Red Lily (In the Garden 3)

“Okay, well, Stella and Logan got involved, and Amelia didn’t like it. Stella’s dreams got more disturbing, more pointed, and there were violent incidents, culminating in how she blocked us all out of the boys’ room that night—that first night you came here, Mitch.”

“I’ll never forget it.”

“She told us her name that night,” Roz commented. “Stella got through to her, and she gave us her first name.”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t you say she’s left Stella be pretty much since then? She’d have told us if she had dreams still, or if anything happened to her directly.”

“The focus transferred to Roz,” Mitch said.

“Yeah.” Pleased they seemed to be traveling the same road, Hayley nodded. “And it was even more intense, right? Like waking dreams, Roz?”

“Yes, and an escalation of violent behavior.”

“The closer you got to Mitch, the crazier she got. That’s the kind of thing that pisses her off. She nearly killed you. She rode to the rescue, you could say, when you were in trouble, when push came to shove, but before that she attacked you. But since then, since you and Mitch got engaged, got married, she’s backed off.”

“Apparently, at least for the moment.” Roz stepped over, ran a hand down Hayley’s arm. “She’s moving on you now, isn’t she?”

“I think so. I think that the three of us being in the house—you and Stella and me—maybe that pushed her out of pattern.” She looked toward Mitch, lifting her hands. “I don’t know how to put it, exactly, but things really got rolling then, and the ball seems to pick up bulk and speed, if you get me.”

“I do, and it’s interesting. The three of you—three women at varying stages of life—all unattached at the point you came together. Your connection made a connection to her, we could say. And as Stella, then Roz became emotionally, romantically involved, it caused Amelia’s behavior to deteriorate.”

“Honey, did she hurt you?”

“No.” Hayley pressed her lips together, then looked from Roz to Mitch. “I know we’re supposed to, like, report anything, so Mitch has it on record. I just don’t know how to say all this. At least not delicately. It’s a little bit embarrassing.”

“You want me to step out?” Mitch asked her. “So you can talk to Roz about it?”

“No, that’s just dumb—of me, I mean. She’ll just tell you anyway.” To brace herself, Hayley blew out a long breath. “Okay, so I was taking an hour to relax, watch some TV upstairs in the sitting room. And there was this old movie on, and I was daydreaming, I guess. All those fabulous clothes, you know, and the beautiful lighting, and the fancy clubs where people went out to dance and all. I was imagining what it would be like, how I’d be all dressed up, and I’d see someone.”

She trailed off a moment. She didn’t have to say the someone was Harper. That didn’t have to be relevant.

“Anyway, we’d dance, and fall in love, and have that big movie kiss? You know what I mean.”

Roz smiled. “Absolutely.”

“Well, then I guess I was drifting off some, and I was thinking about what happens after The End? Thinking about sex, I guess,” she said and cleared her throat. “Just a fantasy thing, candlelight and flowers and a big white bed, being in love. Making love.” She lowered her head, put it in her hands. “This is mortifying.”

“Don’t be silly. Healthy girl like you didn’t think about sex, I’d be worried.” Roz gave her shoulder a little shake.

“It was nice. Romantic and exciting. Then, it changed. Or I changed. And it was calculating. I was thi

nking about how I’d do these things. I could feel the skin and the form and the heat. There were roses. I could smell roses, but I had lilies in the fantasy, and now there were roses, and firelight. And his hands were different—soft and smooth. Rich, that’s what I thought. And I thought the guy’s wife wouldn’t do what I’d do, and that’s why he came to me. How he’d pay. And I felt my hair, and I could see it. Long and blond and curly. I saw it when it fell over my face, not like I was watching, but like I was there. It was me. And I saw him. His face.”

She turned to the board and pointed at Reginald. “His face. He was inside me, and I saw his face.”

She let out another long breath. “So.”

After a moment of silence, Roz spoke. “I don’t think it would be that unusual for your mind to weave that sort of thing together, Hayley. We all spend a lot of time thinking about these people, trying to put it all together. We know she was his mistress, we know she bore him a child, so we know they had sex. And for her, we can assume or at least speculate that it was, at least in part, a kind of business arrangement.”

“You know how your body feels when you’ve been fooling around? Physically. Not just the buzz you get from a sex dream, but how you feel physically when you’ve been with a guy. Maybe I haven’t been with one since before Lily was born, but you don’t forget how it feels. And that’s where I was when I woke up, or came out of it. Roz, I smelled those roses. I know how his body was shaped.”

She had to take a breath, had to swallow hard. “I felt him inside me. Inside her, I guess, but it was like being her while it was happening. She liked being with someone handsome and skilled. It wouldn’t have mattered if he’d been ugly as homemade sin and a dud in bed, but this was like a bonus. Rich was the bottom line—the rest was icing. I know that, because I was right inside her head. Or she was in mine. I didn’t imagine it.”

“I believe you,” Mitch told her.

“We believe you,” Roz corrected. “You’re the closest to her age when she died, at least the age we think she was. Maybe she’s relating to that, to you, and trying to go through you to tell us what it was like for her.”

“Possibly.” Mitch tipped back in the chair when Roz arched her brows at him. “It could give us more insight on her, on what happened and why. What else can you tell us about her?”