Trespassing(55)

Did I imagine it?

The place is deadly silent. Pink and blue and purple blossoms ripple in the breeze, like waves on the sea. Bobbing somewhere out there, however, is a stalker, artfully staying out of sight. Either in the midst of the blooms or hiding away in my subconscious, waiting to drive me completely insane.

I listen hard but hear nothing.

We’re too far from Duval Street to be bothered by the hubbub of the tourists; we’re too far from the coast to hear the waves breaking on the sand. We’re isolated here, in the gardens of a place someone—Micah, maybe?—aptly named Goddess Island.

I draw in a slow breath but can’t detect the cigarette smoke. Maybe it was my imagination, or maybe I am slowly slipping into the same sort of world in which my mother lived out the last of her days.

Seeing things that aren’t there.

Remembering things vastly different than they happened.

Even the image of Micah is dissipating with every passing hour. I thought he was a golden god of a man. Dedicated to his daughter and me. Beautiful. Caring. Ambitious.

But he was deceitful and manipulative.

How could a sane person have been so wrong about so many things? How could I have been so blind?

All the times I considered worst-case scenarios, I never assumed I’d someday find myself in this predicament.

Then, from out of nowhere, I hear the tinkling tune of a music box.

I make a break for the stairs—my daughter is asleep up there—and take them two at a time, the music box growing in crescendo.

My mother’s last hours flash in my mind: my mother and her jewels; the bald spot at her right temple and the blood blooming like tiny buds at her scalp where she habitually ripped hair from the follicles; the blue table; the filthy tank top hanging off her bony frame; the knife in her hand . . .

I skid into the master bedroom, heart beating like mad, only to find no sign of my kid. My ears cloud with the eerie sound of the music. “Ellie-Belle!” I tear her blanket from the bed to confirm she’s not hidden beneath it. “Elizabella!”

No, no, no . . .

Flashes of the cigarette glowing on my lawn, on the fairway back home, haunt me as I whip through the room. I peek into the en suite bathroom, in the shower, in the compartmentalized toilet room. I even check in the cabinets under the sinks.

It seems as if the music surrounds me, as if it could be coming through the air vents or echoing off the walls. I can’t pinpoint where it’s originating, but if I can find the music box, I suspect I’ll find my daughter.

I open the closet door to see empty racks and rods . . . but no headstrong three-year-old. “Bella!”

The sound of her laughter is an instant relief.

I follow the resounding joy of her giggling down the travertine-tiled hallway to a dark room at the far end, facing out over the back lawn. She’s sitting in the center of the floor, on a round, pink area rug, the texture of which resembles cotton candy. The music box plinks out its song; the pink ballerina in some dancer’s pose spins around merrily.

“That’s funny, Nini! What else happened?”

“Bella!”

She jumps when I turn on the light. “Mommy!”

“Bella, what are you doing in here?”

Her eyebrows come together in a frown. “I’m playing with Nini.”

“It’s bedtime,” I remind her. “And when I put you to bed in one room, you need to stay in one room, so Mommy doesn’t worry.”

“Nini said this is my room.”

“She did, huh?” I crouch down to her level, then sit and pull her into my lap. “Do you like this room?”

“Uh-huh!” She nods enthusiastically.

“This is Nini’s room?”

“My room. Nini says.” A canopy bed, full size, is draped with pink and pale-purple tulle, and an enormous dollhouse is atop a double dresser situated on the opposite wall. In an alcove by the window, its wooden seat tethered to the ceiling with thick, knobby ropes, is an honest-to-goodness swing.

A swing.

In a little girl’s bedroom.

Just like Micah suggested we do at the Shadowlands.

“My room, my room, my room.”

Of course Elizabella likes this room. It’s everything a little girl could dream of. It’s her favorite colors: pink and purple. And . . .

I zero in on a framed drawing hanging on the wall near a doorway to a shared bathroom. The picture is of a girl with long brown hair, big brown eyes, strawberry ice-cream cone—Bella’s favorite—in hand. It’s the work of a child older than Bella, a child who has better control of pencil grip and fine motor skills. Is this caricature of my daughter?

Nini must be an artist.

She is.

A chill darts up my spine. “Let’s . . . Bella, let’s look at the other rooms. You can pick whichever room you’d like.”

“This room.” She points to the floor.

“Okay, but let’s look at the others, okay?” I scoop her up.

A moment before I carry her toward the attached bath, shared with the room opposite, I opt to open the closet door. A few sundresses—four, now that I count them—hang from the rod. I maneuver a hanger to look at the tag. Size 3T. Bella’s just growing out of 3T into the next size up, but I wonder . . . could these dresses have been stocked here for my daughter to wear?