Before We Were Yours(39)

“He’s our friend.” Camellia can’t keep her mouth shut. Maybe she thinks it’ll scare the boys if they know the big man likes us.

But the redheaded boy just grins. He leans close to my ear, near enough that I can smell his stinky breath and feel his heat on my skin. He whispers, “Don’t let Riggs get you off by yourself. He ain’t the kind of friend you want.”





CHAPTER 11


Avery

Spanish moss drips from the trees, as delicately spun as the lace on a bridal veil. A blue heron launches itself from the salt marsh, disturbed by the passage of my car. It flies clumsily at first, as if it needs a moment to become at home in the air, to find its wings. It beats hard, then finally floats into the distance, in no hurry to be earthbound again.

I know the feeling. For two weeks, I’ve been trying to sneak away and make the drive to Edisto Island. Between the meetings and press ops that were already scheduled and an unexpected complication with Dad’s health, it’s been impossible.

I’ve spent the last six days in doctors’ offices, holding my mother’s hand as we tried to discern why, when the cancer and intestinal bleeding were supposed to have been cured by the surgery, Dad was once again anemic and so weak he could barely stay on his feet. After endless tests, we think the cause has been found. The solution was simple—a laparoscopic surgery to fuse broken blood vessels in his digestive system, a problem unrelated to the cancer. Outpatient. Quick and easy.

Except nothing is simple when you’re trying to hide from the whole world, and Dad insists on not telling anyone he has experienced a minor setback in his health. Leslie is completely onboard with that. She’s reporting that my father had a nasty case of food poisoning; he’ll be back to his regularly scheduled activities in a few days.

My eldest sister, Missy, stepped in to handle appearances at a couple of charity events that couldn’t be canceled. “You look exhausted, Aves,” she said. “Why don’t you get away for a little while, since Leslie has pretty much cleared the schedule anyway? Go see Elliot. Allison and I can keep an eye on things at Drayden Hill.”

“Thanks…but…Well, you’re sure?”

“Go. Talk wedding plans. Maybe you can convince him to knuckle under to the mom pressure.”

I didn’t tell her that, other than a few rushed conversations, Elliot and I haven’t even discussed wedding ideas. We have too much else going on. “Elliot had to fly to Milan to meet with a client, but I think I’ll go down to the old place on Edisto. Has anyone been there lately?”

“Scott and I took the kids for a few days…oh…I guess it was last spring. The housekeeping service keeps the place in such great shape. It should be all ready for you. Go have a little vacay.”

I was packing a suitcase almost before she could tell me to say hello to the beach for her. On the way out of town, I paid a long-overdue visit to May Crandall’s nursing home. An attendant there told me May had been hospitalized with a respiratory infection. The attendant didn’t know how serious it was or when to expect May back.

Which means that the mysterious packet of papers on Edisto is my one possible lead, at least for now. Trent Turner won’t take my phone calls. Period. My only option is to confront him in person. The envelope he’s holding has begun to haunt my every waking moment. I’m getting a little obsessed, making up stories in which he plays different parts in each scene. Sometimes he’s a blackmailer who has discovered a horrible truth about my family and sold the information to my father’s opponents; that’s why he won’t answer my calls. Other times, he’s the man in May Crandall’s photograph. The pregnant woman he’s holding close is my grandmother, and she had some sort of hidden life before she married my grandfather. A teenage love affair. A scandal that’s been covered up for generations.

She gave the baby away, and it’s been living somewhere all this time. Now our dispossessed heir wants a fair share of the family money, or else.

All my scenarios seem crazy, but they’re not completely unfounded. I’ve learned things from reading between the lines in my grandmother’s appointment books. My dragonfly bracelet has some sort of deeper history on Edisto. A lovely gift for a lovely day on Edisto, the entry read. Just us.

It’s the just us part that niggles at me. Only a page before, she’d noted receiving a letter from my grandfather, who had taken the children fishing in the mountains for the week.

Just us…

Who? Who was buying gifts for her on Edisto in 1966?

My grandmother often came here alone over the years, but many times she wasn’t alone after she arrived on the island. That much was obvious from her daybooks.

Could she have been having an affair?

My stomach roils as the Dawhoo Bridge rises ahead. That can’t be the case. Despite the pressure of a life lived in public, my family has always been known for rock-solid marriages. My grandmother loved my grandfather deeply. Aside from that, Grandma Judy is one of the most upright people I know. She’s a pillar of the community and a fixture at the Methodist church. She would never, ever keep a secret from the family.

Unless that secret is something that could hurt us.

And that’s exactly what scares me.

It’s also why I can’t have an envelope floating around heaven knows where with my grandmother’s name on it and some sort of clandestine information inside.