Читать книгу: «Scent Of Roses»

Kat Martin
Scent of Roses

Contents

From the Author

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Five

Epilogue

Author’s Note

About the Author

Coming Next Month

FROM THE AUTHOR

I hope you enjoy Scent of Roses. It has long been my wish to write stories about ordinary women who have extraordinary experiences. Scent of Roses is the first of three books that deal with those kinds of tales. I hope you will look for Summit of Angels, the second book in the series, and that you also enjoy it.

Until then, all best wishes and happy reading,

Kat

Prologue

She awakened with a start, her eyes coming sharply into focus, ears straining toward the odd sound that had pulled her from a deep but restless sleep.

There. There it was again, a strange, distant sort of creaking, like one of the floorboards under the carpet in the living room. She shifted on the pillow, trying to hear, but the sound had changed, become a peculiar moaning that sounded like the wind but could not be. Outside the house, the air was hot and still, the summer night densely black and quiet. She listened for the familiar chirp of crickets in the nearby field but they were oddly silent.

The sounds came again, an ominous creak, then a groan unlike anything she had heard in the house before. She sat up in bed, her heart pounding, easing herself slowly back against the headboard, her gaze locked on the door as she tried to decide whether to wake her husband. But Miguel had to go to work early and his days were long and exhausting. Whatever she had heard was surely her imagination.

Her ears strained into the silence, listening, listening. But the sound did not come again. She reminded herself to breathe, took a calming breath, and noticed an eerie thickening of the atmosphere in the bedroom. Maria found herself inhaling more deeply, working to suck air into her lungs as if a heavy weight pressed down on her chest. Her heartbeat quickened even more, thudding heavily now, each beat swelling beneath her breastbone.

Madre de Dios, what is wrong?

She dragged in another labored breath, drawing the thick air into her lungs and slowly forcing it out. She told herself to stay calm. It is nothing…only a trick of the mind. Nothing but the hot, moonless night and the silence. She inhaled again. Out and then in, deep labored breaths that should have steadied her but did nothing to ease her growing fear.

That was when she smelled it. The faint scent of roses. The odor drifted toward her, wrapped itself around her, began to press in on her. It grew as dense as the air, turning thick and heavy, cloying, sickeningly sweet. The fields around the house bloomed with roses nearly half the year, but the scent was soft and light, a pleasing fragrance, nothing at all like the sticky smell that hung in the air: the scent of flowers, which had died and begun to decay.

The bile rose in her throat and Maria whimpered. Her hand shook as she reached for her husband, sleeping peacefully beside her. She paused, knowing once he woke up he would have a hard time returning to sleep, knowing how badly he needed his rest. Still, silently, she willed him to awaken.

Her gaze skipped frantically around the room, searching for the source of the noises and the smell, unsure what she might find, but there was nothing there. Nothing that could explain the terror that continued to well inside her, swelling with each frantic beat of her heart.

She swallowed past the fear clogging her throat and reached for Miguel, but just then the rose scent began to fade. The pressure on her chest began to ease and little by little, the air in the room slowly thinned to normal. She took a deep, cleansing breath and released it, then another and another. Outside the window, the familiar chirp of crickets reached her ears and she sagged against the headboard.

It was nothing, after all. Just the hot, dry night and her imagination. Miguel would have been angry. He would have accused her of behaving like a child.

Unconsciously her hand came to rest on her stomach. She was no longer a child. She was nineteen years old and carrying a child of her own.

She looked over at her husband and wished she could sleep as deeply as he. But her eyes remained open, her ears alert. She told herself that she was no longer afraid.

But she knew that for the rest of the night she would not sleep.

One

Elizabeth Conners sat behind her desk at the Family Psychology Clinic. The office was comfortably furnished, with an oak desk and chair, a couple of four-drawer oak file cabinets, two oak side chairs and a sofa upholstered in dark green fabric sitting against one wall.

Oak-framed pictures of the town in the early nineteen hundreds decorated the interior and a green-glass lamp sat on the edge of her desk, giving the place a casual, old-fashioned appearance. The office was neat and orderly. With the number of cases she handled, it was imperative she be well organized.

Elizabeth glanced at the stack of manila files on her desk, each one a case she was currently working. For the past two years, she had been an employee of the small, privately owned clinic in San Pico, California. Elizabeth had been born in the town, mainly an agricultural community, situated near the southwest end of the San Joaquin Valley.

She had graduated from San Pico High, then gotten a partial scholarship to help pay her way through college. She had majored in psychology at UCLA, earning a master’s in social work, making extra money with a part-time job as a waitress, as she had done in high school.

Two years ago, she had returned to her hometown, a quiet place of refuge where her father and sister lived, though her dad had died last year and her sister had married and moved away. Elizabeth had come to recover from a messy divorce, and the quiet life away from the city had helped bring her out of the depression she had suffered after her marriage to Brian Logan had fallen apart.

In contrast to the hustle of busy Santa Ana, where she had been working, San Pico was a city of around thirty thousand people, of which half the population was now Hispanic. Elizabeth’s family had been among the original founders back in 1907, farmers and dairymen back then. During her childhood, her father and mother had owned a small neighborhood market, Conner’s Grocery, but after her mother had died, her father had sold the business and retired, and Elizabeth had gone off to school.

She reached for the file on top of the stack on her desk, preparing herself for her upcoming session that evening with the Mendoza family, conducted in their home. The file contained a history of drinking and family violence that included an incident of child abuse, but the violence seemed to have lessened in the months the family had been in counseling.

Elizabeth fervently believed the sessions were helping family members learn to deal with each other in ways that did not include physical violence.

