Not Quite Right (A Lowcountry Mystery) (Lowcountry Mysteries Book 6) (28 page)

Beau catches the line of my gaze, and a soft smile touches his lips. “Mom had that installed for Birdie, when she still had hope that my sister would follow in her footsteps instead of my father’s.”

It’s odd to think of Mrs. Drayton longing for a daughter’s company to fill her days, but maybe she’s not all that different from everyone else, deep down. Maybe no one really is.
 

“Okay, so where are these journals?”

“Here.” Beau strides over to a row of built-in curio cabinets, the glass on the fronts replaced with distressed mirrors that could be either really old or just made to look that way. He rummages in the desk long enough to produce a key.

I raise my eyebrows. “She keeps the key in her desk?”

“My mother isn’t Batman, Graciela. She doesn’t expect her precious documents to be disturbed in her own home.”

The edge in his voice slathers me with guilt, and when he comes back to open the cabinets, I put a hand on his arm. “I’m sorry to put you in this position, Beau. I am. I swear, I have no interest in using anything in those diaries for any purpose other than convincing Mama Lottie to leave your family alone, help us with the curse, and move on.”

I haven’t told him about the root doctor out on Edisto promising to try to help. I still have hope that if we can tell Mama Lottie the truth about her son, about her grandson, that she’ll choose to leave the past where it belongs and move on with peace in her heart. Which might also convince her to let Amelia go and help us lift the curse, besides.

It seems like a lot to hope for even for me, but what choice is there? The other options involve giving up and running away, and I’ll die before I’ll leave Millie with that deranged ghost woman.

The cabinets slide open, distracting me from the relentless barrage of worries in my head. Inside, there are shelves of file folders, books, documents that look like genealogy charts, and on the shelf right in front of my face, a few tiny, bound volumes. They are identical to the journals that I’ve been reading.

“Are these them?” Beau asks.

I reach out, holding my breath as I slide my finger along one of the spines, and then pull it loose. There are four, and they’re free of dust—perfectly preserved. I’d be willing to bet that, unlike the journals that Jenna checked out of the Drayton Hall archives for me, these are originals.

I open one to confirm it’s what we came here for and see
Charlotta D. Drayton
written on the first page, and
1900
underneath it, signifying the year.
 

“Yeah, this is it.” I cast a longing glance at the window seat. “Do you think I have time to skim them?”

Beau’s already shaking his head when we hear the sound of a door slamming from downstairs, followed by the click of heels on the marble or wooden flooring on the first level. We freeze, our gazes fused and breath stalling in our chests at the sound of female voices. Even I recognize them as Birdie and Cordelia. They either had a short lunch or we’ve been up here longer than we realized, but no matter which, we’re caught.

“This is an old house,” I breathe. “Is there, like, a back staircase or something?”

“You’ve been on one too many ghost tours, Gracie Anne.” He pinches his lips together. “We’ll just have to say hello.”

“We’re not going to tell her what we were doing here…” I trail off, horrified, and clutch the single journal volume to my chest and look over at the other diaries. “Can I take these?”

“Yes. Put them in your bag and clasp it so she can’t see inside. Unless she goes looking, my mother probably won’t notice they’re gone. It’s not as though she does inventory on her valuable documents once a day.”

I don’t give voice to the thought that he might be underestimating his mother’s attention to detail, and also her paranoia. If she sees me in her house, I wouldn’t put it past her to do a full accounting of everything, starting with the historical documents and ending with the silver.

“Look at me.”
 

I do as he says, my heart racing and my palms sweaty enough to make me worry about compromising the integrity of the journals. Not only would that be enough reason for Cordelia to prosecute me to the fullest extent of the law, but I wouldn’t even be able to blame her.

Beau reaches up, sliding his fingers into my hair and then shaking them back and forth, mussing it up. His eyes trail to my lips with a desire that stops my breathing. I forget about everything—literally everything—as his lips crash into mine and he kisses me as if his life depends on it.
 

By the time we break apart, he’s holding me against one of the bookcases, his hands cupped under my ass and my feet locked at the small of his back. I’m hot all over and ready to rip off his clothes, propriety be damned.

Beau steps back, struggling to get ahold of himself, too.

“What the hell was that?” I pant.

“You look like a woman interrupted halfway to bliss, or just after,” he replies after a moment. “Now my mother will know exactly what we’ve been up to.”

“You could have warned me,” I grumble, my lady parts set on fire with no hose in sight. To distract myself, I load the rest of the journals into my bag and fasten the clasp with shaking hands.

“Wouldn’t have been as much fun.” He winks, then takes my hand and tugs me out of the cozy attic and down the older, dusty set of stairs.
 

When we reach the top of the staircase that leads to the main floor, it’s clear there will be no hiding from Cordelia, since she and Birdie are standing in the foyer having what looks like a heated discussion.

I realize too late that both of our cars are in the driveway, probably blocking her from parking in her usual spot, so she’s aware she has company, anyway. And who it is.

I didn’t think my face could get any hotter after the full Beau-foreplay treatment in the attic, but the disgust on Mrs. Drayton’s face at the sight of us almost makes me combust.
 

Her eyebrows go up as she assesses me—and finds me lacking, as usual—then land on her son. “Beauregard. I wasn’t aware you were paying me a visit today.”

“Gracie and I were in town having lunch and, well…Heron Creek seemed like a long way away.” He does his best to look sheepish, and I don’t think it’s an act.

Birdie, for her part, is staring at us with a half-open mouth and a glint in her eyes, which could be admiration for our willingness to poke the bear. It shifts quickly through confusion and into suspicion, for surely she’s aware that things between her brother and me have been rocky. I curse myself for not asking Beau what story he told her to get her to take their mother out of the house this morning.

