Red Lily (In the Garden 3)

“It’s a man who used her, abused her, stole her child, cast her off. She’s been poking at me and Stella again. She won’t trust you. Maybe we can convince her to trust us.”

“And maybe she’ll toss you off the third floor terrace.”

“Harper.” Roz crossed to him, her smile as thin as a blade. “Anybody gets tossed out of this house, it’s going to be her. That’s a stone promise. My sympathy for her is at an end. You still have it.” She looked over at Hayley. “And that’s fine, probably an advantage. But mine is over. What she would have done if not for intervention is unforgivable to me. I will have her out of this house. Can you go back?” she asked Hayley.

“Yes, I can. I want it done. I don’t think I’ll ever have another easy moment until it is.”

“You’re asking me to risk you.”

“No.” Hayley rose to go to Harper. “To believe in me.”

“YOU KNOW HOW, in the movies, the stupid, usually scantily clad blonde, goes down in the basement alone when she hears a noise, especially if there’s a slasher-type killer running around?”

Roz laughed at Hayley as they stood on the third floor landing. “We’re not stupid.”

“And none of us are blond,” Stella added. “Ready?”

They clasped hands and started down the hall.

“The problem with this,” Hayley began in a voice that sounded tinny to her ears, “is that if she doesn’t know what happened to her after, how will we?”

“One step at a time.” Roz gave Hayley’s hand a squeeze. “How are you feeling?”

“My heart’s beating a mile a minute. Roz, when this is over, can we open this room again? Make it, I don’t know, a playroom maybe. Something with light and color.”

“A wonderful idea.”

“And here we go,” Stella declared. They walked in together.

“How did it look before, Hayley?” Roz asked her.

“Um. The crib was over there.” She gestured with her chin. “Against the wall. The lights were on low. Gaslights, like in that movie with Ingrid Bergman. The one where Charles Boyer tries to drive her crazy. There was a rocking chair over there, and another, straight-backed chair—the one she used—over there. Shelves here,” she pointed, “with toys and books on them. And a . . .”

Her head snapped back, her eyes rolled up white. As she began to choke, her legs buckled.

She heard, through the storm surge in her ears, Roz shout to get her out. But she shook her head wildly.

“Wait, wait. God it burns! The baby’s screaming, and the maid, the nurse. Don’t let go of me.”

“We’re taking you out,” Roz said.

“No, no. Just don’t let go. She’s dying—it’s horrible—and she’s so angry.” Hayley let her head fall onto Roz’s shoulder. “It’s dark. It’s dark where she is. Was. No light, no air, no hope. She lost. They took him again, and now she’s alone. She’ll always be alone. She can’t see, she can’t feel. Everything seems so far away. Very cold, very dark. There are voices, but she can’t hear them, only echoes. It’s so empty. She’s going down, down, so heavy. She can only see the dark. She doesn’t know where she is. She just floats away.”

She sighed, left her head on Roz’s shoulder. “I can’t help it, even in this room, I feel sorry for her. She was cold and selfish, calculating. A whore, certainly, in the lowest sense of the word. But she’s paid for it, hasn’t she? More than a hundred years of being lost, of watching over other people’s children and never having more than that one mad moment with her own. She’s paid.”

“Maybe she has. Are you all right?”

Hayley nodded. “It wasn’t like before, not the way I could feel her pulling at me. I was stronger. I need life more than she does. I think she’s tired. Almost as tired as we are.”

“That may be, too. But you don’t let your guard down.” Stella looked up where once had hung an armed gaslight chandelier. “Not for a minute.”

“Let’s go back.” Stella rose, helped Hayley to her feet. “You did what you could. We all have.”

“It doesn’t seem like enough. It was a brutal death. It wasn’t quick, and she saw the maid run out with the baby. She reached out her arms for him, even when she was strangling.”

“That’s not a mother’s love, whatever she thought,” Roz said.

“No, it’s not. It wasn’t. But it was all she had.” Hayley moistened her lips, wished desperately for water. “She cursed him—Reginald. Cursed them all—the Harpers. She . . . she willed herself to stay here. But she’s tired. Part of her, the part that sings lullabies, is so tired and lost.”