Not Quite Gone (A Lowcountry Mystery) (15 page)

“I didn’t come all the way here just to slink away, darlin’.”

“Can you leave your phone number?”

“Don’t have a phone.”

“We could meet at the coffee shop in town. Westies.”

“I’d rather stay out of sight, if you don’t mind. I could come back this weekend. Can’t stick around much longer than that, I’m afraid.”

I nod, agreeing. For
now.

“Okay. It was very nice to meet you, Graciela, even if you are the spittin’ image of Felicia.”

Frank Fournier—
my father
—walks away. There’s no guarantee he’ll show up again, given that I didn’t know he existed before a few weeks ago. Despite the talk about keeping in touch, he didn’t leave a number, but my gut says he will. It says he came here to tell me something, or to find out something,
and even though he’s being pretty mysterioso about his comings and goings, there’s little to no chance he’s going to leave without taking care of business.

What I don’t know is whether to be worried or relieved.

Chapter Ten

Amelia squeezes onto the back deck less than a minute later, pinpoints of color bright on her cheeks. Her eyes are still wide but relieved, probably to find me alive. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. He didn’t try to murder me or eat my brains or anything.”

“Grace, for goodness’ sake. Don’t be so dramatic.” My cousin eases into the chair vacated by Frank, rolling her eyes.
“Tell me what he said.”

“He asked me whether anything ever happened to me that I couldn’t explain. Like an apparition or a voice. And then I asked him to leave.”

“Well, I’ll be damned.” If possible, her eyes grow rounder. “Grace…”

“I know. I mean, chances are he’s about to tell me about some mental illness that runs rampant on his side of the family and explain this whole thing.”

“More likely
he’s going to tell you seeing ghosts runs in the family. This is amazing. You’re finally going to get some answers.” She gives me a look. “You could have already asked for them. Why’d you throw him out?”

“I don’t know. He could be so full of shit that his eyes have turned brown.” My teeth worry my lower lip. “What if it’s a trap or a trick? David sending some backwoods actor down here to make
fun of me.”

“This is going to sound harsh but I’m going to say it anyway because I love you.” She levels me with an exasperated gaze. “David doesn’t care enough about you to go to this much trouble.”

“Ouch.” It doesn’t hurt as much as maybe it should. As maybe it would have two months ago before Beau slowly but surely started to show me—or remind me—of a different sort of man and a different
sort of relationship in a better kind of life.

“I’m serious. Even if he somehow got wind of your new career path, there’s no way he would go to this much trouble to humiliate you. I don’t know who this guy is or if he’s really your father, but he thinks he is—and whatever he came here for is real.”

“My gut says you’re right. But that doesn’t make it less scary. Or less weird.” I nod at Frank’s
empty bourbon glass, the strands of his hair still trapped underneath. “Check it out.”

She peers closer, then reels back, an almost comical look of horror on her face. “Is that hair? Like, out of his head?”

“Better out of his head than somewhere else.” I snort. “I don’t know what
I’m
supposed to do with it.”

“Get it tested for DNA, obviously. Frank’s trying to expel any worries you might have
as to whether or not he’s actually your father. Don’t you want to know?”

“Yeah. Yeah, I do.” I
need
to know. If we’re going to move forward, form some kind of relationship—or more importantly, talk about my ghostly abilities in the context of family and genetics—this is a first step. “How do we even go about this?”

“That’s what Google is for, Grace. I swear to the good Lord above, sometimes
you haven’t got the good sense God gave a goose. Or you’re just a little too comfortable living like the rest of this town—fifty years in the past.”

“Hey, don’t knock the past. It sure was simpler.”

She shakes her head, lips pursed. “No, it wasn’t. It only seems that way looking back.”

My phone buzzes with a text message, and I look down to see that it’s from Will.

Hey. Mel said she
talked to you earlier about having a chat with Travis about jobs at the station. No go or yes go?

I don’t care how long I live in Heron Creek, I will never take Will’s friendship—or Mel’s—for granted ever again. It feels good to know that they can talk about me, that I can help them, without weirdness.

Or at least with minimal weirdness.

Yes go. Talking to Millie about it now and will
keep you both updated.

Word.

I snort for the second time in as many minutes and flip the phone over, ignoring the missed call from Beau that must have come through while I was focused on Frank. I’ll call him later. If it was something important or he wasn’t feeling well, he would have followed up with a text.

“So, according to Mel, Will is thinking about applying at the police department.”

The news surprises Millie less than it shocked me. Now that I’ve had time to really think about it, I think it’s a good fit for more reasons than his law-loving heart. For one, there aren’t many jobs in Heron Creek that are stable and pay decently, and two, Will’s political science degree is, sadly, not good for much. Not to mention there’s not much danger in policing this small town and he’ll
have job security. Win-win.

“I mean, good for him. And honestly, it seems like a no-brainer. There’s not a person in town who likes following the rules like Will Gayle.” Amelia shrugs, looking a little longingly toward the sip of bourbon and ginger still in my father’s tumbler.

“I know, right?” I mumble, my chest tight.

Except a couple of weeks ago, he broke some major laws—for me. For Beau.
And now he’s lost his job, and his family is in even more trouble than they already were.

Black, sticky guilt tries to swallow me. Amelia shakes her head at me from across the table. “They’re going to be fine. Mel’s been offered the job at that accountant’s office, too. Harrington.”

“She told me. It’s a good start.”

“They’re not your responsibility, Grace. Will made his own choices.”

“I know.
And come tax season, everything will be looking up.” I give her a smile that’s hopefully braver than it feels. “Will wants to know if you’ll talk to Travis. Find out the scoop on whether they’re hiring and put a good word in for him, that sort of thing.”

