The Bluebonnet Betrayal

by Marty Wingate

  “Careful,” Rosette said. “Let’s not make too much of a mess—we don’t want to miss something.”

  “We don’t want to rile Chiv if we can help it.”

  They removed a three-foot length of top stones, keeping them in the same order, and began on the second layer and then a third.

  “She knew just the way to settle each one, didn’t she?” Pru asked.

  Rosette took hold of a long, heavy stone, picking it up with both hands and leveraging it against her hips to lower it to the ground. And there it was—not a gold locket, not a girl’s diary, but something just as precious. Nestled into a small hollow on top of a stone and wrapped in plastic—a flash drive.

  “Although Lupinus texensis is only one of several species of lupines that are native to Texas, it is the bluebonnet of our hearts.”

  The President Speaks, from Austin Rocks! the e-newsletter of the Austin Rock Garden Society

  Chapter 39

  At first, neither moved. “Do you think it’s all right if we touch it?” Rosette asked. “What about fingerprints?”

  “Only Twyla’s—if Forde had found this, he wouldn’t’ve left it here.”

  Pru reached for it, but flinched as a raucous squawking erupted from the plane trees—the parakeets, getting ready to roost for the night. She scanned the green canopy and shrubs below, half afraid she’d see a flash of blue. Rosette smiled, but a cold sweat broke out on Pru’s arm as she took and pulled open the plastic bag.

  “Look, we should probably tell the police now,” Pru said.

  “You’ve already told Christopher,” Rosette pointed out. “It isn’t as if we’re stealing it—but I’m going to take a look before anybody else gets his hands on it.” She snatched the flash drive and went back in the shed.

  Pru followed and watched as Rosette retrieved her laptop, inserted the drive, and opened it. A long list of files appeared on the screen.

  “It looks like she’s kept all their email correspondence—and here are his papers and proposals, I think.”

  They dropped their bags in a corner and settled on the floor of the shed. Pru pulled the door closed. She’d glanced at the time—the grounds must be closing soon, and she wanted to avoid any security detail sweeping through to make sure everyone had vacated. She and Rosette would vacate, of course they would—but the temptation to see what evidence they had and get answers to their many questions was too much for either of them to resist.

  The computer screen offered the only light they needed. Rosette scanned Forde’s research and gave Pru an annotated version as she went—it appeared sound, she said, but dangerous, and she pointed out he hadn’t actually carried through on the gene splicing, it was only theory. They read the business proposal from Forde’s company, BlueGreen Enterprises—the proposal Damien had yet to see; invertase suppression was mentioned, but not its consequences. Rosette noted that the engineered bluebonnets would not be any “penny-a-pack” seeds, but quite pricey.

  They looked through the email exchange. It started so well—Twyla, happy to help a former student, and Forde, proud that his teacher would consider him worthy of even a mention to Damien Woodford, whose family owned such a prominent, international company. Plans for the Chelsea garden, a recommendation to GlobalSynergy. After that, once Twyla had seen his research premise, she had started to ask questions about the process and its effect on the landscape. And Forde had begun to sidestep the issue.

  “Look,” Rosette said. It was an email from Twyla dated the day before she died.

  Dear Forde,

  You have a great capacity for science—I knew that the first day you sat down in my chemistry class. It was a delight to teach you. And to watch as you progressed by leaps and bounds in your knowledge. But what I didn’t teach you—and I fault myself for this—is the responsibility that comes with great ability. We should never do something just because we can or only for gain if it in any way harms others—there must be some accounting. You say that your process will result in higher biofuel production; that’s an admirable goal. But you have not weighed this goal against the inevitable effects. And you have assumed too much if you think that you will get rich by selling the rights to a process if that process would destroy an ecosystem. I want you to think of the ramifications of starving entire populations of pollinating insects. Without those pollinators, other native flora would not set fruit and seed. This would affect the populations of birds and other animals. It would cause a further decline in native trees and shrubs, which would in turn put an entire watershed at risk. This is what you need to think about—the degradation of a vast landscape. The goal is not to leave BlueGreen and GlobalSynergy the sole source of the patented seed and so make billions—the goal is to maintain a livable earth.

