What is going on? I’ve never had something like this happen to me. Ever. I don’t do mental lapses. I’m not easily taken in by people. I don’t behave improperly with strangers. The paramount importance of not doing those things has been impressed upon me since birth, and law school was a good reinforcement.
“I should go.” As if on cue, the cellphone in my pocket vibrates, the real world breaking in. My chair squeals as I push back. The sound seems to stop Trent unexpectedly. Was he really thinking of letting me into the workshop tonight? Or was he thinking of something…more intimate?
I ignore the phone and thank him for giving me the envelope, then add, “Maybe we could meet tomorrow?” In the bright, clear light of day. “Look at whatever else is left?” I’m taking a risk either way I play this. By tomorrow, Trent may have rethought everything. But here, tonight, there are risks of a different kind. “I’ve imposed on you way too long. It was incredibly rude of me to call this late. I’m sorry…I’ve just been so…desperate to figure things out.”
He stifles a yawn, blinks, and forces his eyelids upward. “It’s not a problem. I’m a night owl.”
“I can tell,” I joke, and a laugh escapes him.
“Tomorrow.” He speaks the word like a promise. “It’ll have to be after work. I’ve got a full day. I’ll see if Aunt Lou can keep Jonah a couple extra hours.”
The commitment is a relief. I just hope he feels the same way after he thinks about this. “I’ll see you in the evening then. Just let me know what time. Oh, and don’t leave Jonah at his aunt’s on my account. I have triplet two-year-old nephews. I love little boys.” Gathering Grandma Judy’s papers and my flashlight, I take a step toward the door, then stop, looking for a pencil and something to write on. “I should give you my phone number.”
“I have it.” He pulls a face. “On my cellphone about…two hundred times.”
That should be embarrassing, but instead we laugh together. He turns toward the hallway. “Let me put Jonah down, and I’ll walk you out to the beach and watch you till you get home.”
My head says no, but I have to force myself to form the words. “It’s okay. I know the way.” Outside the window, the night is alive with moonglow, the water glistening through the palms around the cottage’s backyard. Confederate rose and jasmine stir in the sea breeze. It’s a perfect combination. The kind only the Lowcountry can create.
He casts a look my way. “It is the middle of the night. Let me be a gentleman about it at least.”
I wait while he puts Jonah to bed; then we cross the back porch together and descend the steps. The breeze off the water catches my hair, swirling it into the air, skimming my skin and slipping down my T-shirt. At the bottom of the stairs, I glance at the small slave cabin, study the old wood-paned windows, six of them, that run all the way across the front porch. Are answers hiding behind the salt-hazed glass?
“It dates from around 1850.” Trent seems to be fishing for conversation. Maybe we both feel the awkward pressure of a setting that begs for something more than casual chatter. “Granddad moved it here himself when he purchased the property. He originally used it as an office. This tract was his first real estate deal. He bought the acreage adjacent to the Myers cottage and divided it for this house and the two between.”
Another connection between Trent Turner, Sr., and my grandmother. Obviously, they knew each other a long time. Did she enlist him to help her look for someone because she knew he dabbled in such things? Or did his dabbling lead him to my grandmother? Did she suggest that he buy the property next to the cottage? Is the current Trent Turner really as much in the dark about these family connections as I am? Has one generation lived intricately intertwined lives that were, for whatever reason, hidden from the next?
The questions tie my brain in knots as we stop at the beach path, where sea oats glisten like strings of spun glass in the moonlight. “Nice night,” he says.
“Yes, it is.”
“Watch out. Tide’s coming up. You’ll get your feet wet.” He nods toward the sea, and I can’t help but look. A trail of glistening waves leads to the moon, and a starry carpet glows impossibly bright overhead. How long since I’ve just sat in the dark and enjoyed a night like this? Suddenly, I’m so very hungry for it. I’m hungry for water and sky and days that aren’t divided by the tiny squares in an appointment book.
Did my grandmother feel this way? Was that the reason she came here so often?
“Thanks again…for letting me interrupt your evening.” I take a backward step from grass to sand. Something scuttles past my foot, and I squeal.
“Better turn on the flashlight.”
The last thing I see before surrounding myself with a sphere of artificial illumination is Trent grinning at me.
I turn and walk away, knowing he is watching.
My phone buzzes again, and when I pull it from my pocket, it’s like a gateway to another world. I’m quick to step through. I need something familiar and safe to focus on after that strange moment on the beach with Trent.
But Abby? From the office in Baltimore? Why would she be calling me in the wee hours of the morning?
When I answer, she’s breathless. “Avery, there you are. Is everything all right? I got this crazy email from you a while ago.”
I laugh. “Oh, Abby, I’m sorry. I meant to send that to myself.”
“You have to tell yourself where you’re going now? That’s what the posh life in South Carolina has done to you?” Abby is a no-nonsense D.C. girl, an achiever who pulled herself up from public housing to a law degree. She’s also a fabulous federal prosecutor. I miss having lunch with her and putting our heads together about ongoing cases.
If there’s anyone I could trust with the information about Grandma Judy, it would be Abby, but it’s safer to catch up on things at the office, so I do that instead. “Long story. So why are you awake at this hour?”
“Working. Discovery tomorrow. Laundering and mail fraud. Major case. They’ve hired Bracken and Thompson.”
“Ohhh…big guns.” The legal chatter brings me squarely back home to Baltimore. Whatever nonsense came over me at Trent’s house is quickly eclipsed, and I’m glad because I need it to be. “Tell me what’s happening.” My senses heighten in a way that has nothing to do with the night or a glance over my shoulder that finds Trent still watching me.
Abby launches into the details of the investigation, and my mind homes in. I’m struck by one undeniable fact.
I miss my old life.
CHAPTER 16
Rill
“Rise and shine. Looks like finally some sun today!” Miss Dodd says as she unlocks the door to the basement room. Miss Dodd is new here, since two days ago. She’s younger than the others, and nicer too. If I can get her alone, I plan to ask after Camellia. Nobody will tell me where my sister is. Mrs. Pulnik said to shut my yap about it and stop bothering the workers.
Danny Boy says Camellia’s dead. He says he woke up and heard Mrs. Murphy telling Riggs that Camellia died after they put her in the closet and what to do about it. Danny Boy says Riggs carried her body out to the truck to go dump it in the swamp. He saw the whole thing with his own two eyes. He says my sister’s gone, and good riddance.
I don’t believe a word that comes out of Danny Boy. He’s hateful clean through to the bone.
Miss Dodd will tell me the truth.
Right now, she’s more worried about the stink in the room. It’s moldy and drippy down here when it rains, and on top of that, Fern’s been wetting the bed every night since they took away Camellia and Gabion. I tell Fern not to, but it doesn’t help.
“Mercy, that smell!” Miss Dodd gives us a worried look. “This ain’t a fit place for children.”
I move between her and the wet cot. I’ve piled it with covers because that’s all I can figure out to do to hide it. “I…I spilled the slop pot.”
She looks at the corner. The cement is dry under the pot. “Did somebody have an accident in the bed?”