Scent of Roses & Season of Strangers

by Kat Martin

  Sensing the young woman’s nervousness, Elizabeth walked up beside her and peered into the room. “I’ve got an idea. There’s a comfortable-looking chair in the corner. I’m not really sleepy yet. Why don’t I sit in here for a while, until you fall asleep? Maybe I’ll see the ghost.”

  Not much chance of that, but her presence would probably put the girl at ease enough to sleep.

  “Oh, sí, that is a very good idea. Perhaps she will come. You are sure you would not mind?”

  “Not at all.”

  Maria yawned again as she slid between the sheets. In the thin stream of moonlight slanting in through the window, Elizabeth noticed how exhausted the young woman looked. The shadows beneath her eyes seemed even more pronounced, the hollows in her cheeks sunken a little deeper. Maria closed her eyes and it didn’t take long until she was deeply asleep.

  Sitting in the chair, Elizabeth waited a while, not wanting to wake her, feeling a little bit groggy herself. She rested her head against the upholstered back and didn’t realize she had fallen asleep until an odd sound penetrated her conscious.

  It was an eerie sort of creaking, probably just the house settling a little, she figured. It came a second time, more distinctly than before, and her heart kicked up. Footsteps on the floor in the living room! Her pulse increased another notch. Someone was in the house!

  The door leading into the living room stood open. Easing out of her chair, she crept silently in that direction, wishing she had some sort of weapon. She flattened herself against the wall, then eased forward until she could peer into the other room. There was no lamp on, but enough light seeped in through the break in the curtains to see that no one was there.

  Her heart was clattering, slamming against her ribs. Maybe whoever it was had gone into the kitchen or other bedroom. She thought of waking Maria, but she was beginning to think she had only imagined the sound. Still, she needed to know for sure.

  As quietly as possible, she checked the little bathroom next to the bedroom, then made her way into the living room, crossed to the second bedroom, and opened the door. Again, the room appeared empty. She checked the closet. Nothing. Then she went into the kitchen.

  The back door was locked. The front door as well. There wasn’t a soul in the house. No one but her and Maria. She breathed a sigh of relief. It was only her imagination.

  Amazing what the power of suggestion could do!

  Feeling like a fool, she decided it was time she actually went to bed and started toward the sofa in the living room. She had taken only a couple of steps when the wind began to howl, the oddest sort of low, pain-filled moaning she had ever heard. It seeped beneath the door, seemed to slither over the windowsill. Goose bumps rose on her skin and a chill slid down her spine.

  Taking a breath to slow her heartbeat, determined not to make a fool of herself again, she walked over to the window and pulled back the curtains. The night was dark, just a sliver of moon, and not a leaf on the chinaberry tree in the yard was moving. Not a branch, not a flower in the beds beside the front porch.

  She opened the front door and looked out. The hot, dry night air crept into the living room, but there wasn’t a hint of breeze to propel it.

  Elizabeth closed the door with an unsteady hand and turned the lock, securing the place once more. The moaning had stopped. But the eerie feeling it left in the house remained. The air conditioner hummed quietly in the living room window. She turned back toward the bedroom, walked the short distance to the door.

  Maria was still asleep, lying on her back in the middle of the bed, the plain white sheet drawn up beneath her chin. It was comfortable where Elizabeth stood, but the minute she stepped through the door of the bedroom, she felt a chill so cold, so viciously freezing, her breath caught in her lungs. She gasped, began to breathe faster, trying to get enough air. She moistened her lips, which were freezing cold and rapidly turning numb.

  Dear God, what was happening?

  She started to shiver, wrapped her arms around herself as her gaze frantically scanned the room, looking for some explanation. She turned toward the bed, saw Maria moving restlessly beneath the sheet, curled now into a ball against the icy chill, her eyes twitching beneath her quivering eyelids.

  Elizabeth tried to control the fear gnawing at her insides, bit down on her trembling lip as her teeth began to chatter. Her heartbeat roared. She tried to tell herself that no one was there in the house and she was safe. But something unexplainable was happening. Something frightening.

  And she was afraid.

  For the first time, she understood why Maria had been so frightened. Understood that this wasn’t just happening in the young woman’s mind.

  The chill moved away from the bed, away from where she stood shaking next to the nightstand, but it seemed to Elizabeth that the cold remained there in the room, hovering like an invisible force somewhere near the corner.

  A fresh rush of fear slid through her. She thought again of waking Maria, but she couldn’t seem to make herself move.

  Then she noticed the smell. Thick and heavy. Sickeningly sweet. A cloying odor that only vaguely mimicked the scent of roses. It felt sticky on her skin, sticky in her throat as she breathed in the fetid air. Her chest squeezed, clamped down, and a suffocating feeling overwhelmed her.

  Her gaze shot to the bed. Maria had awakened. She was lying there on her back, her eyes wide-open, a trembling hand at her throat as she stared at Elizabeth in terror. She made a whimpering sound, and it was the catalyst Elizabeth needed to force herself to move.

