Scent of Roses ; Season of Strangers

by Kat Martin

  Zach hung up and realized his stomach was clenching. He’d been gripping the phone, inwardly praying Liz hadn’t changed her mind again and would refuse to see him this weekend. He took a deep breath and forced himself to relax. He had never known a woman who affected him the way Liz did.

  He thought about the girl she had been in high school, determinedly independent, refusing to give in to peer pressure like other girls her age. Her mother had died from cancer when she was fifteen, and talk was, it had been a slow, agonizing death. Afterward, her dad’s small grocery store had gone straight down-hill and he had finally been forced to file bankruptcy. Liz had gone to work at Marge’s Café, the place he’d first noticed her.

  She was smart. He figured she might have gotten some kind of scholarship, but likely still had to work to put herself through college. He admired her for the grit it must have taken. She had always been the kind of person who cared about others, undoubtedly the reason she had gone into family counseling.

  Zach sighed and leaned back in his chair. He was getting in way too deep and he knew it. The little voice in his head was telling him to run before it was too late.

  But his heart was saying something else. Something he had never heard before. Take a chance. Just this once.

  Just thinking about it made his stomach clench harder.

  * * *

  With her busy schedule, Elizabeth didn’t make it down to the San Pico Newspress until Wednesday afternoon. Zach had told her he thought the house had been built some time in the nineteen forties, so she asked the clerk at the counter if she could look at newspapers dating back to that time.

  She planned to scan the headlines. In a town the size of San Pico, any sort of violent crime would have been front-page news.

  A gray-haired woman, slightly pudgy, wearing a pair of silver reading glasses on a chain around her neck, stood behind the counter.

  “May I help you?”

  Elizabeth told her she wanted to look at old newspaper records and the woman motioned for her to come through the low wooden gate into the working area of the office, then led her into a room at the rear of the redbrick building, fairly new since the town had been growing and newspaper readership along with it.

  “Going back the last five years, everything’s on computer,” the woman said proudly. “We’re getting very modern here. Unfortunately, before that, you’ll still be dealing with microfiche. The machines are on the table against the wall.”

  Elizabeth turned in that direction, saw two clunky old microfiche readers with big screens and buttons on the side to run the film from reel to reel.

  “You know how to run one?”

  “I think so, yes. I used machines like these to do research when I was in college.”

  “The film’s in boxes in those metal file drawers.” The woman pointed to a tall cabinet that held four, legal-size drawers. “The label tells which years each roll of film covers. Every copy of the paper ever printed is in those files. Let me know if you need any help.”

  The woman walked away and Elizabeth set to work, starting in the early nineteen forties, looking for any sort of violent crime that might have happened in the house or anywhere on Harcourt Farms. It was a long, tedious job that took the entire afternoon. She was just finishing up when the clerk returned at closing.

  She sighed as she got up from her chair. If she had time, she could come back and check the police blotter, which showed anything reported by the police, but for that many years, the undertaking would be huge.

  She was exhausted and discouraged when she left the building. Most of the violence in San Pico seemed to center around family disputes or arguments in local bars, and as far as she could tell, none of them had resulted in a death at Harcourt Farms. She’d looked for suicides and found a number, but none that had happened on the farm.

  Later that evening, she phoned Zach at his apartment, figuring he would be home from work by now, but got his answering machine instead. She couldn’t help wondering if he was out on a date, then shoved the unwanted thought away. She watched TV for a while and resisted the urge to phone him again before she went to bed.

  She didn’t want to be disappointed.

  * * *

  It was six o’clock the next morning when the phone on Elizabeth’s nightstand began to ring, rousing her from a restless sleep. An instant later, her alarm clock went off. Groggy, she shut off the alarm and fumbled for the phone, immediately recognizing the woman’s voice on the other end of the line.

  “Maria? Is that you?”

  She was crying. Elizabeth couldn’t make out her words.

  “It’s all right, Maria. Just take a deep breath and try to calm down. I want you to start at the beginning and tell me what’s wrong.”

  Maria made a strangled sound into the phone as she gulped back tears. “I saw her. Last night in my bedroom. The little girl. She was there, standing at the foot of my bed.” A sob escaped. She dragged in a choking breath of air.

  “All right, let’s just take this slowly. You’re all right now, aren’t you? You’re feeling all okay?”

  “Sí, sí. I am feeling all right.”

  “That’s good. Was Miguel there with you last night?”

  “Sí, he was there.”

  “Did he see the little girl, too?”

  “I do not know. I think he saw something. He woke up right after I did. I tried to talk to him after it was over, but he only got angry and walked out of the bedroom. He slept on the sofa, then before the sun came up, he went to work.”

  “Listen, Maria. I’m coming out there. We’ll talk about this and you can tell me what you saw.”

  “Miguel will not like it if you come.”

  Elizabeth chewed her lip. She didn’t want to cause Maria more trouble. “Did he take the car?”

  “No, he is working in the fields.”

  “Do you feel well enough to drive?”

  “Sí, I can drive.”

