Lowcountry Mysteries (Boxed Set #1) Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Also By Lyla Payne

  Not Quite Dead

  Copyright

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Not Quite Cold

  Copyright Information

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Acknowlegments

  Not Quite True

  Copyright Information

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Acknowledgments

  Quite Curious

  Copyright Information

  Title Page

  Chapter One - Beau

  Chapter Two - Gracie

  Chapter Three - Gracie

  Chapter Four - Amelia

  Chapter Five - Beau

  Chapter Six - Clete

  Chapter Seven - Will

  Chapter Eight - Amelia

  Chapter Nine - Amelia

  Chapter Ten - Leo

  Chapter Eleven - Gracie

  Thank You!

  Not Quite Gone Sneak Peek!

  Also By Lyla Payne

  About the Author

  WHITMAN UNIVERSITY

  Broken at Love

  By Referral Only

  Be My Downfall

  Staying On Top

  Living the Dream

  Going for Broke (published in Fifty First Times: A New Adult Anthology)

  LOWCOUNTRY MYSTERIES

  Not Quite Dead

  Not Quite Cold

  Not Quite True

  Quite Curious

  Not Quite Gone

  Not Quite Clear

  Quite Precarious (December 29th, 2015)

  Not Quite Right (April 26th, 2016)

  Mistletoe & Mr. Right

  Sleigh Bells & Second Chances

  SECRETS DON’T MAKE FRIENDS

  Secrets Don’t Make Friends

  Secrets Don’t Make Survivors (March 11th, 2016)

  Young Adult Novels Written as TRISHA LEIGH

  THE LAST YEAR

  Whispers in Autumn

  Winter Omens

  Betrayals in Spring

  Summer Ruins

  THE CAVY FILES

  Gypsy

  Alliance

  Buried (January 12th, 2016)

  THE HISTORIANS

  Return Once More

  A Lowcountry Mystery

  by

  USA Today Bestselling Author

  LYLA PAYNE

  Copyright ©2014 by Lyla Payne

  Cover Photography by Iona Nicole Photography

  Cover by Eisley Jacobs at Complete Pixels

  Copy editing: Lauren Hougen

  All rights reserved.

  This book is a work of fiction. References to real people, events, establishments, organizations or locations are intended only to provide a sense of authenticity, and are used factiously. All other characters, and all incidents and dialogue, are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real

  To Anne Bonny, for letting me imagine the end of her story. Here’s hoping she doesn’t haunt me for the rest of my life.

  Chapter One

  In retrospect, perhaps drinking myself to sleep in my grandparents’ driveway hadn’t been the best idea.

  The epiphany arrives with a blast of sunlight and a knock on the driver’s-side window that explodes my brain into pain soup. I manage to make out a shadowy form through the tightest eye squint in history, its elderly, feminine hand shading a gaze that’s directed more or less toward the two empty wine bottles on the passenger-side floorboard.

  Annoyance mingles with nostalgia, because the hand can belong to no one but Mrs. Walters. She’s made a career out of being the neighborhood busybody and spent half my childhood chasing me back toward this very house with a garden hose turned on to full blast.

  After driving for almost a full day with no sleep, last night’s alcohol spectacular only amounts to one of this morning’s problems, and my face and breath would be more at home on a hooker who just came off a double shift. Not the fancy kind of hooker, either.

  There’s nothing to do but crank down the window, which ushers a refreshing wash of cool morning air into my oven of a car. Late May in South Carolina isn’t exactly temperate. Regardless of the thin, disapproving line of her mouth, no amount of childhood memories can summon a smile.

  “Good morning, Graciela.”

  “What time is it?” I ask without acknowledging her greeting.

  The grooves beside her lips deepen. “A little after seven.”

  “Christ. It had to be sunny.” I shove the door harder than necessary, but she steps back, avoiding a good smash to the knees. I press my toes to the concrete, taking a few gulps of fresh coastal air before grabbing the doorframe and wobbling to my feet.

  “Are you ill?”

  “What? No, not exactly.”

  “Is Martin well?” She crosses her arms over her chest, her faded brown gaze flicking toward the house.

