NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

 She could see the main house, and the colorful pots she’d planted and set herself on the terraces. And the carriage house, with its dance of lilies waiting to open wide.

 She smelled the roses that climbed up the arbor in a strong stream of golden sun. The white roses she’d planted herself, as a private tribute to John.

 She rarely went to his grave, but often to the arbor.

 She looked over beyond the rose garden, the cutting garden, the paths that gently wound through the flowers and shrubs and trees to the spot where Bryce had wanted to dig a swimming pool.

 They’d argued over that, and had a blistering fight when she’d headed off the contractor he’d hired despite her.

 The contractor had been told, she recalled, in no uncertain terms that if he so much as dipped a blade into her ground, she’d call the police to scrape up what she left of him.

 With Bryce she’d been even less patient while reminding him the house and grounds were hers, the decisions made involving them hers.

 He’d stormed out, hadn’t he, after she’d scalded him. Only to slink back a few hours later, sheepish, apologetic, and with a tiny bouquet of wild violets.

 Her mistake in accepting the apology, and the flowers.

 Alone is better.

 She shivered in the shade. “Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t.”

 You did this alone. All of this. You made a mistake once, and look what it cost you. Still costs you. Don’t make another.

 “I won’t make another. Whatever I do, it won’t be a mistake.”

 Alone is better.The voice was more insistent now, and the cold deeper.I’m alone.

 For an instant, only an instant, Roz thought she saw a woman in a muddy white dress, lying in an open grave. And for that instant, only that instant, she smelled the decay of death under the roses.

 Then the woman’s eyes opened, stared into hers, with a kind of mad hunger.

 NINE

ROZ CAME INTOthe house out of a nasty, sleeting rain. She peeled out of her jacket, then sat on the bench in the foyer to drag off her boots. David strolled out, sat beside her, and handed her the cup of coffee he’d brought out of the kitchen.

 “Dr. Delish is in the library.”

 “Yes, I saw his car.” She drank coffee, holding the cup in both hands to warm them.

 “Harper’s with him. He snagged our boy for an interview. We had ours over lattes and applesauce cake earlier.”

 “Applesauce cake.”

 “I saved you a big slice. I know your weaknesses. They’re saying we might get some snow out of this.”

 “So I heard.”

 “Stella and the boys are at Logan’s. She’s going to fix dinner over there, and the boys are hoping the snow comes through and they can stay the night.”

 “That’s nice. I need a shower. A hot one.”

 He took the cup she passed back to him. “I thought you might want to ask our handsome professor to stay to dinner. I’m making some hearty chicken and dumplings to ward off the cold.”

 “Sounds good—the chicken—and Mitch is certainly welcome to stay if he likes, and doesn’t have other plans.”

 “He doesn’t,” David said confidently. “I’ve already asked.”

 She chuckled at his broad grin. “Just who are you matching him up with, David? You or me?”

 “Well, being the utterly unselfish person I am—and seeing as the doctor is unfortunately and absolutely straight—I’m going with you.”

 “Just a pitiful romantic, aren’t you?”

 She started up, and only rolled her eyes when he called out: “Put something sexy on.”

 In the library, Harper nursed his after-work beer. It didn’t seem to him that he could tell Mitch much more than he already knew, but he’d answered the questions, filled in little gaps in the stories both his mother and David had already related.

 “I’ve got David’s rundown of the night you saw her outside, in the gardens, when you were boys.”

 “The night we were camping out, David, my brothers, and me.” Harper nodded in acknowledgment. “Some night.”

 “According to David, you saw her first, woke him.”

 “Saw, heard, felt.” Harper shrugged. “Hard to pin it down, but yeah, I woke him up. Couldn’t say what time it was. Late. We’d stayed up eating ourselves half sick, and spooking ourselves out with scary stories. Then I heard her, I guess. Don’t know how, exactly, I knew it was her. It wasn’t like the other times.”

 “What was different?”

 “She wasn’t singing. She was more . . . moaning, I guess, or making these unintelligible sounds. More like what you’d expect from a ghost on a hot, moonlit night when you’re a kid. So I looked out, and there she was. Only not like before, either.”

 Brave boy, Mitch thought, to look out instead of pulling the sleeping bag over his head. “What was it like?”

 “She was in this white nightgown sort of thing. The way she was last spring when she was upstairs. Her hair was down, tangled and dirty. And I could see the moonlight going through her. Right through. Jesus.” He took a deeper sip of beer.