s been thinking about, but my thoughts have gone from my own jagged past, to my recent connection with Amelia Cooper, to Beau’s despondency over losing Graciela Harper.

Life, it seems, likes to screw with the Draytons.

Lucky for us, there’s nothing we’re better at than rolling with the punches long enough to figure out how to turn a fight in our favor.

“Beau?”

He glances at me but doesn’t respond.

“You’re going to be okay, no matter what happens.”

He nods, slowly, a frown pulling down his lips and leaving creases in his cheeks.

“So are you, brother. So are you.”

Chapter Nine

Melanie

“You’re telling me Travis is Gracie’s half-‐brother? That Felicia had a baby before she had Gracie?” I have to say these things out loud, even if it is the third time, because my brain continues to try to force them to make sense.

They still don’t.

“That’s what he said. Sat right here in this kitchen and told me Felicia gave him up for adoption but forbade him and his parents from ever telling her.”

“And how did Gracie supposedly find this out?”

“You know as well as I do she’s been looking into him for Clete. Trying to dig up something they can use to either get him fired or convince him to back off Clete’s operations. She said she emailed his parents hoping they would tell her something about what happened to send him here from bigger police departments in Texas and Arkansas.”

Will sips a beer, his face pale. Far too much has been chucked our way over the past several days. We both need more sleep.

The baby sitting on my bladder and turning my ribs into piano keys pretty much ensures that’s out of the question for me, but he really needs to rest. It’s sort of funny, if I think about the fact that I was the one sitting in jail, I’m the one fired, I’m the one who might have to watch my children grow up in pictures, but I’m worried about him.

Will’s not built to handle this sort of mess. Will does the right thing, and lives the right kind of life, and in return he’s supposed to have it free and easy.

I’m not sure who he made his deal with, but they really suck at keeping it.

“And this is what they told her. His parents think so, too?”

“Yeah, they all think so.” He studies me closer. “You obviously think it’s bunk.

Why?”

“Think about it, Will. What started this whole ghost business? Why did Mrs. LaBadie try to take us all out?”

“Because she was a psychotic, evil bitch who also wasn’t a very good librarian?”

“Because she was carrying out a curse that was put on the descendants of Anne Bonny…” He looks at me blankly, and I wonder how many of our conversations he’s tuned out. I guess he’s had a lot on his mind, but one would think that voodoo curses would be memorable conversation pieces. “And how no boys will live past the age of thirteen.”

His face twists in confusion. “So, the curse is already broken?”

“That would be nice. But we know that it’s not, because of Amelia’s troubles.” I get up, pacing back and forth between the windows and the table, watching the storm. “He’s not her brother. At least, not by Felicia.”

“But the parents said Felicia is the one who gave him up and opposed the whole open adoption or whatever.”

“I’m not saying that’s not true. Fe was a loose cannon—everyone knows that. Who knows where she got a baby or why she pretended it was hers. Those are mysteries I’m sure Gracie will stick her nose into as soon as she pulls it out of this one.”

“Well, Travis is freaking out. He thinks his only family is going to hate him or shun him or whatever. The guy’s a mess.”

“Tell him to suck it up and join the fucking club,” I mutter, flinching away from a crash of thunder so loud it rattles the silverware.

“That mouth. It’s the reason I fell in love with you.”

I spin around to find a tired smile on my husband’s face. He holds out his hands and I go sit in his lap, looping my arms around his neck. Every last inch of him is familiar, from the scent of his shampoo to the little scar on the base of his neck.

Guilt tramples the comfort. This is all so hard on him. He’s a good man, William Gayle. He deserves better, and I’ve been less than sensitive in an attempt to keep my own panic at bay.

His hand is on my belly and the baby kicks right into his palm. A smile spreads Will’s lips and he looks up at me with as much wonder as he did the very first time he felt Grant do the same thing.

I smile, too. “Never gets old, does it?”

“Nope. We make miracles.”

“Well, so do millions of other people every day, but I like ours the best.”

“Me, too.” The smile on my husband’s face eases to a twist of worry as he watches me. “What are you thinking?”

“How do you know I’m thinking anything?”

“Please. My full-‐time job from the age of about ten until we were eighteen was watching you and Gracie so I could try to head off ill-‐conceived schemes. Out with it.”

“First of all, our schemes were beautifully designed and second, I’m thinking that Gracie has an awful lot on her plate right now.”