  “Come down to my office. I’ll meet you there in an hour.”

  “I will come.”

  Maria arrived out in front of the building just as Elizabeth opened the back door to the office and walked in. She heard the rap on the front door and hurried to open it.

  “Maria! Here, let me help you.” Elizabeth wrapped an arm around the younger woman’s shoulders, barely recognizing the trembling, pale-faced girl who stumbled into the room. “It’s going to be all right. We’re going to figure this out.”

  “The ghost…she is trying to warn me. She says they are going to kill my baby.”

  Elizabeth led Maria into her office and settled her on the dark green sofa. “What else did she say? Do you have any idea who she is trying to warn you about?”

  Maria shook her head. “She kept asking for her mother. ‘I want my mama. Please…I want my mama.’ It sounded like she was crying. It made me feel so sad.”

  Elizabeth shivered, remembering the small voice she had heard the frightening night she had spent in the house. “What did she look like?”

  Maria took the Kleenex Elizabeth handed her and dabbed at the tears in her eyes. “She was very pretty…like an angel…with long blond curls and big blue eyes. She was all dressed up like she was going to a party.”

  Elizabeth sat down beside her on the sofa. “Could you see what she was wearing?”

  Maria wiped away a tear. “A little white gathered skirt with a pink ruffled bib. I do not remember what you call it. Pin something, I think.”

  “Pinafore? Is that what you mean?”

  “Sí, that is it, I think.”

  It seemed impossible. A ghost in a party dress. “How old would you say she was?”

  “Eight or nine. Not more, I do not think. She had on a pair of shiny black shoes.”

  Elizabeth reached over and gently gr
asped Maria’s hand. “I think you should move out of the house, Maria. Whether there really is a ghost or not isn’t important. You’re frightened and that isn’t good for the baby.”

  Maria started crying again. “I want to move out but there is nowhere for me to go, and Miguel…I have never seen him this way. He says this is all in my head. He gets angry if I say anything about the house. If I leave, I am afraid he will not want me back.”

  “Miguel loves you. Surely—”

  “My husband is a very proud man. He says he does not believe in ghosts and I am acting like a child.”

  “You could stay with me until the baby comes.”

  “I cannot do that. I am Miguel’s wife and a wife should stay with her husband.”

  “What about the baby? You need to think of your unborn child.”

  Maria stiffened. “I must stay with Miguel.” She gave up a shuddering breath. “I should have taken the sleeping pills Dr. Zumwalt gave me.”

  Elizabeth got up from the sofa and paced over to her desk. She wished there was something she could say. Letting Maria stay with her at the apartment wouldn’t be a problem, but the woman losing her husband would be. She couldn’t force the girl to leave her home. And as long as Miguel was convinced his wife was imagining things, there was no chance he would let her go without a fight.

  They needed some kind of proof that something was going on, something beyond the word of a self-proclaimed “sensitive” like Tansy Trevillian or a pregnant young wife.

  By the time Maria prepared to leave the office an hour later, she was feeling a little better, a little more hopeful.

  “You aren’t alone in this,” Elizabeth said as she walked the girl out to her battered Ford truck. “Zachary Harcourt is coming up this weekend to speak to his father. Maybe he can help us figure out what happened in the house.”

  Assuming something actually had.

  Assuming Fletcher Harcourt’s mind would be clear enough for him to remember.

  “What will we do then?”

  Good question. “I’m not really sure, but at least we’ll have more to go on than we have now.” Elizabeth squeezed the girl’s hand. “Call me if you need anything, anything at all.”

  But even if Maria called, Elizabeth wasn’t sure she could find a way to help.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Carson Harcourt leaned back in his expensive black leather desk chair. The morning paper sat neatly folded on a corner of his rolltop desk, read hours ago when he had first come into his office. A farmer’s day started early and Carson always had work to do.

  He’d been busy going over a list of pesticide invoices, products used in the rose fields, when the telephone rang. He had recognized his foreman’s voice on the other end of the line and listened with growing fury as the man made his report.

  “Keep an eye on them,” he told Lester Stiles. “And keep me posted. I’ll call if I need you.” Clenching his jaw, he slammed the receiver down in its cradle.

  “Goddamn, I knew it!” His fist crashed down on the top of his desk, the sound echoing through the open door out into the hallway. Carson didn’t care. He’d been certain his half brother had been up to no good the last time he had come out to the farm. As soon as Zach had left the house, Carson had phoned Les Stiles and asked him to nose around, see if he could find out what Zach was up to.

  Spending his nights in Elizabeth Conners’s bed, Stiles had discovered, which by now Carson could have guessed.

  Zach had a way with women. Always had. Carson had falsely believed that Elizabeth would be able to see beyond the flashy cars and designer clothes, the smooth lines and sex appeal. He had hoped she would be interested in a man with a future, a man who had opportunity and power within his grasp.

  Apparently Elizabeth was no different from the other women Zach had charmed, just another Lisa Doyle.

  It didn’t matter. What mattered was discovering what the two of them were up to. And Stiles was the man for the job.

