Free The Lost Hours by Karen White Page A

her about the family papers?”
    “I explained that some were private—meaning your scrapbook—but that she would be welcome to most of the rest. And don’t worry, Malily. I wouldn’t ask you or Tuck to get involved. I’ll handle everything.” Helen rotated her ankle, the snakeskin of her shoe glowing softly in the gray light from the almost-shuttered windows. “Besides, I could use a diversion. It’s very hard for a woman my age to consistently lose at Chutes and Ladders. I need something else to focus on to lift my spirits.” She squeezed the girls on either side of her as they giggled.
    Odella walked briskly into the room, her soft-soled nurse’s shoes squeaking on the heart pine floor. She was about fifteen years older than Helen and just as thin, but her parchmentlike skin and graying hair made her appear years older. She’d been married and widowed three times and raised eight children, which probably accounted for the weary expression she normally wore. But there was no finer cook in the entire Lowcountry than Odella Pruitt and no softer heart, although she did her best to hide it behind a tart tongue and salty attitude, neither of which Lillian minded. It was a small price to pay for excellent food and a firm hand to help Lillian’s increasingly feeble body.
    “Food’s ready and it’s not going to eat itself,” announced Odella as she gently grasped Lillian’s elbow and helped her out of her chair. “Girls, grab hold of your aunt Helen and take her to the dining room, would you please? Don’t want her knocking anything over. Got enough to do as it is without having to clean up extra messes.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” the girls said in unison, their eyes wide. They hadn’t yet discovered the secret that was Odella Pruitt, and that was fine with Odella. Because once they realized what a pushover she really was, they’d have her wrapped around their small fingers.
    “I’ll be careful, Odella,” said Helen with a deceptively meek voice. “You know how clumsy I can be.” This made Lillian grin since Helen moved with the grace of a ballet dancer, and except for that first desperate year of Helen’s blindness, she’d never knocked over a single thing.
    But Lillian’s smile quickly faded as she heard the first rumble of thunder. She grasped at the gold charm dangling from her neck and allowed herself to be led into the dining room. She kept her eyes focused in front of her and tried not to shudder with each flash of lightning that seemed to throw light into the forgotten corners of her memory, illuminating things she didn’t want to see.

CHAPTER 6

    The handheld GPS that I’d stuck to the inside of the windshield in my grandfather’s Buick had long since announced that I was “off-road,” apparently in a place where even satellites couldn’t find me, my destination unknown.
    I paused on the old gravel road, knowing from the blank map on the GPS screen that the Savannah River was somewhere to my right and a large golf course was on my left. But somewhere, in the vast dark space on the screen, lay Asphodel Meadows, once the queen of the Savannah River rice plantations, but now operating solely as a horse farm and private residence, its land devoured by development and the encroaching river, its rice beds now a golf course.
    Just when I thought I should turn around, I spotted the small marker tucked into the brush on the side of the road announcing my arrival at Asphodel Meadows. It was a brown National Trust sign, but it was hidden so well that I was left to believe that someone had done it intentionally.
    As soon as I turned onto the road, I smelled the horses. Not the horses exactly, but their associated smells of cut grass, hay, and leather. Despite the heat, I turned off the air conditioner, trying to block the scent that never failed to rip through me with equal parts exhilaration and terror. I began to sweat in the stifling interior as the gravel crunched under the slowly rotating tires as