“Obviously.”

“So, if we sit around and wait for her to help us with this whole get the Middletons to back off thing, we might be waiting a while.”

“Okay…”

“I’m going to go see Leo.”

“Tonight?” Will’s eyes have drooped since we began this conversation ten minutes ago. Dark smudges ring them and red veins crack the whites.

“You stay here with Grant. I’ll go.”

“Mellie, it’s storming. It’s late. They’ve got a little kid over there, too.”

“I know, but I can’t wait. We don’t have a ton of time so we need to start brainstorming how we can get the proof we need on the Senator before the trial.” I kiss his nose, then stand up and grab my purse off the back of a chair. “I’m too keyed up to sleep, but you’re dead on your feet. Go to bed, handsome.”

I see the moment he gives in by the resignation that wrinkles the skin around his mouth. I didn’t expect a fight, given his state of mind, even with his extreme protective mode activated.

“Sweetheart?”

“Yeah?” I pause in the doorway, my heart jumping a little at the endearment the way it did the first time he ever used it.

“Take a jacket.”

The drive to Leo’s is a little rougher than expected. Tree limbs are down because of the gale-‐force winds and the rain has increased, making it hard to see out my windshield. I may be anxious and in a hurry to get the ball rolling on my potential defense, but I’m still an expectant mother—I go slow, I look twice at every turn, and I get both Mary and me to the little house toward the edge of town safely.

There’s a light on in the kitchen and on the porch. I knock as softly as possible,

not wanting to wake Marcella if she’s able to sleep through the storm and knowing I’d kill anyone who woke Grant on a night like tonight. If the mood in the Boone household is anything like the one in mine, the two of them are probably already exhausted.

It’s Leo who opens the door, and the surprise on his face quickly turns to pleasure. Maybe relief, based on the release of air. “Melanie. Come in out of the rain.”

“Thanks.” I step inside and take off my shoes and jacket, handing the latter over to Leo. “It’s getting bad out there.”

“I know. Our lights are struggling. Hope they hold—I’m not going to be able to wake up tomorrow if my phone’s dead.”

“Don’t try that line on me. You’ve got the earliest internal alarm clock of anyone in this town. Even the old people.” I pause, thinking. “Wait, do you even own a cell phone?”

“I do, indeed.” He motions toward the kitchen. “Lindsay and I were just discussing our options as far as the Middletons. I assume that’s why you’re here?”

“Yes.” I follow him down a short hallway and into a clean, outdated kitchen.

Lindsay Boone, her inky black hair and bright blue eyes, copies of Leo’s, looks at me with naked suspicion. We’ve never had much reason to talk, or for our paths to cross, so I can only assume that she looks at everyone like that.

It crosses my mind to ask her for some advice on surviving in the Big House, but her general countenance makes me think it’s too soon. Maybe if things go further south.

“Would you like some tea?” Leo offers after catching me shivering. Strange, but I’ve never noticed how observant he is before now. “We have herbal. Marcella likes the passion tea.”

“Sure, that would be great. Peppermint if you have it.”

“I’ll do it.” Lindsay gets up and swats her brother away from the counter, putting a kettle on and busying herself with packets and sugar cubes. She’s pretending not to listen, but she’s not fooling anyone.

“Well, I suppose you’ll tell me sooner or later, but what brings you out?” Leo pulls out a chair for me and once I’m settled, sits across from me. “I mean, I assume the shit show our lives have become in general, but what specifically?”

That makes me laugh. Leo has a way of making the worst things sound like they’re normal. Which is nice, since Will has spent the last twenty-‐four hours making the worst things sound like doomsday. As though we’ve basically time-‐traveled onto the Titanic.

“I think you and I need to work together. You know Gracie—she’s going to do her

best to help us, because she feels responsible.”

“Uh, because she is responsible,” Lindsay interjects, setting my steaming mug of tea down in front of me hard enough to slosh some onto the table.

Definitely too soon for prison jokes.

“Is she always this angry?” I fake whisper to Leo, earning a glare from his sister. Leo laughs, deep from his belly, and it sounds like relief. “Yes, pretty much.”

“Okay, well, as I was saying…Gracie feels responsible, but with this whole curse thing going on, the ghosts, and breaking up with Beau, I’m not sure she’s going to be able to handle it all.”