Leaning over the file, she tucked an annoying strand of dark auburn hair behind an ear and continued to scan the file. Like all of the Conners, she was dark-haired, slenderly built and a little taller than average. But unlike her sister, she had been blessed with the clear blue eyes of her mother.

Which meant that every time she looked in the mirror, she thought of Grace Conners and missed her.

Her mother had died a painful death from cancer when Elizabeth was just fifteen. They had been extremely close and the difficult months of caring for, then losing her had taken its toll. Elizabeth’s blue eyes were her mother’s legacy, but the memories they stirred were so painful that sometimes, instead of a blessing, her best feature seemed more of a curse.

Elizabeth sighed as she reached the end of the report, closed the file and leaned back in her chair. She had never expected to return to her hometown, which was flat and dusty and most of the year far too hot.

But sometimes fate had different notions and here she was, in a rented apartment on Cherry Street, doing the kind of work she had been trained for, and though she didn’t particularly like living in the homely little town, at least she felt good about her job.

She was thinking about her upcoming session that night when a soft knock sounded at the door. She looked up to see one of the boys she counseled walk into the room. Raul Perez was seventeen years old, on work leave from juvenile detention, to which he’d been sentenced for the second time. Belligerent, surly and difficult, he was also smart and caring and loyal to his friends and the people he loved, and especially to his beloved sister, Maria.

His concern for others was the reason Elizabeth had agreed to do his counseling sessions without a fee. Raul had potential. He could make something of himself if he was given the right motivation—if she could convince him that his life would never improve as long as he involved himself in alcohol and drugs.

Burglary had been the result, of course, as it often was with kids like Raul. They needed money to buy the drugs and they would do whatever it took to get them.

But Raul had been drug free for over a year and he had told her that he meant to stay that way. There was something in his intense black eyes that made Elizabeth believe it might be true.

“Raul. Come in.” She smiled at him warmly. “It’s good to see you.”

“You are looking very well,” he said, always extremely polite.

“Thank you.” She thought that she did look good today, in crisp beige cotton slacks and a short-sleeved turquoise silk blouse, her shoulder-length auburn hair in loose waves around her face.

Raul sat down in one of the oak side chairs and Elizabeth sat down behind her desk. To begin the session, she started with a question about his part-time job at Sam Goodie’s, janitorial and delivery work that would end when Ritchie Jenkins got back on his feet after crashing his motorcycle down at the end of Main Street. In another week, the job would be over and unless he found something else, he would be back in juvenile detention full-time.

“So, how do you like working at the store so far?”

He shrugged a pair of linebacker shoulders. “I like the music—except when they play country western.” Raul was only about five foot ten, but he was stocky and muscular, big for his age since he was a child. He had glossy, straight black hair and dark skin, marred only by the tattoo of a skull on the back of one hand and his initials in blue under the skin beneath his left ear. The initials were a homemade job probably done in grammar school. She thought the skull must have been done during his last stay in juvenile hall.

Elizabeth looked at him and smiled. “I know you’ll be out of work by the end of the week, but I have some very exciting news for you.”

He studied her warily from his place across the desk. “What is it?”

“You’ve been accepted at Teen Vision.”

“Teen Vision?”

“I mentioned it a couple of weeks ago, remember?”

He nodded, his eyes fixed on her face.

“Since the farm is a fairly new facility, they only have room for twenty-five kids so far, but a couple of openings have come up and your application was one of the ones they accepted.”

“I didn’t put in an application,” he said darkly.

She kept the smile fixed on her face. “I know you didn’t—I did. I mentioned the farm to you when you were here before. You seemed interested. I took it one step further and applied in your name.”

He was frowning. That wasn’t good. The students who participated in the residential program at Teen Vision were there of their own free will. If he didn’t want to be involved, being there wouldn’t do him the least bit of good.

“The term lasts one year. You have to be between the ages of fourteen and eighteen and you have to agree to stay the entire twelve months or they won’t let you in.”

“I’m out of detention for good in six more months.”

“You need to change your life so that you can stay out.”

Raul said nothing.

“You would start next week. While you’re there, your room and board would be completely taken care of. They even pay a small stipend for the work you do on the farm.”

Raul grunted. “I know how much farm workers make. That’s the way my family earned their living.”

“This is different than being a migratory worker, Raul. You told me yourself you liked farming, being out in the fresh air working the soil. You could learn a vocation while you’re there and you could get your GED. When your year is up, you could find a full-time job in agriculture or whatever you decide you want to do, something that would eventually make you a decent living.”

He seemed to mull that over. “I need to think about it.”

“All right. But I don’t think you can make any sort of decision until you go out there, take a look at the facility and meet some of the instructors. Would you be willing to do that, Raul?”

He sat back in his chair, his eyes still on her face. “I would like to see it.”

“That’s great. Just remember, a place like that requires a commitment. It’s a place you go in order to change your life. You have to want to do that. You have to want to start over and make a new beginning.”

Raul said nothing for several long moments and neither did Elizabeth, purposely giving him time to think.

“When could we go?”

She stood up from her chair. “Do you have to work this afternoon?”

He shook his head. “Not until tomorrow morning.”

“Good.” Elizabeth rounded the desk and moved past him toward the door. She smiled and pulled it open. “Then why don’t we go right now?”

The Teen Vision farm sat on fifteen acres of flat, arid land fronting Highway 51 a few miles out of town. It was a fertile piece of ground donated by Harcourt Farms, the largest agricultural farming company in San Pico County.

Until four years ago, Fletcher Harcourt had run the farm. After a nearly fatal accident that damaged the family patriarch’s brain and left him in a wheelchair, his oldest son, Carson, had taken over the twelve-thousand acre operation. He had taken control of the company and assumed his father’s once-powerful position in the community. Carson was well liked and generous. The attractive white stucco dormitory and outbuildings that housed Teen Vision had undoubtedly been funded in part by Carson’s donations.

