Red Lily

skirted around to the side. She took Hayley’s face in her hand, kissed her cheek. “You get some rest.”
    Harper reached out, took Roz’s hand for a moment. “Thanks, Mama.”
    “You need anything, you call.”
    “She didn’t have anyone to take care of her,” Hayley said quietly when the door closed behind Roz. “No one to care about her.”

    “Who did she care about? Who did she care for? Obsession isn’t caring,” he added before Hayley could speak. He eased away to get up, pour the tea. “What was done to her sucked big-time. No argument, no debate. But you know what? There aren’t any heroes in her sad story.”
    “There should be. There should always be heroes. But no.” She took the tea. “She wasn’t heroic. Not even tragic, like Juliet. She’s just sad. And bitter.”
    “Calculating,” he added. “And crazy.”
    “That, too. She wouldn’t have understood you. I think I know her well enough now to be sure of that. She wouldn’t have understood your heart, or your honesty. That’s sad, too.”
    He walked to the doors. He was getting the soaker he’d wished for and could stand there, watch the earth drink in the rain.
    “She was always sad.” He reached inside, beyond his anger and found the pity. “I could see it even when I was a kid, and she’d be in my room, singing. Sad and lost. Still I felt safe with her, the way you do when you’re with someone you know cares about you. She cared, on some level, for me, for my brothers. I guess that has to count for something.”
    “She still cares, I feel that. She just gets confused. Harper, I can’t remember.”
    She lowered the cup, and emotion swam into her eyes. “Not like I could the other times it happened. I could see, at least a part of me could. I don’t know how to explain. But this time, it’s mixed up, and I can’t see. Not all of it. Why was she going into the ballroom? What did she do there?”
    He wanted to tell her to relax, not to think. But how could she? Instead he came back, sat by her. “You went tothe carriage house. You must have. The door was open, and I could see where you’d walked back to the kitchen. The floor was wet.”
    “That’s where she went that night, the night she died here. She had to have died here that night. Nothing else makes sense. We saw her that time, you and me. Standing out on the terrace, wet and muddy. She had a rope.”
    “There could’ve been rope in the carriage house. Probably was.”
    “Why would she need a rope to get the baby? To tie up the nursemaid?”
    “I don’t think that’s why she wanted rope.”
    “She had that sickle thing, too.” Bright and gleaming, she remembered. Sharp. “Maybe she was going to kill anyone who tried to stop her. But the rope. What would she do with rope besides tie somebody up?”
    Her eyes widened and she set the cup down with a rattle when she read the look in his eyes.
    “Oh my God. To kill herself? To hang herself, is that what you’re thinking? But why? Why would she come all the way out here? Why would she drag herself through the rain, and hang herself in the ballroom?”
    “The nursery was on the third floor back then.”
    What little color had come back into her cheeks drained again. “The nursery.”
    No, she thought as the image played in her mind, she might never be truly warm again.
    O N HER DAYS off, Hayley was used to the hours flying by. The time was so crowded with chores—shopping, laundry, organizing what had gotten disorganized during workdays, caring for Lily and the myriadtasks that turned up—she barely remembered what it was like to have what those who didn’t have full-time jobs and a toddler called free time.
    Who knew she liked it that way?
    Finding herself with time on her hands left her feeling broody and restless. But when the boss ordered you to take the day off, there was no arguing. At least not when the boss was Rosalind Harper.
    She’d been banished to Stella’s house for the day without even Lily as a distraction. She’d been told to rest, and she’d tried. Really she had. But her usual delight in reading didn’t satisfy her; the stack of DVDs Stella had handed her didn’t entertain, and the quiet, empty house kept her counting the minutes rather than lulling her into a nap.
    She passed some of the time roaming the rooms, rooms she’d helped paint. Stella and Logan had turned it into a home, mixing Stella’s flair for detail and style with Logan’s sense of space. And the boys,