Red Lily

  David brought both water and brandy, and sitting on Hayley’s other side, put a glass of water in her hand. “Here now, baby doll, sip some water.”

  “Thanks. I’m okay, feeling better. Just a little shaky.”

  “You’re not the only one,” Roz said.

  “You talked to her.”

  “We had quite the conversation.”

  “You asked her questions. I don’t know how you held it together like that.”

  “Have a little brandy,” Roz suggested, but Hayley wrinkled her nose.

  “I don’t like it. I feel better, honest.”

  “Then I’ll have your share.” Roz picked up the snifter and took a healthy swallow as Mitch came in with Lily.

  “She’ll want her juice. She likes a little juice when she gets up from a nap.”

  “I’ll get her some,” Mitch told Hayley.

  “No, I’ll take her in. I’d like to do something normal for a few minutes.” She got to her feet, reaching for Lily as Lily reached for her. “There’s my baby girl. We’ll be right back.”

  Roz got to her feet when Hayley left the room. “I’m going to call Harper. He’ll want to know about this.”

  “I’d like to know about this myself,” Mitch reminded her.

  “You’ll want your notebook and tape recorder.”

  “WE WERE JUST sitting there talking. I was telling Roz what a wonderful time I’d had last night, and showing her the bracelet. And—sorry Harper—but I was telling her I felt guilty about you buying it for me. And I guess I got emotional.” She sent a pleading look at Roz, clearly begging confidence. “And then she was just there. Like a bang. I’m a little bit vague on it. It was like hearing a conversation—like when you hold a glass to a wall to hear what people are saying in the next room. All sort of tinny and echoing.”

  “She was amused, in my opinion, in a nasty sort of way,” Roz began, and took them through it.

  “She was accustomed to receiving gifts for sex.” Mitch scribbled in his notebook. “So that’s how she’d equate the bracelet Hayley’s wearing. She wouldn’t understand,” he continued, hearing the quiet sound of distress she made, “generosity, or the pleasure of giving for the sake of the gift. When something was given to her, it was an exchange. Never a token of affection.”

  Hayley nodded and continued to sit on the floor with Lily.

  “She came here,” he continued. “By her own words she came here at night. She wanted to cause harm to Reginald, perhaps the entire household. Maybe even planned to. But she didn’t. We could assume harm came to her here. She said she was here, always.”

  “Died here.” Hayley nodded. “Remains here. Yes. It felt like that. Like I could almost, almost, see what was in her head while it was happening. And that’s what it felt like. She died here, and she stays here. And she thinks of the child she had as a baby still. She’s the way she was then, and in her mind—I think—so is her son.”

  “So she relates to, is drawn to, children,” Harper finished. “Once they grow up, they’re no real substitute for hers. Especially if they happen to grow up into men.”

  “She came to help me when I needed it,” Roz pointed out. “She recognizes the blood connection. Acknowledges it, at least when it suits her. Hayley’s heightened emotions brought her out. But then she answered questions, she spoke intelligently.”

  “So I’m a kind of conduit.” Hayley fought back another shudder. “But why me?”

  “Maybe because you’re a young mother,” Mitch suggested. “Close to the age she was when she died, raising a child—something that was denied her. She made life. It was stolen from her. When life is stolen, what’s left?”

  “Death,” Hayley said with a shudder. She stayed where she was when Lily ran over to Harper and lifted her arms to be held. “She’s getting stronger, that’s how it felt. She likes having a body around her, having her say. She’d like more. She’d like . . .”

  She caught herself twisting the bracelet, and stared down at it. “I forgot,” she whispered. “Oh God, I forgot. Last night, when I was dressing, checking myself out in the mirror. She was there.”

  “You had one of these experiences last night?” Harper demanded.

  “No. Or not like this one. She was there, instead of me, in the mirror. I wasn’t—” She shook her head impatiently. “I was me, all the way, but the reflection was her. I didn’t say anything because I just didn’t want to go around about it last night. I just wanted to get out awhile, then everything . . . it went out of my mind until now. She wasn’t like we’ve seen her before.”

  “What do you mean?” Mitch sat, pencil poised.

  “She was all dressed up. A red dress, but not like what I was wearing. Fancy gown, low-cut, off the shoulders. Ball gown, I’d guess. She wore a lot of jewels. Rubies and diamonds. The necklace was . . .” She trailed off to stare at the bracelet in speechless shock.