  Les Stiles had been working for Carson just under four years. Before that, he’d been in the Rangers, then spent time in South America doing some kind of mercenary work. But he’d been born in San Pico, raised on one of the big farms in the area, and four years ago, tired of the life he’d been leading, he had returned.

  He had answered an ad for the foreman’s job at Harcourt Farms, and Carson had hired him. Over the years, the job had grown into something more than just supervising work on the farm. Stiles did whatever Carson needed him to do, no matter what it took. He didn’t ask questions and he was compensated well for his loyalty and competence.

  Stiles had told him that whatever Zach was involved in had something to do with the Santiago family and the house they were living in, and that meant it had something to do with Harcourt Farms.

  Carson ground his jaw, silently cursing his half brother. Zach had been a thorn in his side since the day his father had brought the sullen, dark-haired boy home and announced that Zach was his son.

  Fletcher Harcourt had made it legal, adopting Zach, giving him a room of his own in the main house and enrolling him in school as Carson’s brother. Even now it set Carson’s teeth on edge to think of the gall it had taken and the hurt it had caused his mother for the old man to bring home his bastard son.

  His mother was dead now. Carson figured Zach had helped send her to an early grave.

  His thoughts returned to his conversation with Lester Stiles. Stiles had tailed Zach all last weekend, then kept an eye on Elizabeth through the week. According to his foreman, Elizabeth had been dredging up old utility company records, trying to find out who had lived in the Santiago house over the years. Zach had asked the same question last weekend when he had been out at the farm.

  Johnny Mayer, a friend of Stiles who owned the FoodMart out on Highway 51, had told him about a woman who had stopped to ask directions to the compound at Harcourt Farms. She had mentioned that she was in town to help the people who lived in one of the houses—supposedly some kind of psychic or something.

  “I think this has something to do with a ghost,” Stiles had laughed. “Can you believe it?”

  Carson wasn’t laughing. Whatever their reasons, they had no business digging into Harcourt Farms affairs. And Carson intended to put a stop to it—once and for all.

  * * *

  Elizabeth got a call from Zach on Friday afternoon saying he wouldn’t be arriving in San Pico until late.

  “I’ve got an afternoon appointment with the attorneys for Themoziamine. It’s going to take us a while. And the traffic’s always bad on Friday night.”

  Elizabeth’s fingers tightened around the phone. “I… um…tried to call you Wednesday night, but you weren’t home.”

  “Why didn’t you leave a message?”

  “I figured you were…I thought you were probably…”

  “Probably what, Liz?”

  “Out on a date.”

  Silence fell on the other end of the line. “I’ve never even thought about going out with someone else, not since I started seeing you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything, Zach. I didn’t mean for it to sound as if you did.”

  “Are you dating other people?”

  She swallowed, thought about lying. “No.”

  “Then neither am I.”

  “Okay.” The relief she felt made her dizzy. It was a very bad sign. “I guess I’ll see you tonight.”

  “Count on it.”

  She waited for him to end the call but he didn’t.

  “Why did you call me on Wednesday?”

  “I wanted to tell you I didn’t find anything in the papers. I can try the police blotter but it’s going to take a lot of time and I don’t really think I’ll find anything useful.”

  “I was really hoping you would.”

&
nbsp; “Maria called me yesterday morning. She saw the ghost, Zach. Up close and personal. A little blond girl. I’ll tell you about it when you get here. She was really scared, Zach.”

  Zach blew a breath into the phone. “I’m going out to see my dad first thing in the morning. Maybe he’ll remember something.”

  “I hope so. Maria looks terrible. I’m really getting worried about her, and the baby.” She hoped Maria wasn’t alone in the house tonight.

  “Just hang in there. We’ll come up with something. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  * * *

  Zach arrived even later than he had expected, but Elizabeth waited up for him. She hadn’t imagined he would stride through the door and sweep her into his arms, carry her into the bedroom and make passionate love to her, but he did.

  She smiled as she padded into the kitchen at nearly midnight to fix them a snack while they talked about Maria and what she claimed to have seen in the house.

  “If the ghost really is a little girl with blond hair and blue eyes,” she said, “that eliminates a number of children who lived in the house over the years.”

  “Unless this has nothing to do with a child who actually lived there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe she was a friend of someone who lived there.”

  Elizabeth blew out a breath. “I hadn’t thought of that. For the present, let’s just stick with the theory we have.”

  “Yeah, this is all hard pretty hard to swallow in the first place. Let’s not complicate matters unless we have to.”

  They snacked on cold roast beef Elizabeth made into sandwiches while she filled him in on her failed efforts to discover the secrets of the house. Sometime during the night, they made love again. Still, neither of them slept very well.

  Elizabeth worried about Maria and what might be happening to her in the house, and Zach worried about Raul and whether the boy would do something crazy if he found out his sister was in trouble.

  He brought up the possibility as they dressed the next morning to drive over to Willow Glen to see his father.

  “I hope she keeps her brother out of this,” Zach said, pulling a short-sleeved, yellow knit shirt over his head.