Lowcountry Boneyard by Susan M. Boyer Read Free Book Online Page A

seat. “Her parents are very protective. She’s an only child.”
    “I don’t mean Heyward money, though I’m sure there’s plenty of that. Her grandparents on her mother’s side have the real money. The Bounetheaus. Kent is close to her grandparents. But she has an aunt, two creepy uncles, and a bunch of cousins I wouldn’t turn my back on for a minute. There’s a pile of money to be divvied up one day. The fewer the piles, the bigger the piles get.”
    I pondered that for a moment. I purely did not want this to be about Bounetheau family drama. “Any family on her father’s side?”
    “Not that I know of.”
    “Do you honestly believe someone in her family would kill her for a bigger inheritance?”
    Ansley studied the table for a long moment, her smooth blonde hair framing her worried expression. “This is between us, right?”
    “Unless you’re involved in a crime or have evidence of one.”
    Ansley shook her head. “I have not committed a crime. And I don’t have evidence of anything. But Kent’s uncles…I wouldn’t put a thing past them.”
    “What are their names?”
    “Peyton and Peter Bounetheau. They’re twins. Neither of them has ever married, and they still live with their parents.”
    “Okay, that’s not typical. On the other hand, it isn’t criminal. What makes them so creepy?”
    Ansley shook her head slowly, like she was searching it and finding nothing. “Honestly, I can’t tell you. I just think something is off about them.”
    I felt my face squinch up. I could hear Mamma now saying I was courting wrinkles. “There’s something off about a lot of folks. That doesn’t make them killers.”
    “A lot of folks don’t have a missing niece and boatloads of family money.”
    “Fair enough. Is that your only theory?”
    Tears filled her eyes. “I wish I could think of something—anything—that would help. She just vanished somewhere between her house and the restaurant.”
    “Bin 152, that’s just up from the corner of King and Queen. Less than half a mile from home for Kent. Would she normally drive that, or walk?” One of the many benefits of living in downtown Charleston was being able to walk to so many restaurants, art galleries, shops, and the like. It seemed odd she’d drive.
    Ansley shrugged. “If she wasn’t going anywhere else, and the weather was nice, she’d walk. Except I know she took her car. At least that’s what her parents said.”
    Kent hadn’t planned on going anywhere before she met her friends unless she’d planned on being late. Mr. Heyward had said she’d left at seven forty-five. She might’ve had plans for afterward. Maybe she would’ve met Matt after he got off work. I needed to establish a timeline for the evening. It would be helpful to know exactly where Kent had planned to be and when.
    I jotted down, “What was the weather like on September twelfth?” and “Why did she take her car?” along with, “Where did she park?” I’d love to know what the case detectives had done by way of looking for her car.
    As gently as possible, I asked, “Ansley, do you have any reason to believe her parents were abusive?”
    “You mean did they hit her? Never. Her daddy has a temper. But he never laid a hand on Kent or her mother. Kent would have told me. Emotional abuse…I guess that’s a matter of opinion. I would say so. They would say they just want what’s best for her.”
    “Do you think her daddy has a bad enough temper he could have hurt her in a fit of rage, maybe not meaning to?”
    Ansley weighed that. “It’s possible, I guess.”
    A companion to my list of questions was my list of possibilities for each case. I try to imagine all the scenarios, no matter how improbable. If he’d hurt his daughter, Colton Heyward wouldn’t be the first person to hire an investigator to make himself look innocent.

Four

      
    Mamma sometimes referred to Merry and me as her twins born two years apart. Merry’s hair was the same multi-toned