Lovegame(58)

“It can’t be. I’ve never—” I freeze. It can’t be, but it is. It is my number. And not my public cell, either, the one a lot of people know the number to. No, this is my private one. The one only a handful of people even know about and that I use only to conduct personal business.

Jensen must be able to see the truth on my face, because he slides his phone back in his pocket. “Look,” he says quietly, gesturing to the south side of the house. “I’m really sorry if there’s been some mistake. Obviously, we won’t continue the rest of the job. But I can’t put this part of the yard back the way it was. The plants are already dead. I mean, I can come back tomorrow and rip out the belladonna, and replant with similar flowers, but they’ll take some time to grow.”

“I know.” God, do I know. I don’t even want to think about what Miguel is going to say when he sees this disaster. He’s spent over twenty years taking care of this garden like it was one of his own children.

I walk the few steps to the beginning of one of the winding stone paths my father had had laid throughout the garden when I was a child. At one time, this particular path had been lined with every size and color and kind of rose imaginable—they were my favorite flowers when I was young and my father had indulged my affinity for them. He’d even let me pick out which colors I wanted and where I wanted them to be placed along the path.

I’d wander the rose path, as we called it, almost every day. Partly to smell the roses and partly because it led directly to a large, wedding cake white gazebo that I had—for many years—considered my own personal haven. I can’t begin to guess how many afternoons I whiled away in that gazebo, playing Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty or my personal favorite, Mulan.

The gazebo is gone now, destroyed by my father not long after everything went bad. I never would have asked him to do that. Just like I would never have had the gardens demolished, no matter how uncomfortable they make me.

Except it seems very much like I did just that.

My gut churns, bile burning the back of my throat, and for a second I’m deathly afraid that I’m going to be sick right here in front of this man and his crew. Only the fact that I haven’t managed to choke anything down but that bite of apple today keeps my stomach from rebelling completely.

“Miss Romero.”

I can barely hear Jensen over the pounding of my heart, the roaring in my ears. Through the haze of memories too long ignored.

But he says my name again, more forcefully this time, and finally I turn to him. “How much do I owe you for this?” I call on every ounce of acting ability I have to keep my voice steady and my hands from shaking. “If you come in the house, I’ll write you a check.”

“You’ve already paid for half the work up front. The deposit will cover everything that we did today, and will more than likely cover our coming back tomorrow and tearing out the belladonna—”

“Don’t bother,” I tell him. “I’ll have the estate’s full-time gardener take care of things from here.”

Jensen looks relieved not to have to deal with my craziness anymore. “If that’s what you’d like, Miss Romero.”

“It is. Thank you.”

He nods, then backs away a few more steps. “We’ll just finish cleaning up and get out of your hair.”

He turns away, but a thought occurs to me. “Wait, please,” I call out to his retreating back. “I’m sorry to be a nuisance, but can I ask where the money came from? How did I pay you?”

“By credit card.” Again he reaches for his phone, taps at it a few times. “An American Express ending in 5406?” He says it like it’s a question, but we both know it’s not.

My card, then. My card, my phone number, my private gate code, my voice. I can’t figure it out, but then, at this point I’m not sure there is anything left to figure out. If it talks like a duck and walks like a duck…

Somehow I manage to keep it together long enough to thank him and watch him walk away. I even stand out there as they haul the last of the dead plants away. But the moment Jensen and his crew pack up the last shovel and start back toward the driveway, the whole terrible mess comes crashing down on me.

This isn’t happening, I tell myself. This can’t be happening. There’s no way that I did all the work to arrange this destruction and then just forgot it. No way I turned the bathtub on in my house and then just blithely wandered down to the beach. I’m not forgetful. More important, I’m not insane.

And yet, here I am, standing on the edge of this nightmare of a garden wondering how I got here. How it all came down to this.

I don’t understand.

I just don’t understand.

Without making a conscious choice to do it, I find myself walking further into the destroyed gardens. My head is spinning, my stomach rolling, and I don’t stop until I’m surrounded on all sides by the deadly nightshade plants. By the belladonna.

They’re beautiful. Captivating. Definitely enticing. Not harmless, with their black berries and misshapen flowers, but that doesn’t matter. Not when they look so damn seductive.

Just like the woman who so famously used them to kill.

It’s been months since I played her, months since I had to think like she thought and act like she acted. And still she haunts me. Still I can feel her inside of me, knocking me off center. Twisting me up.