Elizabeth had met Carson Harcourt several times since her return to San Pico. He was tall, blond and attractive. At thirty-six, after several brief relationships, he remained unmarried, though with his considerable wealth and social position, he could certainly take his pick of the women in town.

She was thinking of Carson as she drove her nearly new, pearl-white Acura through the front gates of Teen Vision and was only mildly surprised to see the man’s silver Mercedes sedan pulling out of the parking area. He stepped on the brake as he drove past her, bringing the car to a halt, swirling a cloud of dust around them. Carson rolled down his window as if he didn’t notice and gave her the famous Harcourt smile.

“Well, Ms. Conners—what a nice surprise. Looks like I’m leaving at just the wrong time.” Carson had always been friendly. She had sensed he might have an interest beyond just being social, but if he did, he had never pursued it.

“It’s nice to see you, Carson.” She tilted her head toward her passenger. “This is Raul Perez. I’m hoping he’ll be one of the farm’s new enrollees.”

“Is that so?” Carson ducked his head to get a look at the boy. “They do some good work here, son. You had better grab the chance while you’ve got it.”

Raul said nothing, as Elizabeth could have guessed. With the money and power Carson Harcourt possessed, he represented everything the boy rebelled against.

“This place…” She glanced around, taking in the group of boys hoeing the fields, the two boys laughing as they poured grain into a trough to feed the farm’s small herd of four white-faced Hereford cattle. “This was very generous of you, Carson.”

He shrugged. “Harcourt Farms likes to give back to the community whenever it can.”

“Still, you’ve really done something good here. Someone else might not have been so supportive.”

He smiled and glanced out at the fields, then back to her again. “Listen, I’ve got to run. Got a meeting with some labor union guys in town.” He ducked his head to look past her to the boy. “Good luck to you, son.”

Raul just stared and inwardly Elizabeth sighed.

“One more thing,” Carson said to her. “I’ve been meaning to call you. I wanted to talk to you about the Teen Vision Benefit on Saturday night. I was hoping you might go with me.”

She was stunned. Carson had been friendly, but nothing more. Perhaps he had discovered her interest in Teen Vision. Though she had never actually been to the farm, she knew the wonderful work being done and believed strongly in the project.

She cast him an assessing glance. Since her divorce, she’d rarely dated. The dark days after she had discovered Brian’s infidelity left her wary of men. Still, it might be fun to spend an evening with an intelligent, attractive man.

“I’d like that, Carson. Thank you for asking. It’s black tie, as I recall.”

He nodded. “I’ll call you at your office, get directions to your house so I can pick you up.”

“All right, that sounds good.”

He smiled and waved, rolled up the window of his Mercedes and drove away. Elizabeth watched him a moment in the rearview mirror, then stepped on the accelerator and drove through the gate into one of the spaces in the dirt parking lot and turned off the engine.

“Well, we’re here.” She smiled at Raul, who was staring out the window toward the group of young men working in the fields. A distant tractor threw up a plume of dust while a cluster of dairy cows stood on a hill waiting for the evening round of milking to begin.

Looking nervous and younger than his seventeen years, Raul cracked the door on his side of the car and climbed out into the afternoon heat. In the area between the parking lot and the house, the director of Teen Vision, Sam Marston, walked toward them.

Sam was average in height and build, a man in his early forties rapidly going bald who had shaved the sparse hair off, giving him a modern, stylish appearance. He was a soft-spoken man, yet there was a sense of authority about him. He waved a greeting as he walked up to where they stood.

“Welcome to Teen Vision.”

“Thank you.” She had met Sam Marston when she first moved back to town, knew his remarkable work with delinquent boys. “I know your time is limited. I thought I could come back for an official tour later on.”

He understood what she was saying. That she wanted him to spend this time with Raul. “You’re welcome anytime,” he said with a smile, then his attention shifted to the boy. “You must be Raul Perez.”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m Sam Marston. Let me show you around, and while we’re at it, I’ll tell you a little about Teen Vision.” Ignoring Raul’s look of alarm, Sam slapped a hand on the youth’s wide back and nudged him forward, forcing Raul into step beside him.

Elizabeth watched them walk away and found herself smiling. She prayed Raul would give the place a chance, that the farm would be his salvation, as it had been for a number of other boys.

Walking over to stand in the shade of a fruit tree to watch the boys in the fields and wait for Sam, she saw another car, a dark brown Jeep Cherokee, drive through the gate and pull into the space next to hers.

A tall, lean man in faded jeans and a navy blue T-shirt climbed out from behind the wheel. He had very dark hair and darkly tanned skin, a nice wide set of shoulders, narrow hips and a flat stomach. As he walked toward her, she saw that the shirt carried the Teen Vision slogan, Only You Can Make Your Dreams Come True, printed in white letters on the front. A pair of solid-looking biceps bulged below the short sleeves of his T-shirt.

Still, somehow she couldn’t imagine him working as a counselor on the farm. His haircut looked too expensive, his long strides too purposeful, almost aggressive. Even the fit of his jeans spoke of style and money. Elizabeth studied him from beneath the tree and though he wore wraparound shades and she couldn’t make out his face, there was something familiar about him.

She wondered where she might have seen him and thought that if she had, surely she would remember. He moved past her as if she weren’t there, his gaze focused ahead, striding with purpose in the direction of the new barn under construction where several older boys were busily hammering nails. The dark-haired man walked up to them and started talking. A few minutes later, he strapped on a carpenter’s belt and set to work.

Elizabeth watched him for a while, enjoying the efficiency of his movements, his obvious skill at what he was doing, and continued to wonder who he was. When Sam and Raul returned, she intended to ask, but when they arrived, the boy’s face was glowing and his smile so radiant the moment slipped past.