  The instant she did, she felt the change. The air began to thin and she could breathe more easily. The temperature in the bedroom slowly began to return to normal. The smell disappeared as if it had never been there, leaving only the faintest trace of rose perfume. By the time she reached the bed, even that had faded.

  “Maria! Maria are you all right?”

  The girl’s eyes filled with tears. “Did…did you see her?”

  “No. I didn’t see anything, but—”

  “She was here. I know she was.”

  “Maria,” she said gently, sitting down beside her on the bed. “Something happened here tonight. I heard the noises. I felt the chill. Something is going on and I admit it was frightening, but I don’t believe it has anything to do with a ghost.”

  “I tell you she was here.”

  “Did you see her?” she asked gently.

  “No. I have only seen her once. But I could feel her. She was here. She came again to warn me.”

  Elizabeth managed a smile. “I’m glad I was here tonight. Now I understand your fears and I think at least part of what is happening is real. We just need to find out what’s going on.”

  Maria looked up at her, her face pale in a faint ray of moonlight streaming in through the part in the curtains. “What do you mean?”

  Elizabeth reached over and turned on the lamp beside the bed. The soft glow dispelled the last remnants of whatever had been in the room.

  “You live on a farm. There are animals and plants all around you. They use fertilizers in the soil and spray the air with chemicals and pesticides. Perhaps something was done to the house. Maybe they put something in the ground before the house was built. I’ll speak to Mr. Harcourt, see if he knows what it might be. We’ll figure this out, Maria. It’ll just take a little time.”

  “I want to move away. I don’t want to stay here.”

  “We’ll work this out, I promise. In the meantime, I’m going to speak to Miguel.”

  Her eyes flew wide and she opened her mouth to protest.

  “I won’t mention the ghost. I’ll just tell him what happened while I was here tonight. I’ll tell him you’re frightened and that I was frightened, too. I’ll ask him to make sure you aren’t left here alone at night.”

  “If there is something wrong with
the house, why does it not happen in the daytime?”

  Good question. “Maybe it does, but in the daytime, you’re too busy to notice. Does this happen every night or just once in a while?”

  “Just once in a while. But each night I am afraid it will happen again.”

  “But it doesn’t happen when Miguel is here?”

  “Sometimes he is here, but he does not wake up.”

  “Well, maybe he’s just too tired to notice.” Elizabeth released a breath into the now quiet house. “I suppose we should try to get some sleep.”

  Maria nodded. “Sí, I guess we should.” She stared at the rumpled white sheets on the bed. “Only I am no longer sleepy.”

  Elizabeth followed her gaze, thinking of the frightening things that had happened in the room. “Neither am I. Why don’t we see what’s on TV?”

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Elizabeth left the house early the following morning. It was Saturday. She went home and changed into shorts and Reeboks, went into her second bedroom, which served as an office and an exercise room, and climbed on the stationary bike. She then did fifty sit-ups, used the free weights, then climbed on the treadmill.

  She liked to stay in shape. Her job was mentally stressful and exercising seemed to help. The apartment complex also had a pool and she swam whenever she got the chance. As soon as she had showered, she fixed herself something to eat, then, seeing how bare the cupboards were getting, decided to do some grocery shopping.

  Later in the afternoon, she planned to speak to Miguel. She called Maria to be sure she was all right and ask what time would be good for her to stop by.

  At five o’clock, she left her apartment and headed down Highway 51. Miguel was standing at the living room window when she crossed the abandoned tracks and pulled up in the driveway, a lean, black-haired man without an ounce of extra flesh beneath his weathered, brown, suntanned skin. At twenty-nine, with his heavily lashed dark eyes and strong jaw, he was handsome. He was also the kind of man who believed he was always right, especially when the person who disagreed with him was a woman.

  “I do not understand any of this,” Miguel said once Elizabeth finished telling him her tale. “You and Maria—both of you think something is wrong with the house, but that cannot be. This is a good house. My wife is lucky to live in a house as fine as this one.”

  Elizabeth kept the smile fixed on her face. “It’s a very good house, Miguel. That’s the reason we need to find out what’s wrong with it.”

  “Nothing is wrong with it! You and my wife…I think there is something wrong with you!”

  This wasn’t going to work. She wished she had never mentioned the house. She would have been better off to approach the problem from an entirely different angle. Then again, knowing Miguel, there probably wasn’t any good way to approach the problem.

  “Maria loves this place as much as you do,” she said. “It’s just that there may be a few things that need to be fixed. Sometimes it makes noises that frighten her. She has the baby to think of, and when you aren’t home at night, she’s afraid.”

  “She is a child. It is time she grew up.”

  Damn, she was making a mess of this. “What I’m trying to say, Miguel, is that Maria feels…she feels safe when you’re here with her. She knows that you can protect her. I thought maybe you could find someone to stay with her on the nights you won’t be home until late.”

  Miguel said a word in Spanish she couldn’t quite make out and didn’t want to. In the course of her job, the Spanish she had learned in high school and college had become a second language. She couldn’t imagine working in the area without it.

  “I will take care of my wife as I always have. You do not need to worry.”

  Elizabeth forced herself to smile. “Thank you, Miguel. I knew you would understand.” Understand? The man had the understanding of a rabbit. Thank God she hadn’t mentioned Maria’s ghost.