Leo’s face struggles to hide a wide-‐eyed, startled expression. He obviously didn’t know about everything in my list, and I didn’t even say the part about Travis thinking they’re siblings. Oops. They’ve been so close lately that I kind of assumed she’d told him everything.

“Did I say curse? I meant…” I trail off, at a loss.

“I know about the curse. I didn’t know about the breakup thing.”

“Oh.” Amelia had texted me earlier, upset because of Gracie and Beau and what it might mean for her budding…whatever the hell is going on with her and Brick Drayton. “No one’s really sure if it’s a breakup or a break or like, a few days off but…yeah. She’s pretty upset.”

It’s easy to see in the way Leo opens his mouth, closes it, and avoids his sister’s pointed gaze that he wants to ask what happened. In the end, Lindsay stomps out of the room and Leo takes the high road, avoiding the gossip. Maybe he figures Gracie will talk to him about it when she’s ready, but the whole last five minutes has infected me with an awkwardness that reminds me of an eighth grade dance.

Leo clears his throat. “Actually, Linds and I were talking about this earlier. I told her that y’all had uncovered some potential bad press on our dear Senator and that maybe we could use that to convince him to drop the charges.”

“That’s what I’m thinking. But we can’t wait on Gracie.”

“Agreed.” He looks like he wants to say something more, but it takes him a second to get up the nerve. “Is there any way Will could talk to Clete Raynard? I know Gracie said he didn’t find anything on the Senator we could use in court, but now that we have specific leads, he might be able to call in more favors.”

“He would do it.” Committing Will to helping in that way leaves a layer of glue and sawdust on my tongue. There’s nothing I want less than to send my husband back into those mountains.

Well, other than to go to prison.

“He would do it,” I try again. “But I don’t think his kind of contacts are going to be any good. We found a nanny who knows about the abuse, but honestly, I’m guessing most people in Washington aren’t going to be surprised by that. The story that could really bring him down is some big business, pharmaceutical testing nightmare.”

“I’ve met Clete.” Leo pales, his eyes shifting as though the moonshiner might have sneaked into the room. “You’re probably right about that being out of his league. How are we going to verify anything more than hearsay and rumors? Those are a dime a dozen.”

“I don’t know.” I chew on my bottom lip, thinking. A prickle between my shoulder blades promises Lindsay is listening just outside the kitchen, and it annoys me that she’s not in here, too. Why on earth would I care if she listens to a conversation about how to get her brother and me out of this mess?

Her attitude about Gracie baffles all of us, but whatever. She’s entitled to her opinion, and as charming as my friend is, Lindsay Boone isn’t the first person to be immune.

“We need to talk to the guy again,” I continue. “The ex-‐employee who told us the story. He might have some ideas, or maybe know where to look for a paper trail.”

“Do you seriously think Randall Middleton is stupid enough to leave a paper trail after committing an actual crime against humanity?” Leo’s eyebrows are up, skepticism etched into his rugged features. He’s handsome, always has been—and has always known how to use it to his advantage, too.

“I don’t know, but it’s somewhere to start. Do you have any better ideas?”

“For starters, I know someone who’s good with computers. Like, scary good with computers. I’m going to talk to him.”

My chest squeezes. “That information would have been helpful before my amateur ass went snooping around my boss’s office.”

He grimaces. “Sorry. You know Gracie. She doesn’t tell one minion what the other is up to.”

His description of us as Gracie’s minions is all wrong, and leaves me bristling in her defense. “I did what I did to help Gracie on my own, not because she asked me to. In fact, she told me not to get involved. I love her. I don’t serve her.”

The shock on his face as it goes white, the horror in his blue eyes, reaches out and grabs me. “No! I didn’t mean it like that, it was just a joke. I don’t think of our friendship that way. Gracie’s the most caring, loyal person I’ve ever met, and that’s why…that’s why I help her, too.”

The outpouring of words, the passion soaking them, batter my senses.

Desperation clings to Leo. He needs me to believe him, and all of the emotion in the room distracts me from what he actually said for several seconds.

Then it sinks in.

Did he just say he loves Gracie?

Not in so many words, but it sort of sounded that way.

I shake it off. Of course he loves Gracie—we all do. It’s hard not to after she gives her heart and soul to you the way she does, and Leo’s always had a special bond with her. He doesn’t mean he’s in love with her. Jesus H. I’ve been indulging in the dangerous combination of pregnancy hormones and sappy movies too often.