“You’re going to do it?” she said, beaming up at him.

He nodded. “Sam says he and one of the counselors will help me figure out what I am most suited to learn. He says I can do whatever I am most interested in.”

“Oh, Raul, that’s wonderful!” She wanted to reach over and hug him, but she needed to remain professional and that would probably just embarrass him. “I can’t tell you how pleased I am.”

“He can check in on Saturday,” Sam said. “We’ll help him fill out the forms and sign whatever paperwork is necessary.” Technically he would still be in the foster care system until next year and the paperwork would have to pass through proper channels.

“That sounds great.” Elizabeth turned to Raul. “I can bring you out here, if you like.”

“Sí, that would be good.” Raul rarely slipped into his native language, only when he was angry or nervous. Still, he was smiling. Sometimes nervous could be good.

“Your sister will be so pleased.”

His smile broadened. “Maria will be happy for me. Miguel, I think, too.”

“Yes, I think they will both be very happy you made this decision.”

They said their farewells to Sam, who promised to give her a personal tour of the farm whenever she had time, and they started back to the car.

She was feeling extremely pleased with the way the afternoon had gone when she glanced at Raul and saw that his smile had faded.

“What is it, Raul?”

“I am nervous. I want to do this right.”

“You will. You’ve got lots of people to help you.”

Still, he didn’t relax. She knew he was worried that he would somehow fail. It was the failures, she had learned, that most of these young Hispanics remembered and those failures shaped their lives. But Raul had a number of accomplishments as well. He had stayed drug-free for a year and now he had pledged a year of his life to Teen Vision.

“Will you be seeing your sister tonight? I know how excited she’ll be.”

Instead of a smile, Raul frowned. “I will stop by and tell her the news.” He glanced in her direction. “I am worried about her.”

“Why? She isn’t having trouble with her pregnancy, I hope?” Though Maria was just nineteen, this was her second pregnancy. Last year, she had suffered a miscarriage. Elizabeth knew how much this baby meant to her and Miguel.

“It isn’t the baby. It is something else. Maria won’t say what.” His black eyes came to rest on her face. “Maybe you could talk to her. If you did, maybe she would tell you what is wrong.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. Though Maria’s husband was a stereotypical macho Hispanic, convinced the man was the undisputed head of the family, the couple seemed happy. She hoped they weren’t having marital problems.

“I’d be glad to talk to her, Raul. Tell her to call me at the office and we’ll set up a time.”

“I will tell her. But I do not think she will call.” Raul said no more.

As Elizabeth slid behind the wheel of the car, hissing at the heat of the red leather seat against her skin, she cast a last glance at the barn under construction. Only two sides of the building had been framed, but they were making good progress. She studied the group still hammering away, but the dark-haired man was gone.

Sitting in the passenger side, Raul snapped his seat belt in place and Elizabeth started the engine. As they drove back to town, the boy seemed miles away and she wondered if his thoughts were on the very different future he was about to undertake, or if he was worried about his sister.

Elizabeth made a mental note to stop by the little yellow house occupied by Miguel Santiago and his pretty young wife. She would speak to Maria, see what was wrong, find out if there was something she could do.

Two

The hour was late. The night black as ink, just a fingernail moon casting a thin ray of white into the darkness. The smell of newly mown hay hung in the air, along with the rich musk of freshly tilled soil. Inside the house, Maria Santiago snapped off the small TV that sat on a little wooden table against the wall of her sparsely furnished living room.

Though the house wasn’t large, just two bedrooms and a bath, it was only four years old and solidly built, with yellow plaster walls outside and a simple asphalt tile roof. The house had been freshly painted just before they moved in and the beige carpet looked almost new.

Maria had loved the house from the moment she and Miguel had seen it. With its grassy backyard and zinnia-filled flower beds next to the porch out in front, it was the nicest place she had ever lived. Miguel loved it, too, and he was proud of being able to provide such a home for his wife and the baby that was soon to come.

Miguel wanted a child even more than Maria. Aside from Maria and Raul, he didn’t have much family, at least not nearby. Most of Miguel’s family lived in the San Joaquin Valley farther north, near Modesto. Maria’s mother had died when she was fourteen, and she had never known her father. Her mother once told her he had left when Raul was born and no one had seen him since.

With her parents gone and no one to care for them, Maria and Raul had moved in with a couple named Hernandez, migratory workers who traveled the agricultural circuit. One of the jobs they had worked had been in the orchards, harvesting almonds for Harcourt Farms, and that was where Maria had met Miguel. She had been not quite fifteen, her brother only thirteen, and Miguel Santiago had been their salvation.

They had married the day of her fifteenth birthday and when the workers left for their next job, both she and Raul had stayed with Miguel on the farm. Though he earned barely enough to get by, there was plenty to eat, and Raul could go to school. He had attended faithfully for the entire first year, but being so far behind the other kids, in a short time he had rebelled and refused to go.

He had begun to stay out late, to hang around with a bad element. Eventually, he had gotten into trouble and been sent to a foster home. Finally, he’d wound up in juvenile hall. Recently, he had been released into a halfway house and soon would be living at Teen Vision.

It seemed a miracle had occurred.

Another had happened two months ago, when her husband had received a promotion to overseer—one of four on the farm. He had been given a raise and a house to live in as part of his higher salary.

It was a very nice house, Maria thought again as she untied the sash on her bathrobe and tossed it over a chair. Dressed in a short white nylon nightgown that fanned out over her growing belly, she walked toward the bed, wishing Miguel would get home. But he often worked late in the fields and she had mostly gotten used to it.