  I arrive in England tomorrow. We’ll meet and talk—until then, I won’t mention this to Damien or anyone else. But you must ’fess up. If you don’t tell Damien, I will. It’s your decision.

  Best regards,

  Twyla

  “She was always too trusting.” Rosette’s voice was choked with tears. “She would never have seen him for the little money-grubbing murderer he is.”

  Pru put an arm around Rosette while wiping her own tears away with the back of a hand. “But it was just her way, wasn’t it—to think the best of everyone?”

  “Damien would never have agreed to buy that company,” Rosette said, blowing her nose on her hanky.

  “Of course he wouldn’t’ve!”

  “She kept this copy of Forde’s work and their correspondence for insurance. If he’d agreed to back off, she never would’ve told what he wanted to do. He will pay for what he’s done.”

  Pru nodded but took the unwelcome role of the voice of reason. “Remember, Rosette,” she said quietly, “I know this looks really bad, but we still don’t know for sure that it was Forde who killed Twyla.”

  Rosette’s eyes burned with a fervor. “I know.”

  So do I—I feel it. “All right, look—let’s go back to the house and I’ll phone Christopher. No need for that deception any longer. And I’ll call French, too.” Rosette closed her laptop, and they were in the dark. “How long have we been in here? I hadn’t realized the time. I’ll go find one of the security guys—they’ll have to unlock the gates for us. With my luck, Arthur Nottle will be lurking about and give me a talking-to for being on-site after hours. Do you want to come along?”

  “No, I’ll wait here—you come back and get me.” Rosette opened her laptop again to Twyla’s last letter.

  “She learned all that from you, Rosette. The importance of the hill country.”

  “Didn’t she do a good job explaining it? Why didn’t he listen?”

  —

  Twilight when Pru walked out of the shed—they must’ve been reading through Twyla’s proof for nearly two hours. A breeze touched her face as she lifted it to the sky—it was the gloaming, that time when the sun had gone down but before the sky was completely dark. The glow from Rosette’s computer screen escaped from the shed, and so Pru pushed the door closed and took a deep breath of the evening air—and sneezed. The plane trees, still at work.

  They had done it—found him out. Twyla could rest now, be at peace. It was how Pru felt, peaceful. In the light of a city that’s never completely dark, she walked over to the Bull Ring gate—the press caravan looked closed up and no one stood to attention at the locked wrought-iron entrance. This wasn’t Buckingham Palace, after all. Pru walked farther down the roadway—security lights were set at corners, but much of the grounds were dimming quickly as twilight approached. There must be security people, but she saw no one and thought perhaps they were on the far side of where she wanted them. She retraced her steps but stopped at the Great Pavilion, its ghostly white form looming out of the darkness, eerie and beautiful like a giant alien that had landed lightly on earth. Had move-in started for the nurseries? She walked to the great wide entry and gazed into the darkness—she could sniff out the green growth and thought she cau
ght a scent of tea roses.

  Pru smiled at their predicament. Fancy getting locked in at the Chelsea Flower Show—it would be a gardener’s dream. And it’s a lovely time of day to be here, Pru thought—the show administration should consider offering late-evening tours. They could hold candlelight dinners and dancing down in Ranelagh Gardens near the bandstand. What a lovely—

  The sound of a wooden door slamming in the distance brought her back to the moment. No dreaming now, she needed to find a security patrol or they would have to call someone. Did she have Arthur Nottle’s number in her phone? Ha—wouldn’t he love getting that call? She would stop off and collect Rosette and they’d go back up to the London gate. Surely someone would be there to let them out.

  She circled round to the back of the shed—no light escaped from under the door.

  “Rosette?” Pru called as she pulled it open. Dark within.