  “Rubies and diamonds,” she repeated. “She was wearing this. This bracelet. I’m sure of it. When I saw it at the hotel, I was so pulled toward it. I couldn’t see anything else in the display. She was wearing this, on her right wrist. It was hers. This was hers.”

  Mitch left his seat to crouch on the floor by Hayley and examine the bracelet. “I don’t know anything about dating jewelry, about eras along this avenue. Harper, did the jeweler give you a history?”

  “Circa 1890,” he said tightly. “I never thought twice about it.”

  “Maybe she pushed you to buy it for me.” Hayley shoved to her feet. “If she—”

  “No. I wanted to give you something. It’s as simple as that. If it makes you uncomfortable to have it, or weirds you out, we can keep it in the safe.”

  Utter trust, she remembered. That was love. “No. It wasn’t an exchange, it was a gift.” She crossed to him, kissed him lightly on the lips. “So screw her.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  Lily batted her hand on his cheek until he turned his face to hers, then she bumped her mouth to his.

  “Or one of them,” he added.

  BY EVENING, SHE was calm again. Calmer still when she settled down in the rocking chair with Lily. She prized these moments, when the room was quiet and she could rock her baby to sleep. Sing to her, and though her voice was no prize, Lily seemed to like it.

  This was what Amelia craved, maybe what she craved most under the madness. Just these moments of unity and peace, a mother rocking her child to sleep with a lullaby.

  She would try to remember that, Hayley promised herself, whenever she got too frightened or too angry. She would try to remember what Amelia had lost, what had been stolen from her.

  She tried “Hush, Little Baby,” because it pleased her she knew all the words. And Lily’s head was usually heavy on her shoulder by the time the song was finished.

  She was nearly there when a movement at the doorway had her heart bumping her ribs. Then it stilled when Harper smiled in at her. In the same rusty, sing-song voice she was using for the lullabye, she warned him.

  “She won’t go down if she sees you in here.”

  He nodded, lingered another moment, then slipped away.

  Humming, she rose to walk to the crib, tucking Lily in with her stuffed dog within cuddling reach. “When you’re three, Mama’ll get you a real puppy. Okay, when you’re two, but that’s my final offer. ’Night, baby.”

  Leaving the night-light glowing, she left the baby sleeping. Harper turned from the terrace doors when she came in.

  “That was a pretty picture, you and Lily rocking in the chair. Mama says she used to rock me and my brothers to sleep in that chair.”

  “It’s why it feels so good. A lot of love’s sat in that rocker.”

  “It’s cooler tonight, at least a little cooler. Maybe we could sit out for a while.”

  “All right.” She picked up her bedside monitor, and went with him.

  In front of the rail, there was a trio of huge copper pots, greening softly in the weather. She’d been charged with selec
ting and planting the flowers in them this year, and was always thrilled to see the thriving mix of color, shape, and texture.

  “I don’t mind the heat, not this time of day anyway.” She leaned down to sniff a purple bloom. “The sun goes down a little more, the lightning bugs’ll come out, and the cicadas’ll start singing.”

  “Gave me a scare when Mama called earlier.”

  “Guess so.”

  “So here’s the thing.” He ran a hand absently along her arm. “You shouldn’t stay here after tonight. You can move on over to Logan’s tomorrow. Take some time off,” he continued as she turned to stare at him.

  “Time off?”

  “The nursery’s the same as Harper House, as far as this goes. Best you steer clear of both for a while. Mitch and I’ll see what we can do about tracing the bracelet, for what that’s worth.”

  “Just pack up and move to Stella’s, quit work.”

  “I didn’t say quit. Take some time off.”

  There was such patience in his voice, the sort of patience that raised her hackles like fingernails on a blackboard.

  “Some time.”

  “Yeah. I talked to Mama about that, and to Stella about you staying with them for a while.”

  “You did? You talked to them about it.”

  He knew how a woman sounded when she was getting ready to tear a strip out of him. “No point getting your back up. This is the sensible thing to do.”

  “So you figure the sensible thing is for you to make decisions for me, talk them over with other people, then present them to me on a platter?” Deliberately she took a step back, as if to illustrate she stood on her own feet. “You don’t tell me what to do, Harper, and I don’t leave this house unless Roz shows me the door.”

  “No one’s kicking you out. What’s the damn big deal about staying with a friend for a while?”

  It sounded so reasonable. It was infuriating. “Because this is my home now. This is where I live, and the nursery is where I work.”

