Not Quite Right (A Lowcountry Mystery) (Lowcountry Mysteries Book 6) (13 page)

“Antacids,” my cousin supplies, obviously anxious for him to hurry up.

“After they tested drugs on third world children,” I remind them, unable to stop myself.

“Right, well, this morning they hinted that there might be current scandals of the same nature connected to Allied.” Brick sits back in his chair, squeezing the back of his neck while the news sinks in for Amelia and me. “There have been accusations from smaller relief organizations, no one too official or with a recognizable name. Some of them claim that Allied is recruiting people to test malaria drugs, others say Ebola. There are too many of them for it to be total bullshit, though, especially considering that the scandal in the eighties never made it to the press.”

Thoughts spin through my mind. The word
abhorrent
, the same one Will used when Paul Adams first told us about the illegal AIDS testing, sits front and center.

“Isn’t there someone who investigates this kind of thing?” Amelia asks, finding her tongue before I do. “The World Health Organization, or, I don’t know…whoever?”

“There should be. According to Randall, it’s nothing to worry about because the complaints were handled before they were reported to any oversight organization.” He puts air quotes around the word
handled
.

The pit in my stomach turns to worms. They writhe, slimy and gross, at the implication. Allied paid the small aid organizations off—probably offering them huge sums of cash to look the other way. For people trying to do the most good, it would be hard to turn down. So hard they might be able to convince themselves that the number of people they’d be able to help with more money negates any trouble given to the few people Allied convinces to test their drugs.

“So you’re saying there are people working for these organizations who might be willing to tell the truth to help us,” Amelia reasons. “I mean, even if they took a payoff, everyone can’t have agreed. Not if the drugs are hurting or killing people.”

Brick’s silent for a long time, picking at the top of his ciabatta bread as he works hard to avoid our gazes. When he looks up, there’s pain etched on his face that doesn’t equate with the story he’s been telling. Even though the thought of a big company taking advantage of people who have no way to fight back is horrible, it’s not personal. But the agony on his face is real, close to home. I haven’t seen him look so out of sorts since he told me the truth about Nan.

“You’re right, Amy. Not everyone agreed, a fact I learned when I started doing a little research into the aid companies and their workers on my own.” He swallows hard once, then again. His eyes look wet, but it’s hard to tell if he’s holding back tears or simply overcome with emotion. “At least one of them disappeared several years ago, soon after the first complaint was lodged.”

My tongue feels as though it’s coated in ashes. All I can think about is Paul Adams getting hit by that car in front of his house. “D-disappeared?”

“Kidnapped, it appears, but no ransom demands were ever issued. That we know of.” Brick takes a deep breath and sits up straighter, an obvious attempt at getting his emotions under control. It works, somewhat, but when his dark gaze meets mine, there’s nothing there but misery. “It was Lucy.”

Chapter Eight

F
rom the moment Brick says her name, I know that I’m going to have to talk to Beau. Lucy—
his Lucy
—had been working for one of the overseas aid organizations that serviced a community impacted by Allied Pharmaceuticals’ treachery.

I never met the woman, but from everything Beau reluctantly told me about her, there’s no way she would have been one to quietly accept a payoff and look the other way. She would have spit in Middleton’s eye.

The fact that she turned up missing is enough to make me want to throw up.

Brick, for his part, looks like he’s experiencing much of the same.

“Oh my god,” I whisper, finally able to access the part of my brain that forms words. Brick’s cautious gaze turns to me, but his reticence can’t hide his dismay. I remember Beau saying that Lucy’s disappearance had affected his entire family, especially his siblings, and it’s easy to see now that the news hit Brick hard. “Does Beau know?”

He shakes his head. He’s so pale it worries me a little. Amelia’s hand snakes over and covers his. “I don’t think so. They never spoke after she went abroad. She refused. He probably doesn’t even know who she worked for, never mind that the company was involved in a complaint against Allied.”

“Or that Allied is connected to the Middletons,” Amelia guesses, correctly.

The knots in my stomach loosen the tiniest bit. I don’t want to believe that Beau could have known about the Middletons’ possible involvement in the disappearance of a woman he claims to have loved, and he probably didn’t. If Brick didn’t know—and everything about his reaction convinces me he didn’t—and he’s the Middletons’ attorney, then Beau’s in the clear. From what I know about their sister, Birdie, and her attachment to Lucy, she would never have covered for them, either.

Hell, based on Brick’s face, I’m not sure they’re going to continue to represent them now.

“Paul Adams is dead,” I blurt out. My statement drops onto the table like a pancake in the middle of a pot roast dinner, confusing everyone. I don’t know why I said it that way, with no explanation, but my brain isn’t working properly.

Brick’s forehead wrinkles. “Who?”

“The man who originally told us about the problems Allied had in the eighties.”

If possible, his face loses even more color. Brick’s a lot of things, but obtuse isn’t one of them, and he catches on to the worst of my implications in the space of a breath. “When?”

“I don’t know. A few days after we talked to him. Maybe a week.” I hadn’t checked a calendar to be sure, even though I could. I don’t want to know because if the two things are truly connected, then my friends and I essentially killed a man.

I know it’s not true. That thinking it helps no one, but the thought remains all the same.

“How?” he asks.

“Hit and run,” Amelia supplies, looking down at her half-eaten sandwich. This conversation has even curbed
her
appetite. “Right in front of his house.”