“Yes, well, I’m more than willing to change the code to the garage if you cannot handle the privilege,” Mrs. Drayton snaps. “You know I do not tolerate people in the house when I’m not home.”

“I’m not
people
.
I’m your son.”

“Even so, your father and I are both still very much alive, and while that is the case, this house belongs to us. You cannot come and go without an invitation, is that understood?”

Beau looks like he’s ready to argue, but I step on his toe with as much subtlety as I can manage. Poking the bear is one thing. Dancing naked in front of it smeared with blood is quite another, and I don’t have time to be a meal.
 

For Cordelia Drayton, I’m quite sure I barely qualify as a midmorning snack.

“Understood. Mother.”

“Now, what are the two of you
really
doing here?”

The silence that chokes the room threatens to kill me with dread. She doesn’t believe we dropped by for a nooner in Beau’s childhood bedroom. For what it’s worth, she knows both of us better than that, and she probably knows the status of our coupledom is unsure at best, to boot.

Pressure builds as Beau chokes, nothing coming out of his mouth to rescue us from this tense standoff. Birdie looks amused—and definitely not like an ally, at least at the moment.
 

“We came to ask Birdie if she’s the one who paid for Lucy’s private investigator in Iran,” I blurt, the stark relief from the release of air smashing straight into regret. What on earth possessed me to say that?

Beau startles at my side, his expression slack. He obviously had no similar thoughts, even though I assumed it had been someone in the family from the moment I heard about it. Cordelia looks furious at the mere mention of Lucy, and Birdie looks guilty as hell for a split second before she realizes we’re all staring at her.

She tries to force her reaction behind a pale shade of impassivity. It’s not working, and she knows it. Her face falls, her eyes filling with tears as she stares at me. She refuses to look at Beau, and I can imagine this is a betrayal she never wanted him to find out about—she had been in contact with his ex-girlfriend after Lucy had cut off all communication with him.
 

“I… How did you know about that?” She swallows hard. “Did they… Did someone find her?”

It’s clear in the hollow way she asks that Birdie expects news of Lucy to be that they’ve found her body, not that she’s coming home alive and whole. I can’t blame her for thinking that, and the fact that I’ve caused her pain has me mentally kicking myself and my stupid penchant for babbling without thinking when the best thing to do is to keep silent.

“We found some additional information on her disappearance, but nothing about where she is now.” I glance helplessly at Beau, who surprises me by appearing more impressed than angry. “We learned that she hired an investigator to look into some claims made by the girls at her school, but he was expensive.”

“Oh.” Birdie’s voice is small, her lip trembling like a child’s as she gathers the nerve to look at her brother. “I’m sorry. I knew it would hurt you, but I couldn’t shut her out. You know how I loved her.”

And the mystery and myth of Lucy Winters grows. I never, ever imagined anything making Birdie cry or encouraging her to beg for forgiveness. Who was Lucy, and what sort of hold had she had over this strange, strong, proud family?

I feel like she could be the Yoda to my Luke Skywalker, if only I had a way to find Degoba.

“You all did, heaven knows why.” Mrs. Drayton waves her hand, a frown on her face as though she wishes the memory of Lucy could be swatted away as easily as a fly. “But she’s gone, and I thought we’d all moved on. We’ll have no more upsetting talk about her in this house, do you hear me?”

“Fine.” Birdie’s golden eyes turn to hard flecks of amber. “Beau, outside.”

His jaw clenches, and from my close proximity, I can feel him seethe at being ordered around by his sister—or anyone, probably. He must realize Birdie’s giving us the out we need, though, and tips his head toward his mother. “Good-bye, Mother.”

“I’ll see you at tea in a few days.”

“Looking forward to it, as always.”
 

His attendance at tea with Cordelia is a weekly requirement for all of the Drayton children. They each claim to hate it, but as far as I know from Beau, none of them try to get out of it. It’s a strange hold our parents have over us, regardless of how well they raised us, or how much they love us, or how many kinds of scars they’ve left behind. After everything my own mother put me through, if she were somehow alive again, I’m sure I would jump at the chance to have one more grating, infuriating lunch with her.

I follow Beau and Birdie out of the house without a word from Mrs. Drayton. The look she gives me could stop a fly midway to a nice juicy cow pile, but it doesn’t keep me from scuttling out from under her heavy gaze.

It’s easier to breathe outside, even if the hurt swirling off Birdie tastes metallic and more than a little like shame. I don’t owe her anything, and I sure as heck didn’t promise to keep her secrets, but my stomach twists with guilt all the same. Is this what it feels like to have siblings?

They both ignore me, Beau trying to get in his car and Birdie doing her best to block his path. She puts her hands on his chest, clearly confident in her ability to stop him from going, and stands firm. “Beau, I’m sorry it upsets you that Lucy and I kept in contact, but if you’ve found out anything new about her disappearance, I want to know what it is. You loved her, but I did, too, and none of us are going to be okay until we know the truth.”

I leave them there like that, locked in a battle of wills, the outcome anyone’s guess. Neither of them even notice.

Chapter Seventeen

I
nstead of going home to my empty house, I drive aimlessly into town. My stomach is grumbling, and I realize I haven’t eaten a darn thing all day, leaving me no choice but to seek sustenance. With things with Beau and me on the mend, however precariously, I figure my emotional ban on fish tacos should come to an end.

It might be a mistake, coming to the Wreck. The bitchy hostess, the plastic menus, the decor, and the smell of fryer grease that will cling to me for days combine to pummel me with the memory of my first, reluctant date with Beauregard Drayton.

I choose to breathe it in, to think that maybe this morning really was the start of something new, and that the Wreck is the perfect place to celebrate that beginning.