by Bryn Donovan
Table Of Contents
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE PHOENIX CODEX
Wicked Garden
Copyright © 2019 by Bryn Donovan
Published by Almeris Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in articles or reviews—without written permission from the author.
ISBN: 978-0-9967152-8-7
To learn more about the author, visit her blog, bryndonovan.com.
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CHAPTER ONE
Things didn’t die as quickly in the South. Nicole stroked the petals of one of the creamy white camellias in full bloom in October. It was so perfect, it almost didn’t look real. Back in Chicago, most of the flowers were already spent.
Nicole was only housesitting at the two-story Victorian for the month. Before Halloween, which would be her first day at her new job, she would find a place of her own.
Her mom had gone to college with the homeowner, but Nicole had never met the woman. Nicole had arrived, found the key under the flowerpot, and then wandered through the house, looking in every room before coming back here.
She snapped a photo of the flower and sent it to her mom with a text: I’m at Francie’s. She has the prettiest garden. Nicole was twenty-nine, but her mom still worried about her moving to Savannah on her own.
Her mom texted back, Beautiful! Just like you.
She was always trying to bolster Nicole’s confidence. Or at least she had been, ever since Thomas dumped Nicole, right after buying a ring to propose to her.
Her mom had been the same way after Matt, the guy before Thomas, had broken up with Nicole after a long relationship. Matt had met another girl immediately and they had gotten engaged in three months’ time. They had a baby now.
Apparently, after spending two years with Nicole, guys realized she wasn’t the kind of woman they wanted to settle down with. Was she defective?
Juvenile thinking. She shoved the phone in the back pocket of her jeans. Her past was the past, and her new life started now. Savannah was going to be lucky for her. Getting this housesitting gig was just one sign of that.
Once she found her own place, she was going to paint it turquoise and purple, like Monica and Rachel’s apartment on Friends, the old TV show she had been watching way too much of lately. Thomas had disliked the bright yellow walls in her last apartment. According to him, anything but white or neutrals was tacky.
Nicole went back inside and scrounged around in a couple of kitchen drawers while admiring the black granite countertops and the espresso machine. The only old-fashioned thing in the kitchen was a spice rack fitted with nine square ceramic jars, all decorated with painted roosters. She found a pair of scissors.
In the garden, she clipped three of the most flawless camellias. After finding a drinking glass to serve as a vase, she set them in the center of the dining room table. Lovely.
Nicole dragged one of her huge suitcases up the stairs and rolled it down the hall to the guest room. With its lace curtains and perfectly made-up bed, it exuded the impersonal charm of a fancy bed and breakfast.
Thomas had always objected to putting luggage on a bed because he thought it was too dirty from being hauled around. That had been just another criticism of his on that terrible trip they had taken together.
With a smile, Nicole heaved the suitcase onto the pristine white comforter. She unzipped and opened it. On top of the clothes lay her journal, where she had written down affirmations for herself. She read a couple of them out loud now. “I am strong. I am independent.”
Smiling at her own dorkiness, she set the journal on top of the dresser. That was one good thing about being alone: nobody had to know how weird you were. As she put her clothes away in the drawers, she hummed.
She’d always loved to sing—not that she did anything with music now. The world needed more paralegals than rock stars. But she went ahead and belted out an old song.
Oh, where is Pretty Polly, oh yonder she stands
Oh, where is Pretty Polly, oh yonder she stands
With rings on her fingers and lily-white hands
As she sang, she put her bras and underwear in the top drawer, both the plain white cotton things and the frilly, skimpy items in red and black that had languished unworn lately. It was a creepy song, really, with the fiancé telling Polly he’d dug her grave.
He threw the dirt over her and turned away to go
Threw the dirt over her and turned away to go
Down to the river—
Nicole stopped.
What was this song? She’d never heard it before in her life.
Impossible. She knew all the words. Maybe she’d learned it at summer camp or in music class.
No. They didn’t teach children songs about men murdering their fiancées.
Her heart sped up, pounding against her ribs. What in the world—
She should leave. Just for a little bit. Take a walk around the block.
Ridiculous. She’d just gotten here.
Maybe she’d heard someone sing the song at a bar on open mic night, back in the days when she’d thought her talent and passion might be worth something. Somehow, the lyrics had stuck in her head. Why not? They were pretty hard to forget.
Her mouth was dry. She was exhausted and thirsty. Driving from Chicago to the coast of Georgia would make anyone tired. Sure, she’d split the journey into two days, staying overnight at a motel in Knoxville, but the people in the next room had been enjoying what sounded like a truly spectacular night. Nicole hadn’t gotten much sleep.
She trudged down the stairs again to get a drink of water. A strange sensation dogged her, as though she were being filmed by a hidden camera.
When she got to the bottom of the stairs, a foul smell hit her nostrils. The stench of a dead, rotting animal. How had she not noticed this before?