“Now that we’re clear on that…” I give him a small smile, letting him know we’re good. I get it. We’re all under a lot of stress. “I think contacting your friend is a great start.”

“I’ll do it tomorrow.”

I finish my tea and Leo opens a second beer. We chat for a while about our separate arrest experiences, what the police asked, and what our joint attorney had to say when she visited him earlier tonight. I don’t tell him that Travis came over earlier and that Gracie’s got to be losing her mind over that, too—hopefully she’s smart enough to figure out that something doesn’t jive at least as quickly as I did.

Probably faster, since a baby isn’t eating half of her brain cells.

For his part, Leo seems keyed up and ready to go. Determined and hopeful in a way my husband and Lindsay aren’t, and I wonder what it says that we’re the calmest two of the bunch. Maybe we have too much faith in Gracie and her magic, or maybe it’s that we’re in shock. Either way, it’s nice to be with him right now. I can see why Gracie enjoys hanging out with him.

I can also see that he’s got a card he’s playing close to the vest, one he’s not willing to lay on the table just yet.

At least not for me.

Chapter Ten

Amelia

Jenna sticks around a long time after I expect her to bail out. We haven’t heard from Grace, which would make me nervous even if the storm hadn’t increased to a demon’s howl over the past thirty minutes. She should have made it there by now, and I mean really, how long does it take to discuss curses with a ghost?

The answer is anyone’s guess, and the only thing the two of us can do is keep reading.

“Tell me again what we’re looking for?” Jenna asks, draining the rest of her cup of coffee. It’s her third or fourth mug, and the pot is empty.

I get up and start another pot, rubbing my eyes. It’s not that late, not even midnight, but it seems later to me. My bedtime has gotten earlier and earlier, and seeing the ten o’clock news these days is a major feat.

“I don’t know. Anything about this kid James, the one who fathered her child.”

“I was thinking,” Jenna starts, eyeing the fresh coffee as it drips. It reminds me of college, and easier times. “We started with her adult journals, and those are the only ones I’ve skimmed before, too. But by then, she would have realized her relationship was taboo, and probably would have avoided talking about it.”

“Even in her journals,” I agree, realizing where she’s going. “And if they grew up together, the way the guy Grace talked to seemed to think, she would have been more likely to write about him when they were small.”

She nods. I swap her empty mug out for a full one, shove a bottle of creamer across the table, and dig through the pile until I find the books labeled with the earliest dates. In my head, I say a quick prayer that whoever painstakingly copied these journals didn’t redact them to make Charlotta or anyone else less of a rebel. Or change history.

“Should we be worried about Gracie?” Jenna asks, giving voice to the thoughts rattling around in my head.

To be honest, her being gone for so long, with no word, is making concentrating on the words on these pages more difficult than it should be. The printing is legible and large enough, the pages are crisp, and the story of her days—at least as an adult—are well-‐described, if not terribly fascinating..

“I don’t know,” I reply, refusing to look up from the journal I’m reading. There’s too big a chance that Jenna will see the fear grabbing my heart. That would lead to more questions, and even though I spilled the beans about Mama Lottie being the ghost at Drayton Hall, there’s plenty more the young preservationist doesn’t know.

“But Grace can take care of herself.”

“Sometimes I think Gracie just wants us all to believe she can take care of herself.”

“Fair enough.”

We lapse into silence again, reading. Young Charlotta Drayton’s days were more interesting than the ones she spent as an adult. The way she describes Drayton Hall with such wonder makes me feel like a child again myself. We wandered the grounds of all the local plantations for hours, Grace, Mel, Will, and me. But we didn’t know the place the way Charlotta did, and she must have spent hours exploring every nook and cranny. Her entries describe funny bugs she found, the taste of the pecans when they were fresh and falling to the earthy grounds, the way moss grew like little forests across the boulders near the river.

Her brothers were patient, indulgent even, but didn’t spend much time goofing around with her. Her older sister Bessie took on the role of tiny mistress and second mother, so Charlotta instead made playmates of the worker’s children. The Civil War had ended, slavery abolished, before little Charlotta was born. I knew from my own history classes that a large majority of slaves had stayed on with their former masters, even on the same property, working for pitiful wages because they had no education and nowhere else to go.

From the way Grace talked about this James, it’s not hard to assume that’s the reason he’d remained at Drayton Hall during Charlotta’s life—that his parents must have been slaves.

