Black Rose (In the Garden 2)

She heard the crazed screams through it.

Kill them all! Kill them all in their sleep. Hack them to bits, bathe in their blood. Take back what's mine. Damn them, damn them all to hell!

"They're gone. They're dust. " Roz tried to shout, but could barely choke out the words. "Am I what's left?"

The storm stopped as abruptly as it began, and the Amelia who stood in the calm was one who sang lullabies to children. Sad and pale in her gray dress.

You're mine. My blood. She held out a hand, and red welled in the palm. My bone. Out of my womb, out of my heart. Stolen, ripped away. Find me. I'm so lost.

Then Roz was alone, standing on the springy grass at the edge of the woods with what she'd built spread out below her.

SHE WENT BACKto work because work steadied her. The only way she could wrap her mind around what happened at the edge of the woods was to do something familiar, something that kept her hands occupied while her brain sorted through the wonder of it.

She kept to herself because solitude soothed her.

Through the afternoon she divided more stock plants, rooted cuttings. Watered, fed, labeled.

When she was done, she walked home through the woods and raided her personal greenhouse. She planted cannas in a spot she wanted to dramatize, larkspur and primroses where she wanted more charm. In the shade, she added some ladybells and cranesbill for serenity.

Her serenity, she thought, could always be found here, in the gardens, in the soil, in the shadow of Harper House. Under that fresh blue sky she knelt on the ground, and studied what was hers.

So lovely with its soft yellow stone, its sparkling glass, its bridal white trim.

What secrets were trapped in those rooms, in those walls? What was buried in this soil she worked, season after season, with her own hands?

She had grown up here, as her father had, and his father, and those who'd come before. Generation after generation of shared blood and history. She had raised her children here, and had worked to preserve this legacy so that the children of her children would call this home.

Whatever had been done to pass all of this to her, she would have to know. And then accept.

Settled again, she replaced her tools, then went into the house to shower off the day.

She found Mitch working in the library.

"Sorry to interrupt. There's something I need to talk to you about. "

"Good, I need to talk to you, too. " He swiveled away from his laptop, found a file in the piles on the desk.

"You go first," she told him.

"Hmm? Oh, fine. " He scooped a hand through his hair, took off his glasses. Gestures she knew now meant he was organizing his thoughts.

"I've done just about all I can do here," he began. "I could spend months more on your family

history, filling in details, moving back generations. In fact, I plan to do just that. But regarding the purpose for which you hired me, I'm at an impasse. She wasn't family, Roz. Not a Harper," he amended. "Not by birth, not through marriage. Absolutely none of the data - names, dates, births, marriages, deaths - nothing I have places a woman named Amelia in this house, or in the Harper family. No woman of her approximate age died in this house during the time period we've pinpointed. "

"I see. " She sat, wishing vaguely she'd thought to get coffee.

"Now, if Stella is mistaken regarding the name - "

"She isn't. " Roz shook her head. "It's Amelia. "

"I agree. But there's no Amelia Harper, by birth, by marriage, in any record. Oddly enough, considering the length of time this house has stood here, there's no record of any female in her twenties or thirties who died here. In the house. Older or younger, yes, a few. "

He set the file on top of a pile. "Ah, one of the most entertaining deaths to occur here was back in 1859, one of your male ancestors, a Beauregard Harper, who broke his neck, and several other bones, falling off the second floor terrace. From the letters I've read describing the event, Beau was up there with a woman not his wife engaged in a sexual romp that got a little overenthusiastic. He went over the rail, taking his date with him. He was dead when members of the household reached him, but being a portly fellow, he broke the fall of the female houseguest, who landed on top of him and only suffered a broken leg. "

"And terminal embarrassment, I imagine. "

"Must have. I have the names of the women, the Harper women, who died here listed for you. I have some records on female servants who died here, but none fit the parameters. I got some information from the Chicago lawyer I told you about. "