Black Rose - NRoberts - G2 Black Rose

“No, that’s okay. I can’t stay. I’ve got a date.”

“Then I’ll let you go.”

“With my son,” he added. “Pizza and ESPN. We try to fit one in every week.”

“That’s nice. For both of you.”

“It is. Listen, I’ve got some other things to deal with and some legwork I’d like to get in. But I’ll be back on Thursday afternoon, work through the evening, if that’s all right with you.”

“Thursday’s New Year’s Eve.”

“Is it?” As if baffled, he looked down at his watch. “My days get turned around on me during holidays. I suppose you’re having people over.”

“Actually, no.”

“Then, if you’re going out, maybe you wouldn’t mind if I worked.”

“I’m not going out. I’m going to take care of the baby, Hayley’s Lily. I’m scooting her out to a party, and Stella and her boys are going to have a little family party of their own at Logan’s house.”

“If you weren’t asked to a dozen parties, and didn’t have twice that many men after you for a New Year’s Eve date, I’ll eat those newspaper clippings.”

“Your numbers might be somewhat exaggerated, but the point is, I declined the parties, and the dates. I like staying home.”

“Am I going to be in your way if I work in here?”

She angled her head. “I imagine you were asked to your share of parties, and that there were a number of women eager to have you for their date.”

“I stay in on New Year’s. A tradition of mine.”

“Then you won’t be in my way. If the baby’s not restless, we can take part of the evening to start on that interview.”

“Perfect.”

“All right, then. I’ve been busy,” she said after a moment. “The house full over Christmas, all my sons home. And those are only part of the reason I haven’t brought this up before.”

“Brought what up?”

“A couple of weeks ago, Amelia left me a message.”

“A couple of weeks ago?”

“I said I’d been busy.” Irritation edged into her voice. “And besides that, I didn’t want to think about it through the holidays. I don’t see my boys very often, and there were a lot of things I wanted to get done before they got here.”

He said nothing, simply dug out his tape recorder, pushed it closer to her, switched it on. “Tell me.”

Irritation deepened, digging a line between those dark, expressive eyebrows. “She said: Men lie. ”

“That’s it?”

“Yes, that’s it. She wrote it on a mirror.”

“What mirror? Did you take a picture of it?”

“No, I didn’t take a picture.” And she could, privately, kick herself for that later. “I don’t know what difference it makes what mirror. The bathroom mirror. I’d just gotten out of the shower. A hot one. The mirror was steamy, and the message was written on it through the steam.”

“Written or printed?”

“Ah, printed, with an exclamation point at the end. Like this.” She picked up one of his pens, demonstrated. “Since it wasn’t threatening or earth-shattering information, I figured it could wait.”

“Next time don’t—figure it can wait. What had you been doing before you . . .” Don’t think about her naked in the shower, he ordered himself. “Before you went up to shower?”

“As a matter of fact, I’d been out in the garden talking to you.”

“To me.”

“Yes, that day you came by and I was mulching up branches.”

“Right after your holiday party,” he said, making notes. “I asked you out to dinner.”

“You mentioned something about—”

“No, no, I asked you out socially.” In his excitement, he came around the table, sat on it so they were closer to eye level. “Next thing you know, she’s telling you men lie. Fascinating. She was warning you away from me.”

“Since I’m not heading in your direction, there’s hardly any reason to warn me away.”

“It doesn’t seem to bother her that I’m working here.” He took off his glasses, tossed them on the table. “I’ve been waiting, actually hoping for some sort of sighting or confrontation, something. But she hasn’t bothered about me, so far. Then I make a personal overture, and she leaves you a message. She ever leave you one before?”

“No.”

“Hmm.” But he caught something flicker over her face. “What? You thought of something.”

“Just that it might be a little odd. I saw her recently right after I’d taken a long, hot bath. Shower, bath. Strange.”

Don’t think of her naked in the tub. “What had you been doing before the bath?”

“Nothing. Some work, that’s all.”

“All right. What were you thinking while you were in the tub?”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything. It was the night that I did that insane bout of Christmas shopping. I was relaxing.”

“You’d been with me that day, too.”

“Your ego looks a little heavy, Mitch. Need any help with it?”

“Facts are facts. Anyway, she might have been interested, or upset, by what you were thinking. If she could get into Stella’s dreams,” he said when she started to brush that aside, “why couldn’t she get into your waking thoughts?”

“I don’t like that idea. I don’t like it at all.”

“Neither would I, but it’s something to consider. I’m looking at this project from two ends, Roz. From what’s happening now, and why, to what happened then, and why. Who and why and what. It’s all of a piece. And that’s the job you hired me to do. You have to let me know when something happens. And not a couple weeks after the fact.”

“All right. Next time she wakes me up at three in the morning, I’ll give you a call.”

He smiled. “Don’t like taking orders, do you? Much too used to giving them. That’s all right. I can’t blame you, so why don’t I just ask, politely, if I could take a look at your bathroom.”

“Not only does that seem downright silly at this point, but aren’t you supposed to be meeting your son?”

“Josh? Why? Oh, hell, I forgot. I’ve got to go.” He glanced back at the table. “I’m going to just leave this—do me a favor and don’t tidy it up.”

“I’m not obsessed with tidy.”

“Thank God.” He grabbed his jacket, remembered his reading glasses. “I’ll be back Thursday. Let me know if anything happens before then.”

He hurried toward the door, then stopped and turned. “Rosalind, I have to say, you were a lovely bud at seventeen, but the full bloom? It’s spectacular.”

She gave a half laugh and leaned back on the table herself when she was alone. Idly she studied her ancient boots, then her baggy work pants, currently smeared with dirt and streaks of drying concrete. She figured the flannel shirt she was wearing over a ragged tee was old enough to have a driver’s license.

Men lie, she thought, but occasionally, it was nice to hear.

SEVEN

WITH THE NURSERYclosing early for the holiday, Roz earmarked the time to deal with her own houseplants. She had several that needed repotting or dividing, and a few she wanted to propagate for gifts.

With the weather crisp and clear outside, she settled into the humid warmth of her personal greenhouse. She worked with one of her favorites, an enormous African violet that had come from a plantlet her grandmother had given her more than thirty years before. As Norah Jones’s bluesy voice surrounded her, she carefully selected a half dozen new leaves, taking them with their stalks for cuttings. For now, she used a stockpot, sliding the stems in around the edges. In a month they would have roots, and other plantlets would form. Then she would plant them individually in the pale green pots she’d set aside.