Page 11 of January

“Well, it’syourhouse now, isn’t it?”

“Itis?” Jolie asked. “Kyle’s?”

“She left it to both of you. It’s in good shape. She did her best keeping it up, so I don’t expect it will be much work.You could still sell it, though, and get some decent money for it. We were lucky here: no flood damage for the last several hurricanes.”

“Hold on,” Jolie began. “She leftusher house? Why? She didn’t even know us.”

“But you’re her family, her blood.”

“So was our mom,” Kyle said.

“Well, you know that story, I’m sure.”

“Youknow it?”

“I know your mom left.”

“Yes. But do you know why?” Kyle pressed.

The neighbor shook her head and said, “She never did tell me. I got the impression it was too difficult for her to talk about, so I left it alone to give her some peace. She was feeling sickly a few months ago and got everything straightened out with Mr.Beaufort, like I said, so I’m pretty sure the house belongs to both of you now.”

Kyle turned to Jolie, who was taking a long gulp of that sweet tea with one hand and holding on to a shortbread in the other while she stared at the woman.

“Anyway, I’m glad you two caught me today. I’m leaving tomorrow for my trip.”

“Trip?” Kyle asked.

“Florida. I go every year to visit my son and my own grandchildren. I even have a great-grandbaby now. I was supposed to leave a couple of weeks ago, but I wanted to stay for the funeral and everything. I leave tomorrow, though, so I’m glad you stopped by today.”

“Good timing, I guess,” Kyle replied.

“So, I’ll get that key for you now, if you want. You can drop your things off at the house and tell that hotel you’re canceling your reservation.”

Kyle smiled politely and gave her a nod. She wanted to ask her more questions about her grandmother, but Jolie appeared to be dazed and confused, so when the woman mentioned that she needed to do some last-minute packing, Kyle took that as the opportunity to thank her and leave. Then,she turned to the house next door that had belonged to her grandmother and stared at it. It was a shotgun-style home, which made it significantly longer than it was wide. Kyle had learned about shotgun houses during her own research on the city. They were called that because of their room format. It was said that a bullet shot from the front door would pass through the house without hitting anything and exit through the back door because the rooms weren’t connected by hallways but directly instead.

“We’re homeowners now, apparently?” Jolie said, standing there, looking at the house next to Kyle and snacking on a praline.

“I doubt it. We’ll stay at the hotel. I’m not risking the cops getting called on us because it turned out that she justthoughtshe was leaving us the place.”

“But what if she was right?”

“Then, I guess, we’ll find out. I’ll look up that Beaufort guy later. Right now, I just want to check into the hotel, take a shower, and–”

“Get ready to go out?” Jolie asked, finishing her sentence hopefully. “It’s our first night here. I’ll let you pick the bar.”

“Not tonight, okay? It’s already getting late. Let’s find a place to order in some dinner or something, and we’ll go out tomorrow night, I promise.”

“Fine. But this whole thing is weird now. We met someone who knew her, Ky.”

“I know.”

“And she said Grandma had pictures of us.”

“A couple, yeah.”

“How did she get them? I know Mom wouldn’t have sent any.”

“Probably Dad. I bet he sent her a few back in the day when he was trying to get them to mend fences or something.”

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