It was stronger in the spotless kitchen. Nicole grabbed the handle of one of the bottom cabinets, bracing herself for the sight of something disgusting. A dead squirrel or raccoon, maybe, teeming with maggots.
She yanked open the cabinet door and squatted down to look. Pots and pans, nothing else. The other cabinets contained nothing out of the ordinary, either.
In the dining room, she gagged and held her nose. The stench emanated from the flowers.
It made no sense. Camellias smelled good, didn’t they? At least, no one would grow them if they smelled like putrefying corpses.
Transfixed, she stared at the blooms.
They made me sing that song.
It wasn’t possible. But she needed to get rid of them.
She couldn’t toss them out in the garden. The thought of opening the back door, for some reason, made her feel shaky. She couldn’t even look in its direction.
Nicole lunged, snatched the camellias out of the glass of water, and marched through the living room to the front door. It took all of her self-control not to break into a run.
Francie had taken her trash bins to the curb before she left. Nicole could deposit
the flowers there, too far away to smell, and tomorrow the city would take them away.
As soon as she stepped back out into the hazy golden sunlight, she doubted her own fears. The neighborhood looked cheerful enough. Narrow houses, some with ornate iron railings, stood close together like gossiping old friends.
Before Nicole reached the bins, a voice said, “Hey.” She jumped.
“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”
The voice belonged to a man about Nicole’s own age, or maybe a little older, wearing a Henley shirt and jeans. He stood maybe six-one, solidly built, with sandy-brown hair. His heavy-lidded gaze and half smile gave him a knowing air, as though they were both in on the same joke.
Nicole’s heart skittered. She’d been in her own private world for the past few days, and she felt completely unprepared for an interaction with a handsome stranger. At the end of the short leash in his hand, a stocky black-and-white dog gazed up at her, panting.
“That’s okay. Hi,” Nicole said. “I was just—throwing away these flowers. They don’t smell good.”
Wait. The stench had disappeared. He lifted an eyebrow.
She tossed the blooms in the trash bin and let the lid fall shut again. Good. They were out of her sight. Now who was this man?
“I’m Aaron Cavanaugh,” he said, right on cue, holding out his hand like a true gentleman.
The unhurried path of his gaze, down her body and up again, was less chivalrous—not to mention obvious. Maybe he didn’t intend to be subtle.
“Nicole Sherry.” She shook his hand and then winced. “Sorry, I just touched the garbage can.”
His smile widened. “Takes more than that to gross me out.” That Southern drawl was really something. “Oh, and this is Mack.” He indicated the dog, who looked as though he were grinning from ear to ear.
“What a good boy! Can I pet him?” Nicole missed her mom’s terrier, even though she was an anxious little beast who barked her head off most of the day.
“He’d love it if you petted him.”
Nicole scratched the dog behind his ears, and his tail wagged double-time. “He’s a pit bull, right?” She wasn’t scared of pit bulls. Just flowers, apparently.
“He’s a mix, not sure what all. I got him from the shelter.”
“Well, he’s definitely friendly,” Nicole said, straightening up again. “I would’ve picked him, too.”
“Actually, in the shelter, he was scared of everyone,” Aaron said. “Just stayed by himself in the corner, so nobody wanted him. But I knew we’d be buds.”
Something inside Nicole melted. “He’s lucky you gave him a chance.”
He shrugged off the compliment and glanced back at the house. “You a friend of Francie’s?”
Nicole shook her head. “She knows my mom. I’m housesitting for her this month. Do you know her?”
“A little. Mowed her lawn a few times, when her back was acting up.”
Aaron Cavanaugh was not perfect-looking, she told herself. He had a long face, not exactly symmetrical. But his low voice and his air of easy confidence made him hard to resist.
“I’m right next door.” He pointed at the red brick house. “It’s two condos. I’m upstairs. Want to come up for some coffee?’
“You mean right now?”
“Unless you’re busy.” His lips quirked up in another unhurried smile. Nicole couldn’t tell if he was seductive or just Southern. Either way, she wasn’t sure about hanging out in a stranger’s apartment. He added, “We can sit out on the balcony.” That didn’t sound too threatening. Not nearly as threatening as going back into Francie’s house, actually. She said, “Now is great.”
In the front lawn of the brick house stood a wheelbarrow full of dirt and dismembered pieces of a plastic skeleton. “That’s original,” Nicole said in a chipper tone, but it disturbed her.
“Yeah, they get into Halloween,” Aaron said of his downstairs neighbors. She followed him around the house to an outside set of back stairs. “They’re not actually here that much,” he added. “They both travel for work. And that house on the other side of Francie’s is for sale.” He looked back at her and added, “So if you need to borrow some sugar, come to me.”
She was going to get a stupid crush on him. It wasn’t part of her plan.
The balcony had a view of Francie’s garden next door, but Nicole looked away. She asked him, “Do you live alone?”
“Oh no, Mack and I are roommates.” It was a dorky joke. Then again, she liked dorky jokes. “Come on in while I make the coffee.” He left the door to the balcony standing open.