Except that lately, when he didn’t get home and the hour grew late, Maria was afraid.

She flicked a glance at the bed, her gaze lighting on the comfortable queen-size mattress, bigger than any she had ever slept in before.

She ached to slide beneath the covers, to rest her head on one of the pillows and drift off to sleep. She was so very tired. Her back ached and her feet hurt. Surely tonight she would sleep and not wake up until Miguel came home. Surely, what had happened to her last week and the week before would not happen again tonight.

It was after midnight, the house completely quiet as she pulled back the pretty yellow quilt on top of the bed and lay down on the mattress, pulling the sheet up beneath her chin.

She could hear the crickets in the field and the gentle, rhythmic sound gave her comfort. The pillow felt soft beneath her head. Her long black hair, left unbound the way Miguel liked it, teased her cheek as she shifted on the mattress, and her eyes drifted closed.

For a while, she dozed peacefully, unaware of the eerie creaks and moans, of the subtle shift in the atmosphere. Then the air grew thicker, denser, and the soothing chirp of the crickets abruptly halted.

Maria’s eyes snapped open. She was staring up at the ceiling and a heavy weight seemed to be pressing down on her chest. She could hear the eerie moaning, the creaking that wasn’t the wind. In the darkness of the bedroom, the sickening, suffocating smell of roses drifted into her nostrils and the bile rose in her throat.

The putrid smell enveloped her, seemed to force her down in the mattress, to suck the air from her lungs. She tried to sit up, but she couldn’t move. She tried to cry out, but no sound came from her throat.

Oh, Madre de Dios! Mother of God, protect me!

Silently she began to pray, to beg the Virgin Mary to save her, to send the evil away.

She was so frightened! She didn’t understand what was happening. She didn’t know if what she felt was real or if she was losing her mind. Her mother had suffered a tumor that eventually killed her. Toward the end, she had raved and ranted and imagined things.

Was that what was happening to her?

She twisted on the bed and tried to sit up, but her body remained completely frozen, rigid on the sheet. Something shifted, seemed to invade her mind, to fill her thoughts until she could think of nothing but the words spinning round in her head.

They want your baby, a small voice whispered through her terror-filled brain. They’ll take your baby if you don’t leave.

Maria choked on a sob. Fresh horror filled her. She wanted Miguel, prayed he would come home and save her. Silently, she cried out for God to bring him home to her before it was too late.

But Miguel did not come.

Instead, the small voice began to fade into the silence as if it were never there and the heavy smell of roses drifted away in the darkness. For long moments, she lay there, afraid to move, afraid of what would happen if she did.

Maria swallowed, managed to drag in a shaky breath of air. She tried to lift her arms and found that her limbs responded, allowing her to shift on the bed. She lay there staring at the ceiling, inhaling sharp, deep breaths, her hands trembling. She was shaking all over, she realized, her heart pounding as if she had run a thousand miles.

Tentatively, she extended her legs. She moved her arms, crossed them over her chest to control the trembling, then shakily pushed herself upright in the bed. Long black hair fell over her shoulder, reaching nearly to her waist. She drew her legs up beneath her chin, pulled the nightgown down to cover them, and rested her chin on her knees.

It was a nightmare, she told herself. The same dream you had before.

Maria’s eyes welled with tears. She pressed a hand against her mouth to muffle a sob and tried to convince herself it was true.

Zachary Harcourt opened the front door of the house that was once his home at Harcourt Farms. It was a big, white, two-story wood-framed house with porches both front and rear, an impressive house that had been built in the forties and remodeled and improved over the years.

The molded ceilings were high, to help with the heat, and expensive damask draperies hung at the windows. The floors were oak and always polished to a glossy sheen. Zach ignored the sharp ring of his work boots as he walked down the hall into the room that had been his father’s study, a man’s room, paneled in dark wood, with shelves lining the walls filled with gold-edged leather-bound books.

The big oak, rolltop desk where his father used to sit still dominated the study, but now his older brother, Carson, sat in an expensive leather chair.

“I see you still don’t believe in knocking.” Carson turned toward him, one hand still resting on the paperwork on his desk. The enmity on his face was unmistakable. The same dislike was reflected in Zach’s eyes as well.

The men were about the same height, almost six foot two, though Carson, two years older, was heavier through the chest and shoulders, built more like their father. He was blond and blue-eyed like his mother, while Zach, a half brother born on the wrong side of the blanket, was more leanly built, with the nearly black, slightly wavy hair that had belonged to Teresa Burgess, his father’s long-time mistress.

It was said that Teresa carried a trace of Hispanic blood from a distant grandmother, but she had always denied it, and though Zach’s skin was darker than Carson’s, his cheekbones high and more sharply defined, he had no idea whether or not it was true.

One thing was certain. Zach had the same distinct gold-flecked brown eyes that stared back at him when he looked at his father, marking him clearly as Fletcher Harcourt’s son and Carson’s brother—much to Carson’s chagrin.

“I don’t need to knock,” Zach said. “In case you’ve forgotten, which you usually do, this house still belongs to our father, which means it is mine as much as it is yours.”

Carson made no reply. After the fall that had left Fletcher Harcourt’s motor functions impaired and his memory distorted, Carson, the eldest son, had been made conservator of the farm and all of their father’s affairs, including his health care. It had been an easy decision for the judge, since Zach was younger and had a prison record.

At twenty-one, Zach had spent two years in the California State Penitentiary at Avenal for manslaughter, convicted of a drunk-driving offense that had resulted in a man’s death.

“What is it you want?” Carson asked.

“I want to know what’s happening with the benefit. Knowing your penchant for getting things done, I assume everything is in order.”

“Everything’s under control, just like I said it would be. I told you I’d help raise money for this little project of yours and that’s what I’m doing.”