  “And it’ll still be your home, still be where you live and where you work. For Christ’s sake, don’t be so pigheaded.”

  The lash of temper delighted her. It meant she could lash right back. “Don’t you swear at me and call me names.”

  “I’m not—” He bit off the rest of the words, rammed his hands in his pockets to stride up and down the terrace while he fought with his temper. “You said she was getting stronger. Why the hell would you stay here, risk what happens to you, when all you have to do is move a couple miles away? Temporarily.”

  “How temporarily? Have you figured that out, too? I’m supposed to just sit around at Stella’s, twiddling my thumbs until you decide I can come back?”

  “Till it’s safe.”

  “How do you know when it’ll be safe, if it’ll ever be safe. And if you’re so damn worried, why aren’t you packing up?”

  “Because I . . .” He cleared his throat, turned to glare out at the gardens.

  “That was a wise move. Choking back any comment that resembled because you’re a man. But I saw it on your face.” She gave him a hard shove. “Don’t think I didn’t see what almost came out of your mouth.”

  “Don’t tell me what almost came out of my mouth, and don’t put words into it. I want you somewhere I don’t have to worry about you.”

  “Nobody’s asking you to worry. I’ve been taking care of myself for a lot of years now. I’m not so stupid, or so pig- headed that I’m not concerned about what’s been going on. But I’m also smart enough to consider that maybe I’m the last push. Maybe I’m what’s going to finish this. Roz talked to her, Harper. Next time maybe there’ll be answers that tell us just what happened, and what needs to be done to make it right.”

  “Next time? Listen to yourself. I don’t want her touching you.”

  “It’s not your decision, and I’m no quitter. Do you know me so little you’d think I’d just, yes, Harper, and trot along like a nice little puppy?”

  “I’m not trying to run your life, goddamn it, Hayley. I’m just trying to protect you.”

  Of course, he was. And he looked so aggrieved, so frustrated, she had to sympathize. A little. “You can’t. Not this way. And the only thing that you’re going to accomplish by making plans around me that don’t include talking to me first is piss me off.”

  “There’s a news flash. Just give me a week then. Just do this for a week and let me try to—”

  “Harper, they took her child away. They drove her mad. Maybe she was heading there anyway, but they sure as hell gave her the last push over the edge. I’ve been part of this for over a year now. I can’t walk away from it.”

  She lifted her hand, stroked the bracelet she continued to wear. “She showed me this. Somehow. I’m wearing what was hers. You gave it to me. It means something. I have to find out what that is. And I, very much, need to stay here with you.” She softened enough to touch his cheek. “You had to know I’d stay. What did your mother say when you said you were going to tell me to go to Stella’s?”

  He shrugged, walked back to the terrace rail.

  “Figured that. And Stella, I imagine said the same.”

  “Logan agreed with me.”

  “I bet he did.” She moved to him now, wrapped her arms around him, rested her cheek on his back.

  He had a good, strong back. Working man, prince of the castle. What a fascinating combination of both he was. “I appreciate the thought, if not the method. That help any?”

  “Not so much.”

  “How about it’s nice that you care enough about me to try to boss me around?”

  “It’s not bossing you around to—” He broke off with a curse and a sigh when he turned to see her grinning at him. “You’re not going to budge.”

  “Not an inch. I think some of the Ashby blood, even as diluted as it is in me, must have stubborn corpuscles. And I want to be a part of finding the answers to all this, Harper. It’s important to me, maybe more important now that I’ve shared a kind of consciousness with her. Boy, that sounds pretty woo-woo, but I don’t know how else to say it.”

  “How about she invades you?”

  Her face sobered. “All right, that’s fair. You’re still mad, and that’s fair, too. I guess I don’t mind knowing you’re worried enough about me to be mad.”

  “If you’re going to be reasonable about this, it’s just going to piss me off more.” He laid his hands on her shoulders, rubbed. “I do care about you, Hayley, and I am worried.”

  “I know. Just remember I care about me, too, and worry enough to be as careful as I can be.”

  “I’m going to stay with you tonight. I’m not budging about that.”

  “Good thing that’s just where I want you. You know . . .” She slid her hands up his chest, linked them around his neck. “If we start fooling around, she might do something. So I think we ought to test that.” She rose on her toes, played her lips over his. “Like an experiment.”

  “In my line of work I live for experiments.”

  “Come on inside.” She stepped back, caught both his hands in hers. “We’ll set up the lab.”