  She left the two of them standing at the window in the living room, hoping Maria would not suffer for the attempt she had made to help. Whatever happened, she had promised the girl she would help her find out what was happening in the house and she meant to keep her word. First thing Monday morning, she would phone Carson Harcourt and ask if she could stop by and see him.

  * * *

  She called Carson from her office, but he didn’t seem the least bit pleased to hear from her.

  “I’m afraid I’m busy most of the day,” he said brusquely. “What is it you need?”

  “Look, Carson, I realize you’re angry about my having lunch with Zach, but that has nothing to do with this. I need to talk you about something that’s happening on the farm.”

  A momentary pause. “All right. I’ll be working in my study most of the afternoon.”

  “Is two o’clock okay?”

  “Fine. I’ll see you then.” He hung up the phone and Elizabeth waited for the regret to set in. It was obvious Carson wouldn’t be asking her out again. She ought to be unhappy. But the plain truth was she wasn’t attracted to Carson Harcourt and never would be. This would have happened sooner or later. It was far better that it happened now.

  She had three counseling sessions lined up that Monday morning. At nine o’clock, Geraldine Hickman and her daughter, Carol; followed an hour later by ten-year-old Nina Mendoza; then an appointment with Richard Long, a member of her rage counseling group.

  Mrs. Hickman and her daughter were there at Mrs. Hickman’s insistence, having discovered her twelve-year-old was having sex with a number of boys at school.

  “Mark paid for my ticket to the matinee,” Carol explained to her mother during the session. “How else was I supposed to repay him?”

  It made Elizabeth sick to think how little these young girls valued themselves—their bodies worth no more than a ticket to the movies.

  Nina Mendoza’s sessions were paid for by the county. The entire family went into counseling after the police were called to their home for the third time in a row. Emilio Mendoza had been arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. Later, it was discovered he had also given his youngest daughter, eight at the time, a beating severe enough for a trip to the emergency room for not eating all of the food on her plate.

  Nina was removed to foster care, but she was returned to her family now, and all of them were beginning to understand that violence didn’t have to be a way of life.

  Elizabeth’s final appointment of the morning was with a forty-two-year-old man named Richard Long. Richard was there at the court’s insistence, a local attorney who had battered his wife on so many occasions it was either get counseling or lose his license to practice law and spend time in jail.

  Richard was also ordered to attend the Thursday night group session that either she or Michael conducted, but so far, the man just seemed to be marking time. Elizabeth wondered if there was the slightest chance he would ever change.

  With the morning over, she left the office at noon, grabbed a quick sandwich for lunch, ran a couple of errands, then went out to see Carson at Harcourt Farms. The housekeeper, a young Hispanic girl, showed her in.

  “Señor Harcourt is expecting you. He is working in his study. If you will please follow me.”

  She was pretty, Elizabeth thought, perhaps twenty-one or two, with a curvy figure that even her plain black slacks and white blouse couldn’t hide. She smiled as they reached the study then silently slipped away.

  Working at his desk, Carson stood up as Elizabeth walked into the room.

  “Hello, Elizabeth.”

  “Hello, Carson. Thank you for seeing me.”

  “Have a seat. What can I do for you?”

  Letting his abrupt manner set the tone, she walked over to the chair next to his rolltop desk and sat down while Carson returned to his seat.

  “I spent Friday n
ight with Maria Santiago. Something odd is happening in the Santiago house. I was hoping you might be able to help me figure out what it is.”

  For the next twenty minutes, she explained about the odd happenings in the house and her suspicion that something was wrong with the construction or the pipes or maybe the ground underneath.

  “This is a farm, after all,” she said. “Maybe the soil was polluted by something before the house was built. That might account for the smell, at least. What I’d like to do, if you don’t mind, is bring in someone to take a look at the place, see what we might be able to discover.”

  Carson rose from his chair, giving him the advantage. She wanted to stand up, too, but forced herself to remain in her seat.

  “Actually, I do mind. I mind a great deal. Miguel Santiago is the youngest overseer on the farm. He was given that job ahead of several other well-qualified workers. The house you’re discussing is only four years old and there is absolutely nothing wrong with it.”

  “I spent a night in that house, Carson. Something was definitely wrong.”

  “The girl is young. She has a vivid imagination. Whatever she told you influenced what you thought happened that night. That’s all there is to it.”

  She held on to her temper, knowing it would only make things worse if she got angry. “Then perhaps there’s another solution.”

  “And that would be…?”

  “Maybe there’s somewhere else they could live. Another house in the complex, or somewhere not too far away.”

  His face began to redden. “There are four overseers’ houses in the compound and four overseers working on the farm. All of the houses are occupied and I am not about to rent a place somewhere else because Santiago’s wife is pregnant and imagining things. Besides, I want my foremen here, close by if they’re needed.”

  It was a good argument. A twelve-thousand acre farm required good management. He needed his foremen nearby to handle the numerous problems that came up. Still, she hadn’t been imagining things that night at the Santiago house. And she was beginning to understand Maria’s frustration at not being believed.