Two years ago, Zach had set aside his pride and come to Carson with the idea of establishing a boy’s camp for teens with drug and alcohol problems. As a youth, he’d been one of those kids, always in trouble, always butting heads with his family and the law.

But the two years he’d spent in prison had changed his life and he wanted that to happen for other boys who weren’t as lucky as he had been.

Not that he’d thought himself lucky at the time.

Back then, he’d been sullen and resentful, blaming everyone but himself for what had happened to him and what his life had become. Out of boredom and hoping to find a way of shortening his sentence, he had started to study law and discovered he seemed to have a knack for it. He had gotten his GED, taken the SAT’s and passed with extremely high marks, then gone to Berkley and enrolled in Hastings Law School.

Impressed by the changes he was trying to make in his life, his father had helped him with the tuition, and combined with the money from his part-time job, Zach had managed to get through school, graduating in the top percentiles of his class. He had passed the bar exam with flying colors and Fletcher Harcourt had used his influence to get Zach’s felony record expunged so that he could practice law.

Zach was now a successful lawyer with an office in Westwood, an apartment overlooking the ocean in Pacific Palisades, a slick new 645 Ci BMW convertible and the Jeep he drove whenever he came up to the valley.

He was living the good life and he wanted to give something back for the success he had found. Until that day two years ago, he had never asked his brother for anything—had sworn he never would. Carson and his mother had made Zach’s life miserable from the day his father had brought him home and announced plans to adopt him.

There was bad blood between them that would never go away, but Harcourt Farms belonged to Zach as much as Carson and though his brother had complete control, there was plenty of available land, and the location he had chosen for the site was exactly the perfect spot.

Zach remembered the day he had approached his brother, the amazement he had felt when Carson had so readily agreed to his proposal.

“Well, for once you’ve actually come up with a good idea,” Carson had said from his chair at the rolltop desk.

“Then you’re saying Harcourt Farms will donate the land?”

“That’s right. I’ll even help you raise the money to get the project off the ground.”

It had taken Zack several months before he realized his brother had once again neatly turned the tables. The project became Carson’s—though it was mostly Zach’s money that provided the funding—and the entire town was now in Carson’s debt.

Zach no longer cared. With Carson as spokesman, the money continued pouring in, enough to keep the farm running and even enough to expand. The more boys who could be helped, the better, as far as Zach was concerned. Zach would gladly stay out of the picture if it meant helping those kids, and with Carson’s name attached instead of his own, the upcoming benefit on Saturday night would likely be another success.

“I just wanted to check,” Zach said, thinking of the black tie affair he wouldn’t be attending. “Let me know if there’s anything you need me to do.” Instead, he would spend the weekend building the barn, working with the Teen Vision boys, something he had discovered he loved to do.

“You sure you don’t want to come?” Carson asked, though Zach figured having the black sheep of the family in attendance was the last thing Carson wanted.

“No thanks. I wouldn’t want to cramp your style.”

“You could bring Lisa. I’ll be taking Elizabeth Conners.”

The name hit a cord in his memory bank. Liz Conners. She was four years his junior. Once, before he’d gone to prison, he’d been drunk and high and he had come on to her pretty hard outside the coffee shop where she had a part-time job after school. Liz had slapped his face—something no other woman had ever done—and he had never forgotten her.

“I thought she was married and living in Orange County someplace.”

“She was. She’s divorced now, moved back to town a couple of years ago.”

“That so?” San Pico was the last place Zach would want to live. Coming up to visit his dad in the rest home and working on expanding the youth farm was the most he could manage. “Tell Liz I said hello.”

Inwardly he smiled, thinking he was the last person Liz Conners would be happy to hear from. He’d kind of thought Liz was the sort of woman who’d be able to see through a man like his brother. Then again, there was no accounting for people’s tastes.

Carson said no more, just returned to the stack of work on his desk. Zach left the study without a goodbye and headed for his car. He was surprised Carson knew he had been seeing Lisa Doyle and he didn’t like it that he did. He didn’t like Carson knowing anything about him. He didn’t trust his half brother and never had.

Whatever Carson might think, Lisa wasn’t really his type. But she liked hot, raunchy sex, no strings attached, and so did Zach, and they had been sleeping together off and on for years.

And he didn’t have to worry about getting a motel room when he was in town and Lisa didn’t have to worry about picking up some stranger in a bar when she wanted to get laid.

It was a good deal for both of them.

Elizabeth looked up at the sound of a knock at her door. The door swung wide and her boss, Dr. Michael James, stuck his head through the opening. Michael, just under six feet tall with sandy hair and hazel eyes, had a Ph.D. in psychology. He had opened the office five years ago. Elizabeth had been working for him for the past two. Michael was engaged to be married, but lately he seemed to be having second thoughts and Elizabeth wasn’t sure he was going to go through with the wedding.

“How’d it go with Raul?” he asked, another of the young man’s supporters. Raul had a way of endearing himself to people, though on the surface he seemed to do his best to achieve just the opposite.

“He’s decided to enroll in the program.”

“That’s great. Now if he’ll just stick to it.”

“He was excited, I think. Of course, Sam could sell sour milk to cows.”

“So you were impressed with the farm. I thought you would be.”

“It’s really coming along. Carson has done a wonderful job.”

“Yes, he has. Though it seems to me everything he does is a bit self-serving. Lately, I heard a rumor he may be running for a seat in the state assembly.”

“I don’t know him very well, but he seems community-minded. Maybe he’d be good for the job.”

“Maybe.” Though Michael didn’t seem completely convinced.

They spoke for a moment more, then Dr. James left the office and the phone rang. When Elizabeth picked it up, she recognized Raul Perez’s voice.