  No Rosette. Perhaps she had misunderstood—she thought she was to meet Pru at the London gate. Yes, that must be it. Pru took a step in to retrieve her bag and in doing so, kicked some small object across the floor. She dropped to her knees and felt round, coming up with one of her spare hair clips. Her hand made a wider sweep; other small objects went skittering. She laid her hand on something soft—leather. Her little purse; she could feel the coins inside. Only then did it occur to her that the contents of her vast canvas bag were strewn across the floor. “Rosette?” she called louder, her voice in her throat.

  A cry came from outside. Pru flew out of the shed and stopped, hand on the door, and strained to hear. A fox? London foxes screeched like a person being torn limb from limb—it was a disconcerting sound to hear in the night. It might be a fox, she told herself. The next cry was muffled, but Pru knew the direction—it came from down in Ranelagh Gardens—and she knew a fox would never call out her name.

  “The President shall have the power to veto any measure which conflicts with the mission and goals of the Society.”

  Article 3, Section 6.2, bylaws of the Austin Rock Garden Society

  Chapter 40

  She ran out and past “Welcome to Oz,” taking the quickest way down into the meadow and keeping to the paved pathway, where corner lampposts cast pools of light on the ground.

  Pru opened her mouth to shout Rosette’s name again. Instead, she stopped and listened. If Rosette was in trouble, would she be able to answer? Was it trouble? Rosette could’ve struck out and become lost on the way to the gate, Pru thought, her mind seeking out the least fearful possibility. But rationalizing didn’t work—her stomach tightened and her heart thumped in her chest. Breathe. Find Rosette.

  A breeze blew through the grounds—still a warm breeze, even at this time of the evening. Leaves rustled, but across the wide picnic area came a thrashing of foliage far beyond what the wind could do. Pru moved toward the sound, ending up near the bandstand. She circled cautiously, glancing under the stage floor to open ground, but found nothing. That’s it, she decided, she would run for help—run to the gate.

  But there—a garbled scream came from the other direction and drew her away from the gate. It had come from beyond the string of small garden displays—near the wrought-iron railing that ran along Chelsea Bridge Road—and had been almost drowned out by the traffic. Pru followed the scream, and as she approached, she heard a sneeze—a loud, long sneeze. Forde.

  She called out “Rosette!” when she should’ve kept quiet. Instead, she had announced her arrival, giving him the advantage. When Pru broke through the holly planted just inside the railing, she found him with one arm round Rosette, her arms pinned to her sides. He held a pair of secateurs to her throat, the sharp points of the hand pruners pressing in.

  Pru recoiled and put her hands up. “Forde, what is this? What are you doing?”

  “Don’t play the innocent, Pru, not any longer.” He sneezed again, and she saw Rosette flinch. A dark drop appeared on her neck where the secateurs had pierced her skin. Forde sniffed loudly, a snorkeling sound—a trail of mucus from his nose to his lips glistening. “You’ve been playing cat and mouse with me—you’ve known all along, haven’t you?”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pru said, reaching out a hand but not daring to take a step closer. “Rosette, are you all right?”

  Even in the dim light, Rosette’s skin stood out so pale as to be luminous. She gave the tiniest of nods, but her eyes were wide with fear, and when Forde adjusted his grip on her, pulling her tighter and causing her to shift her feet, she whimpered. Pru looked down and saw that she stood on one foot only—the other jutted out at an awkward angle. And there, off to the side, lay Rosette’s open laptop—with a rock the size of a soccer ball sunk into its keyboard.

  “Where’s my phone, Forde?”

  “I took your mobile, Pru,” Forde said, nodding, as if proud of himself. “Yes, and Rosette’s, too. And Ms. Woodford’s, of course. I’m a collector of mobiles, it seems. They are all turned off—no one can find you.”

  Pru sincerely hoped that wasn’t true—someone would miss them and think where to look. But when? “Let Rosette go, Forde—you’re being ridiculous. We’re in a public place, what do you think you can do?” In a deserted public place, Pru thought, her heart sinking, with road traffic loud enough that no one can hear.