The colored spots return to her cheeks. The shrug she gives me is meant to be nonchalant but my cousin doesn’t quite pull it off. “Sure. I can
do that. Talking up Will isn’t exactly a challenge.”

“Right.”

Her reaction to any mention of Dylan Travis distracts me, gives me pause. I don’t want to bring it up because it’s so clear that Amelia has more important things to focus on than a little crush. Her depression doesn’t seem to be getting better no matter how she tries to act like it is, and even though Travis’s presence in her life
seems to help with that, I don’t know… It’s just odd for her to even think about romance right now. Or for me to encourage it.

Of course, I might be totally wrong. It might be the perfect distraction, exactly what she needs.

My soul starts to hurt because there was a time when I wouldn’t have had to guess what the best thing was for Millie. I would have known.
She
would have known.

As I leave
her outside to go in and change for my night out with Daria, my heart drags behind me. I don’t know how the girls we were got so far away from the girls we’ve become, or how to drag them closer again. All I know is that I couldn’t love her more if I tried. That has to count for something.

Daria’s place of business-slash-house looks the same as when
Leo and I were here a few weeks ago—cluttered and dusty, the magazines dated last spring. Her hair is back to her normal, close-cropped blond and she’s back to sporting normal clothes. Her jean shorts are a respectable length, if a tad ratty, and her black tank top matches her fingernail polish.

“Oh good. You’re here. Do you want something to drink?”

“Water?”

“Water? Are you kidding?” Daria
shakes her head, striding over to a wet bar in the corner of the room. “I always have a drink before I go on a spirit walk. Calms the nerves, opens me up a little. Try it.”

Huh. I never would have thought that my problem is not drinking
enough
. Maybe my drunkenness and brief flirtation with alcoholism is what made it so easy for Anne to find me during my first weeks back in Heron Creek.

I have
my doubts but accept the gin and tonic—horrible drink—that she sets in my hand. “Can you tell me anything about where we’re going? Or is this, like, a test or something?”

“This is a job that I’m being paid for, not amateur hour for you. I only know what the homeowners have told me, which isn’t much since I prefer to know as little as possible before I walk a property. I’ll often research it afterward
to put together a file of my findings and recommendations, but it’s better to go in with a blank slate.”

“So you’re not influenced,” I surmise. “Interesting.”

The concept of ghosts is so odd. Human beings—or lingering imprints of human beings, maybe—there all the time that only certain people can see. It makes some weird sense that, for those of us who can occasionally peer through that curtain,
we might apply attributes that aren’t there if we’re expecting them. Or something.

“So what
can
you tell me?” I ask.

“We’re going out to an old house about fifteen minutes from downtown, over in Mount Pleasant. The structure is only about a hundred years old but the land has obviously been settled for far longer. Homeowners have been hearing sounds like footsteps and laughter, seeing movements
like doors being slammed, for years.”

“Why are they just now asking you to come out, then?”

“Their experiences have been getting worse. Violent. The mother claims that something rocked her ladder while she was painting the ceiling over the staircase, two of the children keep complaining of scratches on their backs and legs. That sort of thing.”

Sweat pops out of my pores, slick and cold on
the back of my neck. A shiver slips down my spine and I wish I hadn’t worn my hair in a ponytail. My wardrobe choice is sort of funny, actually, because I’m wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, so Daria and I almost look like an unintentional team. Maybe we are one.

“Is that normal? For ghosts to hurt people?” My mind goes to Amelia’s sleepwalking and each of our nightmares. All this time we’d
blamed voodoo curses and Mrs. LaBadie, but what if we’d been wrong? What if a ghost was trying to hurt us through dreams, one that hadn’t shown itself to me yet?

“No. It’s not unheard of, just unusual. It’s usually the other things that go in for violence.”

I can actually feel the blood drain out of my face. “Other things?”

“Demons. Devils. Things that used to be people but have gotten so broken
and twisted through the process of death and being stuck that they’re only the evil pieces of the person they were. You know.” She studies my face. “You don’t know.”

My head shakes in response because there are no words. There’s nothing in my life that could have prepared me for this sort of shit. I love ghost tours—I’ve been on lots of them—but honestly, it has always been the history that draws
me, not the paranormal. The parts I love are the lives and trials and triumphs that made them human, not why they’ve stuck around to haunt the living. Finding out that there are more than charming stories lurking in the darkness shakes me more than a little.

“Do you…you see all of those things?”

She nods, her gaze guarded. “You might, too. What we have…it’s a gift and a curse, Graciela. Even
the ones who aren’t malicious, they’re not…it’s not natural, to stick around the way they do. You have to be prepared for the darkness.”
 

Daria watches me, a little perplexed, but there’s a light around her eyes that makes me think maybe she’s figured at least part of me out. She pats my knee, saving me from having to form a
 
response. “Let’s get going. No better way to learn than by doing.”

I down the rest of my drink, resist asking for another, then follow her beat-up gray truck in my Honda. For some reason, the thought of being trapped in a small space with her any longer than necessary makes me anxious. It’s her wealth of knowledge, I think. It could spill out and into my head, and having at least a little control over when and how that happens feels important.

The sun has completely
set, making room for an almost full moon and a velvety blue sky full of stars by the time we pull up in front of a two-story, classically Charleston-style home that’s painted a cheery yellow. The shutters are white, the windows are all dark, and a sense of foreboding that does not match the exterior snatches at my hair and skin with cold, bony fingers.

“Okay.” Daria walks up, her hands empty
and her features tight, as though she’s got some anxiety, too. She did say she had the drink to settle herself down before these things. The thought that she still gets nervous calms me, for some reason.