“I am calling about my sister,” he said simply. “I saw her this morning after Miguel went to work. She was very upset. She tries to hide it, but I know her too well. Something is wrong. Do you think you could stop by the house sometime today?”

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to get over there to see her. I’ll stop by this afternoon. Will your sister be home?”

“I think so. I wish I knew what was wrong.”

“I’ll see if I can find out,” Elizabeth promised and as she hung up the phone she wondered what it could be.

In a job where she dealt with family violence, drugs, robbery and even murder, it would take a great deal to surprise her.

Three

It was after five o’clock, and the office was closed by the time Elizabeth was able to leave. She made the drive through town in the after-five traffic, nothing like the bumper-to-bumper, endless line of cars on the L.A. freeways she used to battle when she lived in Santa Ana, but enough to keep her stopped on Main Street through two sets of red lights.

Downtown San Pico was only ten blocks long, some of the store signs printed in Spanish. Miller’s Dry Cleaners, perched on the corner, had a laundromat attached. There was a JC Penney catalog store, several clothing stores, and a couple of diners, including Marge’s Café, where she had worked part-time in high school.

As she drove past the coffee shop, she could see the long Formica counter and pink vinyl booths inside. Even after twenty years, the place still did a brisk business. Aside from The Ranch House, a steak and prime rib restaurant at the edge of town, it was the only decent place to eat.

A few straggly sycamore trees grew out of the sidewalks that lined the downtown streets but not many. There were a couple of gas stations, a Burger King, a McDonald’s and a sleezy bar called The Roadhouse out where Highway 51 intersected Main Street. The biggest boon to the area had been the arrival two years ago of a Wal-Mart, built to service the town and several outlying farming communities.

Elizabeth continued down Main and turned onto the highway, heading for Harcourt Farms. The little yellow house where Maria and Miguel Santiago lived sat just off the road in an area of the farm that included three other overseers’ houses, half a dozen farm laborer cottages, and the big, white, wood-frame, two-story owner’s house, which sat some distance away.

Elizabeth’s car bumped over a set of abandoned railroad tracks not far from the house. She pulled off the road into a spot next to the driveway and climbed out of the Acura.

She had saved for two years to get the down payment for the car and she loved it. With its red leather seats and wood-paneled interior, it made her feel younger just to sit behind the wheel. She had bought the car because she thought that at thirty, she shouldn’t be feeling as old as she often did.

She walked along the cement sidewalk past a flowerbed blooming with red and yellow zinnias. Elizabeth knocked on the front door of the house, and a few minutes later, Maria Santiago pulled it open.

“Ms. Conners.” She smiled. “What a nice surprise. It is good to see you. Please come in.” Maria was a slender young woman, except for the protrusion of her belly and her ever-increasing breasts. Her long black hair was braided, as she often wore it, and hanging down her back.

“Thank you.” Elizabeth walked into the house, which Maria kept immaculately clean. The girl, as neatly kept as the house, wore a pair of white, ankle-length pants and a loose-fitting blue-flowered blouse. Except for the tight lines around her mouth and the faint smudges beneath her eyes, she looked lovely.

“Miguel and I, we want to thank you for what you did for Raul. I have never seen him so excited, though of course, he tried not to show it.” She frowned as a thought occurred. “He is not in more trouble? That is not the reason you are here?”

“No, of course not. This has nothing to do with Raul. Except that your brother is worried about you. Raul asked me to stop by.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He thinks you are upset about something. He isn’t sure what it is. He hoped that you might talk to me about it.”

Maria glanced away. “My brother is imagining things. I am fine, as you can see.”

She was pretty, with her big dark eyes and classic features, and more than six months pregnant. Elizabeth had come to know Maria and Miguel through her dealings with Raul and she liked them both, though Miguel’s overly macho attitude could be irritating at times.

“It is hot outside,” Maria said. “Would you like a glass of iced tea?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

They sat down at a wooden table in the kitchen. Maria went over to the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic pitcher, then popped cubes from an ice tray into two tall glasses and filled them with chilled tea.

She set the glasses down on the table. “Would you like some sugar?”

“No, this is perfect just the way it is.” Elizabeth sat down at the small round table covered by a flowered plastic tablecloth and took a sip of her tea.

Maria stirred sugar into hers, paying slightly more attention to the task than necessary, Elizabeth thought, wondering again what the problem could be. Raul was a shrewd young man. He wouldn’t have called without good reason.

“It must be hard being alone all day this far from town,” Elizabeth began cautiously.

“There is always work to do. Before it got so hot, I worked in my garden. Now, with the baby getting bigger, I cannot stay out in the sun for so long. But I have clothes to mend and food to prepare for Miguel. Since we moved into the house, he comes home for lunch. He works very hard. I like to make sure he has something good to eat.”

“So the two of you are getting along all right?”

“Sí. We get along very well. My husband is a good man. He is a very good provider.”

“I’m sure he is. Still, I imagine he often works late, which means you are home by yourself. Is that the reason you aren’t sleeping well?” It was a risk. She was guessing and a wrong guess might bring the young woman’s guard up even more.

“What…what makes you think I am not sleeping?”

“You look tired, Maria.” Elizabeth reached across the kitchen table and clasped the girl’s hand. “What is it, Maria? Tell me what’s wrong.”

The girl shook her head and Elizabeth caught the sheen of tears. “I am not certain. Something is happening, but I do not know what it is.”

“Something? Like what?”

“Something very bad, and I am afraid to tell Miguel.” She drew her hand away. “I think…I think I might be getting sick like my mother.”

Elizabeth frowned. “Your mother had a tumor, didn’t she? Is that what you mean?”