  “I just got here. You’re the one who called me, remember?” Maybe Mrs. Walters had gone batshit crazy since I’d last spent any real time in Heron Creek. Maybe I should have considered that option before packing my entire crappy life into my crappy car and hauling it from Iowa to South Carolina.

  “He’s no worse off than when I called. I just wondered why you arrived in this…harried state.”

  “Oh.” I put my back to the rising sun, refusing to follow her
eyes as they take in the giant pile of clothes and shoes and hangers and toiletries crammed in my backseat. The distaste curling her lips toward her chin says she might be wondering how many Iowa City rats hitchhiked with the rest of the mess. “I was in a hurry.”

  I straighten my shoulders and run fingers through my limp hair, wishing I’d taken the time to put it in a braid or a ponytail, anything that would have lessened the tangled brown waves that fall past my shoulders. Maybe Glinda still cuts hair in town. If I ever get around to making a to-do list, that’s going on the top.

  The path that leads to the front door is uneven, the red bricks dipping and jutting, fighting with green grass and mud for the right to send me falling on my face. They all manage to fail, my passage to the front stoop ending in safety. Up close, the old two-story house sags, more tired and run-down than it appears in my mind. White paint flakes off the shutters and columns, and even the porch swing, making the house seem as bone-weary at the prospect of standing upright another day as I feel.

  My keys are somewhere in the mess of my purse, but the door swings open, hinges creaking, before I gather the energy to go dig for them. The sight of Gramps, half bent over his walker, brings tears to my eyes. He must have been watching, because he can hardly hear a thing anymore, and the thought shames me in the light of my behavior.

  I throw open the screen door, ignoring the fact that nosy Mrs. Walters hovers behind me, and sling my arms around his neck. Right here, enfolded in his embrace, is the closest thing to home. He smells like Gramps, a combination of sunshine and earth and sea that’s as elusive as it is comforting, and my limbs droop with relief.

  Home.

  “Hey, Gramps.” My words are muffled against his shirt, and he leans his head close to mine until his hearing aids squeal in protest, and we both laugh.

  Even though my throat throbs, for Gramps I wrestle loose a smile, and he gives me a lopsided one in return. His pale blue eyes twinkle like always, but like the house, they seem dimmer than they do in my vision of the past. Faraway.

  Grams passed almost six months ago. I’ve stayed away too long.

  “Gracie-baby, don’t you go frowning. I might look like a fish dryin’ out in the bottom of a hot tin boat, but get a load of your own mug and you won’t find me so offensive.” He wrinkles his nose. “Not to mention the stink about you.”

  The laugh his comments knock loose hurts. Rusty flakes shudder off my lungs and throat as the hurt cackles its way past my lips, and it finishes with a grimace. “I drove straight through and slept in the driveway. Didn’t want to wake you.”

  He raises an eyebrow to acknowledge my lie but doesn’t turn his disapproval into words. We both know he wouldn’t have heard me if I drove a dump truck through the front of the house with a full marching band as a lead-in, then finished off with a fireworks display.

  He peeks around me as I wander into the foyer. “Mornin’, Stella.”

  “Good day, Martin.”

  The kitchen is far enough away to relieve me of listening to Mrs. Walters rant about my inappropriate return to Heron Creek. There’s grape soda, water, milk, and a pitcher of sweet tea in the fridge, along with an assortment of fruits, vegetables, lunchmeats, and condiments that there’s no way he prepares for himself. Gramps has a housekeeper in twice a week, and my Aunt Karen hired her to do the grocery shopping now, too.

  The grape soda tastes like being ten years old, like Grams and Gramps and summers spent splashing in the intracoastal, and barely squeezes past the lump in my throat. Tears, which have never been quick to come for me before, have become my constant companion since the public, humiliating demise of my engagement.

  They’re under control by the time the bump of metal on ceramic tile announces Gramps’s return from his banal chat with Mrs. Walters. “You hungry, Gramps?”

  “Eh?”

  “Did you eat breakfast?” I ask, a little louder.

  He shakes his head, which means he hasn’t eaten, or he doesn’t want to eat, or that he didn’t hear me. I’m worn too thin to ferret out the correct interpretation, even though the primary motivation for my return to Heron Creek is taking care of Gramps. Mrs. Walters had called my Aunt Karen, threatening to contact the authorities about putting him in a home if we didn’t do it ourselves.

