Not Quite Right (A Lowcountry Mystery) (Lowcountry Mysteries Book 6) Read Free Page B

from my cousin.
    “She’s fine,” Travis assures me, snapped out of his stupor and edging toward the porch steps. Finally. “She, uh, got tired of me and told me to leave. When I sort of refused, she banished me out here.”
    I feel my eyes go wide even as warm relief gushes into my chest. My fingers relax their stranglehold on my phone. “She banished you?”
    He shrugs, color flushing his sallow cheeks now. “I think she was worried about not being able to get a hold of you. Plus, that Asian girl from Drayton Hall was here and they’ve been reading. I don’t know.”
    “Look, Travis, I’m sorry to do this but there’s a lot going on and I need to go inside. We’ll talk later, okay?”
    The front door flies open before he can reply or escape, and the light from the foyer frames my cousin. The change in her appearance happened so slowly, or at least appeared to since I see her every day now, that confronting it all at once stuns me. Amelia is due in about two months now and her belly is round and huge, but the most striking difference is the wild alertness in her eyes. Well, that and the fact that her blond curls are seriously greasy. The Amelia I grew up with was meticulous about her hair.
    There are too many versions of Amelia to keep track of what was altered and when, but if I could get back the one who counted as not only my cousin but childhood best friend, everything would be worth it.
    “Grace, oh my god, why didn’t you answer your phone?” She grabs for my arms, dragging me inside and shooting a murderous look at Travis in the process. “Go home, Dylan!”
    She shouts the last part as she slams the door in his face, then focuses her attention on me. Something’s happened, that much is clear from the excitement on her delicate features, but the worry in her emerald green eyes—replicas of mine and Anne Bonny’s—has become a fixture.  
    “Why are you being so rude to him?” I ask. “Grams would be rolling over in her grave to see you leave a guest out on the porch in a rainstorm like that.”
    She waves her hand, grumbling impatiently. “I gave him an umbrella. Did you see Mama Lottie?”
    “Yes.” There’s more I could say, perhaps, but she knows what the simple yes entails. I don’t want to confess aloud all of the sins I’ve committed tonight.
    “Oh, Grace.” She tightens her fingers, still on my arm, and tugs me into the kitchen.
    The table is piled with old books in various faded shades of greens, blues, and reds. No words adorn the spines and a few of them lie open and on top of one another. I remember then that Travis said Jenna was here earlier, and it clicks—these are Charlotta Drayton’s journals.
    My interest piques. “Jenna brought the journals.”
    “Yes.” My cousin picks up one of the open volumes. “And you’ll never guess what I found out about James… He’s Mama Lottie’s son,” she rushes on, not waiting for me to guess, thank god.
    “What?” The blood rushes from my head, leaving me dizzy and clinging to the back of one of the kitchen chairs for support. “How?”
    “I don’t know. They’re all from Charlotta’s point-of-view, you know, and she and James met when they were young. She was around ten. It took her a long time to find out who his mother was because he would never tell her. But they fell in love. It’s all there.”
    My brain struggles to make sense of it all, to put it in order. “How did she find out he belonged to Mama Lottie?”
    Amelia grimaces, her impatience with me clear. “What does it matter, Grace? You can read about the details yourself, but right now, you need to turn your ass around and get back to Drayton Hall.”
    I’m so tired. Too tired and heartsick to keep up, but I manage to bite my tongue to stop myself from asking another stupid question. It only takes a moment for me to answer it myself.
    “You think she won’t curse the family if she knows she’ll be cursing her own descendants, at least in part.” I