  LATER, WHEN THEY lay turned toward each other in the dark, she brushed at his hair. “She didn’t seem to be interested this time.”

  “You can’t predict a ghost who should be haunting an asylum.”

  “Guess not.” She snuggled closer. “You’re a kind of scientist, right?”

  “Kind of.”

  “When scientists are experimenting, they usually have to try more than once, maybe with some slight varieties, over a course of time. I’ve heard.”

  “Absolutely.”

  “So.” She closed her eyes, all but purring at the stroke of his hand. “We’ll just have to try this again, at some opportunity. Don’t you think?”

  “I do. And I think I hear opportunity knocking right now.”

  She opened her eyes, laughed into his. “They don’t call that opportunity where I come from.”

  twel
ve

  DAVID TURNED THE map upside down, and ran a fingertip down a line of road. “We’re like detectives. Like Batman and Robin.”

  “They weren’t detectives,” Harper corrected. “They were crime fighters.”

  “Picky, picky. All right, like Nick and Nora Charles.”

  “Just tell me where I turn, Nora.”

  “Should be a right in about two miles.” David let the map lay on his lap and shifted to enjoy the scenery. “Now that we’re so hot on the trail of the mysterious jewels, just what are we going to do if and when we find out where the bracelet originally came from?”

  “Knowledge is power.” Harper shrugged. “Something like that. And I’ve had enough of sitting around waiting for something to happen. The jeweler said it came from the Hopkins estate.”

  “Cream cheese.”

  “What? You’re hungry?”

  “Cream cheese,” David repeated. “You spread it on smooth and thick. ‘My girlfriend really loved the bracelet. She’s got a birthday coming up soon, and since it was such a hit with her, I wondered if you had any matching pieces. Something from the same estate? That’s the Kent estate, isn’t it?’ Guy practically fell over himself to give you the information, even if he did try to sell you a couple of gaudy rings. Ethel Hopkins did not have flawless taste. You should’ve sprung for the earrings, though. Hayley would love them.”

  “I just bought her a bracelet. Earrings are overkill at this point.”

  “Your right’s coming up. Earrings are never overkill,” he added when Harper made the turn. “About a half mile down this road. Should be on the left.”

  He pulled into a double drive beside a late-model Town Car, then sat tapping his fingers on the steering wheel as he studied the lay of the land.

  The house was large and well-kept in an old, well-to-do neighborhood. It was a two-story English Tudor with a good selection of foundation plants, an old oak, and a nicely shaped dogwood in the front. The lawn was trimmed and lushly green, which meant lawn service or automatic sprinklers.

  “Okay, what have we got here?” he queried. “Established, upper middle class.”

  “Ethel’s only surviving daughter, Mae Hopkins Ives Fitzpatrick,” David read from the notes he’d taken from the courthouse records. “She’s seventy-six. Twice married, twice widowed. And you can thank me for digging that up so quickly due to my brilliant observation of Mitch’s methods.”

  “Let’s see if we can charm our way in, then get her to tell us if she remembers when her mother came by the bracelet.”

  They went to the door, rang the bell, and waited in the thick heat.

  The woman who opened the door had a short, sleek cap of brown hair, and faded blue eyes behind the lenses of fashionable gold-framed glasses. She was tiny, maybe an inch over five feet, and workout trim in a pair of blue cotton pants and a crisp white camp shirt. There were pearls around her throat, whopping sapphires on the ring fingers of either hand, and delicate gold hoops in her ears.

  “You don’t look like salesmen to me.” She spoke in a raspy voice and kept a hand on the handle of the screened door.

  “No, ma’am.” Harper warmed up his smile. “I’m Harper Ashby, and this is my friend David Wentworth. We’d like to speak with Mae Fitzpatrick.”

  “That’s what you’re doing.”

  Genetic good luck or, more likely, a skilled plastic surgeon, Harper thought, had shaved a good ten years off her seventy-six. “I’m pleased to meet you, Miz Fitzpatrick. I realize this is an odd sort of intrusion, but I wonder if we might come in and have a word with you?”

  The color of her eyes might have been faded, but the expression of them was sharp as a scalpel. “Do I look like the simpleminded sort of woman who lets strange men into her house?”

  “No, ma’am.” But he had to wonder why a woman who claimed good sense would believe a screened door was any sort of barrier. “If you wouldn’t mind then, if I could just ask you a few questions regarding a—”