An hour passes, and about six months of Charlotta’s young life, before she first mentions a boy named James.

19 June 1925

Mother wasn’t feeling well again today, so I’m free to run about the grounds. Bessie thinks she’s the boss of me and told me to go check on the chickens. Everyone knows that’s not for us to do, but she doesn’t know they’ve just had chicks so I didn’t mind going to see them.

I especially didn’t mind when I met a boy there checking the temperature of their hay. He’s older than me but not by much—perhaps a year or two. His skin is dark like a chestnut roasting on Christmas Eve, his eyes like the silky coat of our darkest brown mare, but his eyes and teeth are pure white. My presence startled him and he scurried away from the teeny chicks, ready to take flight.

They’re all scared of me, at first, on account of my last name. They think because my mama and brother are in charge of their mamas and daddies that means we can’t be friends, but mostly they come around once I smile and show them my best games.

Anyway, this boy was harder to convince. Finally, after ten minutes of talking about chickens and babies and how warm the hay should be for them to feel safe, he told me his name was James. That’s it, though. He won’t tell me who he belongs to or how old he is or why I’ve never seen him until today. It’s as though someone dropped him right there in the chicken house for me to find, and I have to say, I’m happy to have a mystery to solve.

That’s what I told James, too.

He said I should forget I ever saw him, and he got angry when I laughed. You don’t know me too well, James with no mama, I told him. But you will. We’re going to be best friends.

That’s when he took off. I tried to follow him, because of course he has a mama and that’s where he went running, but that James is fast.

Not to worry. Tomorrow’s a brand new day. My candle is about burned out and Bessie will tan my hide if she finds me awake. Mama’s still coughing in her room, and even though the deep, rattling sound of it makes even my bones scared, it means no one will bother with me.

And that means James better look out. Because we’re gonna be friends whether he likes it or not. I can feel that in my bones, too. But that makes them sing.

For some reason, reading the diary entry brings tears to my eyes. I might have just read about the moment a great love was set in motion—or, if you ask the family, the moment Charlotta stepped onto a path that would alter her life forever. And not for the better.

If this is even the same James. My gut, along with all of the extra hormones skipping through my blood, thinks it is.

“Did you find something?” Jenna’s watching me, a wicked smile on her lips that pushes excitement through me.

“Maybe. I found an early entry—she’s maybe, I don’t know, ten?” I search my memory for all of the information that poured into my head about the sixth generation of Draytons to live on the property and struggle to match it up with tiny details from what I read. I give up quickly, shaking my head. “This is Grace’s area.”

Jenna thinks for a minute. “Was the entry dated?”

“Yeah.” I double-‐check it, just to be sure. “Nineteen twenty-‐five.”

“Did she say anything about her parents?”

“She said her mother was sick, and that the workers belonged to her mother and her brother.” I pause. “Her father died?”

“Yes, Charles Henry. Pretty young.” Jenna taps her fingers against the pages in front of her. “I’m not a hundred percent on when Eliza died, but it wasn’t long after that. Charlotta would have been about ten.”

“Well, this is when they met. Let’s focus on the ones that take place after this.”

I go back to the book under my hands and Jenna digs through the pile until she finds one she wants to read. The storm gets worse outside, rattling the windows with each clap of thunder. Every time lightning flashes across the roiling sky our lights flicker and I hold my breath. The electricity holds, though, and my eyes skim pages looking for his name.

Jenna tells me more than once that she’s found another passage that mentions the boy, but that it’s more of the same—childish games, talks of friendship, and the boy being evasive about how he came to live at Drayton Hall.

I see his name a few times as well, but find nothing new. My back aches worse than it did hunched over the laptop earlier and Jenna almost falls asleep a half a dozen times, her face falling toward the table only to be caught at the last moment.

And she’s the one who’s had an entire pot of coffee. The girl must be keeping some seriously late hours for her thesis. Or maybe a boyfriend.

I yawn, shaking my head to try to force it back on track, but the sentences blur on the page. “Jenna.”

She doesn’t answer, her chin pressed into her palm.

“Jenna!” I say louder, startling her awake and unable to suppress a giggle at her confused expression. “Go home.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Seriously, go home. It’s late. The storm is over, and I’m crashing, too.” The truth is that there’s no way I’m going to be able to go to bed without Grace home, but falling asleep on the couch is an inevitability. I don’t know how Grams always stayed awake until we were safe and the door was locked behind us.