“Sí, a tumor, yes. In her brain. Before she died, she started to see things that were not there, to hear voices calling out to her. I think maybe that is happening to me.” Leaning over, she hugged her swollen belly and burst into tears.

Elizabeth sat back in her chair. It was possible, she supposed but there could be any number of explanations. “It’s all right, Maria. You know I’ll help you in any way I can. Tell me why you think you might have a tumor like your mother.”

Maria looked up, her hand shaking as she brushed away the wetness on her cheeks. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “In the night…when Miguel is working, sometimes I hear noises. They are very frightening sounds, creaking and groaning, moaning that sounds like the wind but the night is still. The air in the bedroom grows thick, and so heavy I can hardly breathe.” She swallowed. “And then there is the smell.”

“The smell?”

“Sí. Like roses, only so strong I think I will suffocate right there in the bed.”

“San Pico is famous for its roses. They’ve been growing them here for more than forty years. Occasionally, you are bound to smell them.” She clasped the young woman’s hand once more, felt how cold it was, felt it trembling. “You’re pregnant, Maria. When a woman is carrying a baby, sometimes her emotions get mixed up.”

“They do?”

“Yes, sometimes they do.”

Maria glanced away. “I am not sure what is happening. Sometimes…sometimes it seems real. Sometimes I think…”

“You think what, Maria?”

“That mi casa es encantada.”

Elizabeth spoke passable Spanish, had to in order to do her job. “You think your house is haunted? Surely you don’t believe that.”

Maria shook her head, fresh tears welling in her eyes. “I do not know what to believe. I only know that at night I am very afraid.”

Frightened enough that she had been unable to sleep. “But you aren’t saying that you’ve actually seen a ghost.”

She shook her head. “I have not seen it. I have only heard its voice in my head.”

“Listen to me, Maria. Your house is not haunted. There are no such things as ghosts.”

“What about Jesus? Jesus came back from the dead. He is called the Holy Spirit.”

Elizabeth leaned back in the chair. She had been doing social work since she graduated from college. She had dealt with hundreds of unusual problems, but this was a first.

“Jesus is different. He’s the Son of God and he isn’t haunting your house. Do you really believe there’s a ghost in your bedroom?”

“There is a ghost—or I am going to die like my mother.” She started to cry again.

Elizabeth rose from her chair. “No, you’re not,” she said firmly, stilling Maria’s momentary lapse into tears. “You are not going to die. But just to make sure there isn’t a tumor, I’m going to arrange for a visit to the clinic. Dr. Zumwalt can do a CAT scan. If there’s anything wrong, he’ll be able to tell.”

“We do not have the money for something like that.”

“The county will take care of it, if Dr. Zumwalt thinks the test needs to be done.”

“Will it hurt?”

“No. They just take a picture of the inside of your head.”

Maria rose from her chair. “You must promise not to tell Miguel.”

“I won’t tell your husband. This is just between you and me.” She could only imagine what Miguel Santiago would say if he found out his young wife had started to believe their house was haunted.

“We will go to the clinic tomorrow?”

“I’ll have to make the arrangements. I’ll call you as soon as I know the date and time, then I’ll pick you up and take you there myself.”

Maria managed an uneven smile. “Thank you.”

“Raul is going to ask me if you’re all right.”

“Tell him I am fine.”

Elizabeth sighed. “I’ll tell him I’m taking you in for a checkup just to be sure you’re okay.”

She nodded and flicked a glance toward the bedroom. “Tell him not to tell Miguel.”

Carson Harcourt drove up in front of the two-story stucco fourplex on Cherry Street, climbed out of his Mercedes and started up the walkway to apartment B. The area was quiet, the neighborhood one of the safest in town. He was only a few minutes late and he figured, at any rate, Elizabeth wouldn’t be ready when he got there.

Women never were.

A brisk rap on the door. He was surprised when a fully dressed Elizabeth Conners pulled it open.

Carson’s gaze ran over her floor-length dark blue sequined gown and he found himself smiling. His spur-of-the-moment invitation to the benefit was nothing short of genius. He had noticed she was pretty, of course. He’d had a hunch, once she abandoned the boring but professional business suits she always wore, she would be far more than that.

“You look gorgeous,” he said, meaning it. She was a little taller than average and slenderly built. As he assessed her curve-hugging gown, he saw that she had nice full breasts, smooth shoulders, a small waist and well-shaped hips.

I should have done this sooner, he chided himself.

“Thanks for the compliment. You look very dashing yourself, Carson.”

He smiled. He’d always looked good in a tux. The black showed off his blond hair and blue eyes, and the single-button style set off the width of his shoulders. Too bad it was still so damned hot. He’d only been out of the air-conditioned car for a couple of minutes and already he was sweating inside the collar of his white pleated shirt.

“Let’s get going. It’ll be cooler in the car.”

Elizabeth nodded and took his arm. Carson led her toward his silver Mercedes and settled her in the passenger seat. The air conditioner blasted full force the moment he turned the electronic key in the ignition. It had been a while since he’d had time for female companionship. As he glanced over at Elizabeth, he thought that maybe it was time for that to change. He would see how well they dealt together tonight.

The benefit was in full swing by the time they arrived. Carson led Elizabeth through the milling crowd, waving to a few friendly faces, heading toward the front of the room. He stopped at the no-host bar and ordered a glass of champagne for Elizabeth and a scotch-and-soda for himself. They made conversation with a few of the guests, Sam Marston, head of Teen Vision, Dr. and Mrs. Lionel Fox, one of the organizations biggest contributors, a couple of high school counselors.

“Elizabeth! I didn’t realize you would be here!” It was Gwen Petersen. She was there with her husband, Jim, district manager for Wells Fargo Bank, and apparently she was a good friend of Elizabeth’s.