  My aunt has no intention of leaving Charleston, ever. When I got wind of Mrs. Walters’s threat during a weekly phone call with Gramps, it happened to be the exact same day I caught my fiancé fucking his teaching assistant. On the desk in his office. During school hours.

  The decision to move back here to take care of Gramps and get the hell away from anyone and everyone who knows both David and me—people who knew about his affairs, plural, for years and never said a word—made itself.

  Maybe I’m technically running away, but since Gramps needs me, or someone, I’m running toward something, too. A new life, my old pre-David one, it doesn’t matter. I can hide here.

  We wander into the living room, and Gramps eases down into his worn, comfy recliner, one that’s tan and shiny in the bald spots, before pinning me with his perceptive blue gaze. “You come to put me in a home, Gracie-baby?”

  “Don’t be silly, Gramps. You’ll probably have to put me in one first.”

  He nods, his expression serious except for the sparkle in his eyes. “I can see that by the looks of you. Gonna be a crazy home, or one for booze hounds, though, not a place for old folks.”

  I’m ready to collapse, spent from the night of driving and the bottles of wine, not to mention the sunrise wake-up call. Or the contents of the past two weeks of my life. Either way, I can’t find the energy to argue with him, especially because he’s not wrong, the way things are going.

  “No need to answer. You should never defend yourself, girl. Those people who would believe you already know better and those who won’t aren’t listening anyway. Best to keep your mouth shut.” He huffs. “At least something your Grams and I taught you lodged between your ears.”

  “Oh, come on. I learned more than that around here. How to make applesauce, how to make every person in a twenty-mile radius love you unconditionally, that it’s okay to shoot things that annoy you.”

  “That last one is all your grandmother.” The wistful sigh in his voice tears at my heart. He’s lonely, and no wonder. We are all terrible people for having left him alone.

  I need a few minutes, an hour, a week, to try to find the chunks and strips of myself that have ripped off, floated away. Hopefully they’re still tied to me, like balloons, and can be tugged back. “I’m going to take a shower and get some things from the car. I’ll make lunch in a few hours, okay?”

  He waves a hand my direction and nods, his eyes glued to the Creek Sun he picks up from the end table. I take my cue and head for the foyer, but a rustle of newspaper and the sound of my name turns me back around.

  “Yeah?”

  “Karen called yesterday. Amelia’s pregnant again. Three months along this time, so they’re hoping it’s going to stick.”

  The mention of my cousin’s name seizes every muscle in my body. We grew up here together, more sisters than cousins, but it’s been five years since we’ve spoken. Since the night of her bridal shower.

  Through my pain, layered thick with the loss of Amelia close to the bottom, comes a geyser of joy. Amelia never wanted anything more than to be a mother, and there have been four miscarriages. That I know about. It had killed me to not be there for her when they happened, but our rift had been Millie’s choice, not mine.

  There have been an inordinate number of miscarriages and stillbirths, going back to at least our great-grandmother. Odd, but it had never occurred to me to worry. Amelia was the one who always wanted kids.

  “That’s great news,” I manage, the words a little strangled but sincere.

  Gramps huffs, his gaze wandering back to what passes for news in a town of less than two thousand. “I’m disappointed you two still haven’t put aside whatever came between you, Gracie-baby.”
>
  My heart sinks, his words carrying the same impact as they have for all of my twenty-five years. “It’s hard to talk with only one person in the room, Gramps.”

  He doesn’t answer, and this time I’m pretty sure he’s pretending not to hear me. He has a point. “She won’t talk to me” isn’t much of an excuse, but like everything else in the shambles of my life, thinking about actually taking steps to fix it makes me so tired I almost curl up on the carpeted steps climbing upward from the foyer.

  Fat pants, clean underwear, maybe a toothbrush, then no more requirements until lunch.

  My old Honda waits in the driveway, as patient and loyal as ever. Better than any dog, I used to tell David when he wanted to bring home a puppy. Not that I have a problem with dogs, but he would’ve gotten bored within a week and all of the cleaning and walking and playing would have fallen to me. One day, I’d promised myself, he’d be more reliable, I’d be done with grad school, and things would be different.