“The blog part of his website says he’s got something big happening at Boone Hall.”
Dane pulled out his own phone. “What’s that?”
“An old plantation near Charleston. It’s got the Avenue of Oaks,” I read aloud from the page.
“Great,” Dane said, scrolling on his own phone. “Those are?”
“Cool old trees.”
He placed his phone on the table, pushing the chips away from his side. “What do we guess William had going on at a plantation?”
That’s a good question. “A plantation must be old and filled with ghosts. Maybe he was working on a new story.”
Dane ran his thumb along his jaw. “A story the plantation owners don’t want to get out?”
I lifted my right shoulder. Maybe.
Also, plantations in general were a little yucky in my opinion.
Our waitress collected Dane’s card from the table, once again telling us how cute we were.
“What was he researching?” Dane asked.
I scrolled down the page one last time. “No idea. He doesn’t say. Just something big is coming, but he never posted the results.”
“We should check it out,” Dane said, dropping his napkin on top of his plate.
Boone Hall wasn’t on my list of things to check out for the investigation because I didn’t realize it might be connected to William’s death. With all the new information we’d learned since being here, it made sense to have a peek. The oak trees looked super cool as well. They’d make a great B-roll footage location.
“Yeah, we should.”
The waitress placed Dane’s credit card and the receipt with a pen on the table. “You two have a great rest of your trip.”
“Thanks, we will,” I said as Dane signed.
She smiled even brighter. “I see a lot of couples in here, and I have an expert judge of character. You two are very cute. I guarantee your marriage will be one that makes it.”
My eyes widened, and Dane snickered as he returned his credit card to his wallet.
“Thank you, Miss,” Dane said, sounding Southern for a moment. “I tell her the same thing all the time, but my little lady still made me sign an ironclad prenup. She just wants to protect that timeline just in case, you know?”
The waitress’s face fell.
“Really, Dane. A prenup,” I scolded as we walked out of the restaurant a few moments later. “You ruined that poor person’s day.”
“She’ll survive.” He ordered an Uber on his phone. “I tipped her well.”
I found a nice spot on the sidewalk to stand in the shade while we waited. Sometimes he drove me insane. “I seriously don’t know why I put up with you?”
“Because everywhere you go there’s trouble, and you need me to save you,” Dane said, pushing me a few steps back as a man on a bike zoomed past us going way too fast.
A second later and he’d have run right into me.
“There’s a wonderful presentation about the history of the Gullah culture starting in just ten minutes,” our guide said as we exited the primary home on our tour at the Boone Plantation later that afternoon.
I waited until most of the people in our group followed the signs toward a stage area before asking my question. “Do you have any tips on how we could research the plantation’s history in more depth?”
The woman—I’d forgotten her name—smiled. “Yes, dear, we have an entire team dedicated to researching and preserving the history of Boone Hall. There’s an email for them on our website. You can reach out if you have questions regarding anything you see here today.”