“Okay, okay. I’ll go because you’re tired.” She winks, her face considerably more pale and tired than when she arrived. “I can come back tomorrow, or whenever. Tell Gracie I want to help.”

“I will.” We both know Grace won’t put Jenna in a position to lose her job, which is exactly what will happen if Mrs. Drayton finds out she helped us with this whole curse thing.

Not that Mrs. Drayton would believe in the curse. Probably not even if Grace went and introduced her to Mama Lottie and her snakes in person.

Jenna leaves, with me watching from the porch until she pulls out of the driveway and onto the street. It’s late enough that Mrs. Walters probably gave up on spying, but she’s no doubt wondering whose car showed up in the middle of the storm, and why she hung around so long. No doubt she’d been clocking the hours since Grace has been gone.

It’s too many, that’s the answer. She’s been gone too many hours.

I go back into the kitchen, getting a bit of a second wind from my renewed worry as I clean up the mugs and coffee pot, then scarf half a package of cookies over the sink. Instead of lying down in front of the television to give my brain a break like I’d planned, I grab another of the journals from the relevant date range and thumb through it.

The name James catches my eye and I stop, sure it’s nothing.

But it’s something.

My heart jams in my throat as my adrenaline pumps so hard my fingers shake, causing me to drop my cell phone twice and misdial three times before getting a call through to Grace.

Come on, pick up. Oh, pick up, Grace.

If she’s still there, this could mean the difference between ruining the Draytons and saving them. It could mean she can go back to Beau with good news, maybe patch things up, instead of starting the uphill climb of getting over their breakup.

Voicemail.

“Grace, it’s me. Please call me back—it’s important. Don’t leave Drayton Hall until you do.”

I don’t even know if she’s still at Drayton Hall. My stomach clenches painfully at the idea that something could have happened to her. Maybe she slid off the road on the way there. Maybe she pissed off Mama Lottie with her smart mouth and got herself snake-‐bitten. Maybe the voodoo curse sucked her straight into the bowels of hell, if we’re not already there.

Who knows, really? There are tons of bad things that can happen to a person who doesn’t see evil spirits and has trouble biting her tongue when she should.

There’s a knock on the door for a second time tonight and I race for it, sure it can’t be Grace. Equally sure it can’t be good news.

This time it is Travis, and it only takes one look at him to tell me something is very wrong.

Chapter Eleven

Frank Fournier

I sit straight up in bed in the middle of the night, startled awake in the way only a ghost in my bedroom can accomplish. My reaction shifts the nightstand beside the motel bed, jostling it hard enough to send a half-‐full glass of water tumbling onto the thin carpet.

Luckily, ever since I was about fifteen and figured out my gift—or curse, depending—differed from the others in my family, the chances of the visitor being an unwelcome spirit isn’t likely. This one is even expected, but he needs to work on his less-‐than-‐charming penchant for scaring me.

Henry Woodward has a bit of a scamp in him.

I’m not surprised my daughter has gotten snippy with him on more than one occasion, despite the fact that he does a mean impression of a dead person whose feelings are easily hurt. On the other hand, he’s easy to manipulate, so the day when she finally figures out how to get rid of him is going to be an inconvenience for me.

“Why do you insist on arriving at such ungodly hours with news?” I grouse, squinting at the clock beside the bed, surprised to find it’s only half-‐past midnight.

Of course, he picks a night when insomnia chose not to bite at my heels until dawn.

Henry never appears happy, because that’s kind of his schtick, but tonight he strikes me as positively grim. My spine straightens, senses on high alert and tingling with sudden nerves. If he’s here, it’s because there’s something afoot at my daughter’s house that he thinks I should be aware of—that’s the deal we have.

Well, it’s not so much of a deal, since I’m the only one benefitting. I don’t know why they do what I ask. They just do. I’m not a good enough person to feel badly about it, either.

“Well, out with it, my good man. No sense in wasting time.”

Even though Henry opens his mouth, no sound fills the room. No speech, no breathing, no utterances…but as he gesticulates and flaps his lips in his coonskin cap and rolled-‐up sleeves, I hear him in my head. Loud and clear.

She knows about him.

For the first time in years, my heart sinks. Strange. I had no idea it was still in there.