“Damn.” Brick rubs his face with one hand, looking exhausted. “They catch the driver?”

“No. They’ve got a make and model on the car but nothing else.”

“Okay. So…it might not be connected to what he told you about the company.”

“No. But Lucy’s kidnapping
might not be
connected to her fighting Allied overseas, either.”

Brick flinches, and Amelia squeezes his hand harder.
 

“Where was she working again?” I search my mind for the memory but can’t quite extract it. “Afghanistan?”

“Iran,” Brick corrects. “That’s where she was kidnapped, at least. She was working at a school for girls.”

“That’s like… I mean, she could have been kidnapped because of that. Educating Muslim girls in that culture could easily get a person killed.” Amelia looks toward me, searching for anything to hold on to that means none of this is connected to her in-laws.

“Sure. That Malala girl who won the Nobel Prize was shot by the Taliban for doing the same thing in Afghanistan.” I chew on my bottom lip. “It feels like a giant coincidence, though. Two people we
know
were aware of the underhanded drug testing at Allied are both taken out after they threatened to speak up?” Just thinking the word
coincidence
for the tenth time in half as many days makes my skin crawl. It’s impossible. All of this is connected, and we all know it. We just don’t want to admit it.

“One of us needs to talk to Beau.” Brick turns to me with a wavering gaze. He’s not sure whether it should be me or him, obviously, but it can’t be Amelia.

I blow out a breath. “What do you think?”

He shrugs, picking at his bread again. “I think…it’s a shady area as far as my legal duties to the Middletons. If I talk to him about their business dealings, I mean.”

“Wait, you still care about your legal duties to them? Screw that!” Amelia jerks her hand away, folding her arms over her chest. “They don’t deserve any respect.”

A small smile toys with the corners of his lips as he gazes at her, something bright in his eyes. “Well, this is America, Amy. Everyone’s entitled to an attorney, but that’s not the point.”

“What’s the point, then?” she retorts, still not ready to give in to the look of adoration he directs at her.

“The point is that I can’t do anything that puts me out of their good graces. Not yet, not when they still hold all the cards against your friends.” He reaches out, and she lets him cover her hand. “That’s why we’re doing all of this. It’s the first priority.”

I feel sick, and I’m not sure whether it’s because people are dying, we’re putting our friends above kids being exploited overseas, or my cousin is clearly falling head over heels for a Drayton while I’m letting another one go. Probably a combination, because I can’t believe I’m selfish enough to pout over my own floundering relationship when the rest of this is so much bigger than me, or even us.

“I’ll talk to him.”

“Are you sure?” Worry glints in my cousin’s green eyes. She’s the only person who really knows how hard the past couple of days have been on me. The house isn’t so big that she would have missed my poor-me sob fests.

“Yes. It’s a small town. We can’t avoid each other forever.”

While that’s true, we all know that going to talk to him about Lucy isn’t going to be easy. I told myself that I wouldn’t go to him asking for another shot until I was one hundred percent sure that there would be no secrets between us. Now that he knows about the curse Mama Lottie is using me to enact and I know about his past with Lucy, I can’t imagine what we would keep from each other. That said, it still doesn’t feel right.
 

It’s not only about secrets, but the fact that nothing has changed. I’m still feeling hesitant about jumping into a relationship with both feet not only after what happened with David but with everything that has changed for me since returning to Heron Creek. I can’t speak for Beau, but I have a feeling that learning new information about Lucy will convince him that perhaps he hasn’t faced all of his issues regarding her loss, either.

“Okay, well…” Brick swallows. “I guess let us know what he says or if he can think of anything that could help us.”

“Okay.” My throat feels scratchy, closed up. This is a nightmare—I’m not sure of anything except that I’m not ready to confront Beau. Not today, maybe not ever, but with Leo and Mel depending on us to help them out of a sticky situation, there’s no choice.

B
y the time work is over for the day, I’ve convinced myself there’s no point in putting off my visit to Beau for even a second longer than necessary. Amelia tried to extract my feelings about seeing him all afternoon, but I thwarted her for a couple of reasons: one, I don’t want to talk about it, and two, I don’t want to talk about it.

The real reason is that in order to
talk
about my feelings, I’d have to
access
my feelings, and that seems like a bad idea. At the moment, they’re sealed up pretty well, with the occasional escape late at night or in the shower. If I start talking about what happened with Beau—how I’m coping, what I think about the future, and how it’s going to feel to look him in the eye today—Gracie Feelings will be splattered from here all the way to Charleston.

No one wants that, especially not me.

That said, the struggle to hold it inside as my car makes the familiar turns, bringing me closer to the governor’s mansion on the river, takes monumental effort. It’s so easy to see how things could have been, or could still be, if our lives weren’t the shitshow they’d turned into over the past couple of months. I think about the girl I’d been when I lived here before, when I’d loved Will.

If I’d met Beau then, what would I have thought? Would my feelings have been the same, or would I even have given him a second look, stars in my eyes the way they were?

I shake my head, dispelling the fanciful, philosophical thoughts. Life can’t be lived in hindsight. If I hadn’t fallen in love with Will and then gone through everything that came after, I wouldn’t be the woman I am now. The woman who’d been swept off her feet by Beauregard Drayton, despite her best efforts.