A bicycle hung on hooks from one wall like a work of art, and a sweatshirt draped over the back of the sofa. An empty beer bottle sat on the coffee table, and scraps of chewed paper littered the floor in the corner of the room. Nicole smiled. Aaron could have rented his dog out to a law firm to shred their documents. Aaron said in an offhand way, “It’s kind of a mess.”
“I’ve seen worse.” In her own apartment, mostly. She followed him into the kitchen. “Wow. I love the red.”
He gave a sheepish look at the brightly painted walls. “It’s obnoxious. But when I moved in, everything was so white.”
He had painted the room. The knowledge made Nicole unreasonably happy. “How long have you lived here?”
“Mm, a couple of years.” He reached for the big can of coffee on the counter. Any of her friends in Chicago would have retrieved a bag of some gourmet roast out of the freezer, and possibly ground the beans up fresh. She didn’t mind the cheap stuff, though.
Besides, this was a nice neighborhood. Maybe after paying his mortgage, he needed to skimp elsewhere. It would be a while before she could even think about buying instead of renting. She asked, “What do you do?”
“I’m a nurse.”
“Oh!” She didn’t know why this surprised her. What had she expected? Something manly. Well, that was pretty stereotypical of her, but she’d never met a male nurse before. “I think that’s really cool.”
“That’s exactly what all girls say.” The rich amusement in his voice suggested he didn’t care too much what anybody thought.
She hated being unoriginal. Did he bring a lot of women here? None of her business, of course.
And she wasn’t trying to impress him. What kind of guy referred to grown women as “girls,” anyway? Sophisticated, he wasn’t.
He kept putting big spoonfuls in the filter. She commented, “You really like your coffee.”
For a moment, he froze. Then he shrugged. “Most people with night shifts do. I work at Inglenook Mental Hospital.”
“You’re a psychiatric nurse.” She was definitely not going to ask him if camellias ever smelled like rotting meat. Instead she offered, “That seems like a tough job.” No wonder he didn’t get grossed out too easily. He probably dealt with unpleasant things all the time. She could imagine him being good at the work, though. No doubt his disarming manner put many troubled souls at ease.
Aaron grabbed a couple of mismatched mugs from the cabinet. “It’s not bad. I started out working in a hospital for the criminally insane. That was harder.”
“Oh my gosh. I’ll bet.”
“Most patients at Inglenook aren’t dangerous. Least not to anybody but themselves.” Aaron leaned against the counter. She tried not to stare at his large forearms, revealed by the pushed-up sleeves of his shirt, or his narrow hips, hugged by the denim of his jeans.
“What made you go into that?”
“I don’t know. I feel like I’m helping people.”
Nicole wondered when she’d met a nicer guy. Maybe never?
He added, “I’m kind of nocturnal anyway.”
“You always work nights?”
“Yeah, twelve-hour shifts. More like fourteen, by the time I get the paperwork done.”
“Geez,” Nicol
e said. “Do you come home and collapse?”
“I’ve got pretty good stamina.”
Stamina. An R-rated image came into Nicole’s head. She pushed it away. He added, “And I get four days a week off.”
Nicole considered this. “Seems like the days off would still be hard, though.”
“What do you mean?”
She shrugged. “I feel like I’d keep worrying about the patients. Even when I wasn’t at work.”
Aaron’s eyebrows rose. “You’re right. It’s hard to leave it there.” He regarded her with open appreciation. “Hardly anybody gets that. Except my dad—he’s a pastor. It’s kind of the same deal.”
“A preacher’s kid! Did you get in all kinds of trouble?”
He rolled his eyes heavenward, an incorrigible smile tugging at his lips. “I plead the fifth.” The coffee maker gurgled. Aaron poured a steaming mug, emblazoned with the Atlanta Falcons logo, and handed it to Nicole. “But tell me about you.”
CHAPTER TWO
Nicole’s eyes sparkled when she laughed. They’d captivated Aaron immediately—the blue of the sky just before sunrise, fringed with dark lashes. As she followed Aaron back out to the balcony, she said, “There’s not much to tell.”
“I doubt that. Where are you from?”
She wrapped both hands around the mug. “I guess it sticks out that I don’t have an accent.”
“Course you do. I’m the one without an accent,” he teased. She came from a big city, he suspected, even though she dressed colorfully, a bright blue top and a turquoise scarf with jeans and tall boots.
“You have such a strong accent. I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s cool.” She flushed beneath the generous sprinkling of freckles on her cheeks and nose. Freckles were God’s kisses, his dad used to say.
If that were true, God had kissed her a lot. And who could blame Him? Well, this line of thinking was close to blasphemous, Aaron decided.
She tucked a strand of her long brown hair behind her ear. “I’m from Chicago. But I’m moving here. Francie isn’t back until after Halloween, so I’ve got time to find an apartment.”