  “It’s a flash drive,” Forde said. “I arrived here before you, and I watched and waited. Just like that evening when you met her—you almost saw me then, didn’t you? Tonight, I saw you find it. Ms. Woodford didn’t tell me where she’d kept a copy of all my work and our emails. I tried to make her tell me, but she said that I wouldn’t get that copy and I should give up. I’m not giving up, as you can see.”

  “You can’t have it, Forde,” Pru said.

  “I can have it! I would already have it, but she heard me coming.” Forde shook Rosette, who grimaced. “Where is it? Did she hand it off to you and you’ve hidden it? It wasn’t in your bag. Give it to me, Pru—it’s no business of yours, and you shouldn’t’ve gone around blethering on about it for all the world to hear.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You talk to dogs!” Forde shouted.

  “I what?” For a moment, Pru thought that Forde’s delusions had taken over his entire mind. “So that was you following me on the Common. When I was with Boris. I saw your sweatshirt.”

  “My mistake,” Forde whispered fiercely. “Too easy to identify, wasn’t it? But I didn’t wear it this afternoon, and I heard you reading what I wrote for the leaflet. You can’t stop progress. My proprietary process will revolutionize—” Caught up as he was in his proprietary process, Forde must’ve forgotten his situation and pointed the secateurs at Pru for emphasis.

  He got no further. Rosette bent forward with a jerk and broke Forde’s hold round her. She followed with a sharp elbow to his stomach. He clutched at the pain and Rosette lurched away, but got only two steps before she cried out and collapsed. Forde jumped her, and Pru jumped him, trying to knock him away.

  “Stop this!” she shouted, grabbing at his arms. But he was heavier than she and used his weight to throw himself backward. He landed on her hard, knocking the wind cruelly out of her. As she gasped for air, he flipped her over and put a knee on her back.

  “All right, all right,” she managed to spit out. “Yes, I’ve got the flash drive. In the shed.”

  “No,” Forde said, although a note of doubt crept into his voice. “I turned out your bag. But then Rosette slipped out with her computer and I had to come after her—too bad she stumbled as she tried to run off, isn’t it, Rosette?” Rosette lay nearby, grunting as she struggled to sit up. “Ms. Woodford promised there was only the one last copy of our communications—she shouldn’t’ve said that, but she was always a trusting sort. More’s the pity for her.”

  Pru strained her neck to keep her face out of the grass. “She believed you would do the right thing.”

  This seemed to give Forde pause, although he didn’t let up on Pru—his full wei
ght pressed hard on her back, making it difficult for her to take a breath.

  “I thought she would appreciate my work,” he said, “my breakthrough. I looked for her approval.”

  “You wanted her blessing to let you destroy a natural landscape?” Rosette asked.

  “It’s a minor side effect!” Forde shouted. “Who cares about the bloody bees except for you gardeners?” He took a noisy breath and continued more quietly. “She said she wanted to meet here that evening, and so I came—I thought she would reconsider. But she wouldn’t. And she wouldn’t stop talking, telling me how wrong it was.” His voice dropped to a whine. “She wouldn’t stop talking, and with every second that passed, I could see my business merger falling apart. I had to make her be quiet, and so I…It was an accident.”

  “Accident?” Pru wheezed. “You choked her to death by accident and then dumped a load of rocks on her—was that an accident, too?”

  “Look at all the people who could run that machine,” Forde said. “It could’ve been any one of them. It could’ve been Iris—look now, Pru, she almost killed you herself.”

  “She did not almost kill me,” Pru said.

  “And if all that wasn’t bad enough, Mr. MacWeeks changes the flowers—it has to be bluebonnets in the garden, so that everyone will see what I’ve accomplished. Doesn’t anyone understand that?”

  “You were the one who attacked Roddy behind the shed?” Pru asked.

  “You’re always in my way, Pru—you got in my way then, too, didn’t you?”

  With the back of a hand, Rosette wiped away the trickle of blood, smearing it across her neck. She had pulled herself to a sitting position, keeping her injured leg out straight. She looked at Pru, then cut her eyes at Forde, who paid no attention. Rosette scooted backward a few inches, winced, and nodded to Pru.