LOWCOUNTRY BOOK CLUB Read Free Page A

times when I would be in your debt if you could just stay in the background. Behind me, where I can’t see you, would be ideal.”
    â€œ There’s no connection to my mission here,” she said. “ I’m going to be of limited help. Strictly protection.”
    Colleen’ s mission —what she was sent back from beyond to do—is to protect Stella Maris, the barrier island northeast of Charleston, South Carolina, where our hometown by the same name was situated. Stella Maris chiefly required defense from those who would like to line our pristine beaches with hotels, condos, and all manner of commercial enterprise. Since I was on the town council and heavily invested in maintaining the quality of our small-town life, protecting me was part of Colleen’s job.
    Nate said, “We ’ll holler if we need you.”
    â€œ Yeah, try that sometime,” I said.
    Colleen appeared in front of us, sitting cross-legged on the rich Charleston breeze. “ That’s not fair. I’ve always been there when you needed me.”
    â€œ Yes, you have,” I said. “ And we’re grateful. But you have to admit, you rarely show up if we simply call your name.”
    â€œ I stay busy,” she said. “ And I’m not your dog.” She disappeared like someone flipped her switch, not her typical fade out.
    â€œ She’s going to be seventeen forever, you know,” I said.
    â€œ It’s like having a teenager no one else can see. We’ll be lucky if we don’t both end up in an institution, either because people think we’re mad as sunbathing raccoons or she drives us that way.”
    We reached his brown Ford Explorer, put the boxes in the back, and climbed in. As Nate pulled into Broad Street traffic, I pressed the button to open the moonroof. The sparkling clear Carolina blue sky and warm May air were irresistible.
    â€œ What do you think?” I asked.
    â€œ About Fraser Rutledge or about the case?”
    â€œ The case.”
    â€œ It’s worrisome that Paul Baker couldn’t find anything. I don’t know him, but I would venture a guess that our new friend Fraser doesn’t suffer incompetence. Sounds like Baker worked for Rutledge and Radcliffe a while. He must be a decent investigator.” Nate turned left onto East Bay.
    â€œ But if he’d found something we wouldn’t have this opportunity.” Part of our business plan was to develop relationships with Charleston attorneys. We had ties with several firms in Greenville, in the South Carolina Upstate near the Blue Ridge foothills. We’d established Talbot & Andrews there right after we’d finished our internship fourteen years earlier. But we needed to build our Lowcountry clientele. Although we still owned a condo in downtown Greenville, Stella Maris was home.
    â€œ Fair point,” said Nate. “My concern is what if there’s nothing to find? Given Fraser Rutledge’s high regard for his client, if we fail him, I don’t think we’ll get a second chance.”
    I sighed, looked out the window at palm trees and storefronts passing by. “ We can only do our best and pray that if there’s something to find, we find it. I can’t bear to think he’s innocent and there’s no way to prove it. That’s not the way it’s supposed to work.”
    â€œ If he’s innocent, all they have is circumstantial evidence,” said Nate. “ But those are some hellacious circumstances.”

TWO

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    It would’ve been a sinful waste not to have lunch outside on a day as beautiful as that spring Tuesday. Back home on Stella Maris, a twenty-minute ferry ride from the Isle of Palms marina, we toted the legal boxes that made up the Gerhardt file into my office. Then I made chicken salad sandwiches, and we took them out to the Adirondack chairs on the deck overlooking the Atlantic. The rambling yellow beach house my