Scent Of Roses

“Will you be seeing your sister tonight? I know how excited she’ll be.”

Instead of a smile, Raul frowned. “I will stop by and tell her the news.” He glanced in her direction. “I am worried about her.”

“Why? She isn’t having trouble with her pregnancy, I hope?” Though Maria was just nineteen, this was her second pregnancy. Last year, she had suffered a miscarriage. Elizabeth knew how much this baby meant to her and Miguel.

“It isn’t the baby. It is something else. Maria won’t say what.” His black eyes came to rest on her face. “Maybe you could talk to her. If you did, maybe she would tell you what is wrong.”

She didn’t like the sound of that. Though Maria’s husband was a stereotypical macho Hispanic, convinced the man was the undisputed head of the family, the couple seemed happy. She hoped they weren’t having marital problems.

“I’d be glad to talk to her, Raul. Tell her to call me at the office and we’ll set up a time.”

“I will tell her. But I do not think she will call.” Raul said no more.

As Elizabeth slid behind the wheel of the car, hissing at the heat of the red leather seat against her skin, she cast a last glance at the barn under construction. Only two sides of the building had been framed, but they were making good progress. She studied the group still hammering away, but the dark-haired man was gone.

Sitting in the passenger side, Raul snapped his seat belt in place and Elizabeth started the engine. As they drove back to town, the boy seemed miles away and she wondered if his thoughts were on the very different future he was about to undertake, or if he was worried about his sister.

Elizabeth made a mental note to stop by the little yellow house occupied by Miguel Santiago and his pretty young wife. She would speak to Maria, see what was wrong, find out if there was something she could do.

Two

The hour was late. The night black as ink, just a fingernail moon casting a thin ray of white into the darkness. The smell of newly mown hay hung in the air, along with the rich musk of freshly tilled soil. Inside the house, Maria Santiago snapped off the small TV that sat on a little wooden table against the wall of her sparsely furnished living room.

Though the house wasn’t large, just two bedrooms and a bath, it was only four years old and solidly built, with yellow plaster walls outside and a simple asphalt tile roof. The house had been freshly painted just before they moved in and the beige carpet looked almost new.

Maria had loved the house from the moment she and Miguel had seen it. With its grassy backyard and zinnia-filled flower beds next to the porch out in front, it was the nicest place she had ever lived. Miguel loved it, too, and he was proud of being able to provide such a home for his wife and the baby that was soon to come.

Miguel wanted a child even more than Maria. Aside from Maria and Raul, he didn’t have much family, at least not nearby. Most of Miguel’s family lived in the San Joaquin Valley farther north, near Modesto. Maria’s mother had died when she was fourteen, and she had never known her father. Her mother once told her he had left when Raul was born and no one had seen him since.

With her parents gone and no one to care for them, Maria and Raul had moved in with a couple named Hernandez, migratory workers who traveled the agricultural circuit. One of the jobs they had worked had been in the orchards, harvesting almonds for Harcourt Farms, and that was where Maria had met Miguel. She had been not quite fifteen, her brother only thirteen, and Miguel Santiago had been their salvation.

They had married the day of her fifteenth birthday and when the workers left for their next job, both she and Raul had stayed with Miguel on the farm. Though he earned barely enough to get by, there was plenty to eat, and Raul could go to school. He had attended faithfully for the entire first year, but being so far behind the other kids, in a short time he had rebelled and refused to go.

He had begun to stay out late, to hang around with a bad element. Eventually, he had gotten into trouble and been sent to a foster home. Finally, he’d wound up in juvenile hall. Recently, he had been released into a halfway house and soon would be living at Teen Vision.

It seemed a miracle had occurred.

Another had happened two months ago, when her husband had received a promotion to overseer—one of four on the farm. He had been given a raise and a house to live in as part of his higher salary.

It was a very nice house, Maria thought again as she untied the sash on her bathrobe and tossed it over a chair. Dressed in a short white nylon nightgown that fanned out over her growing belly, she walked toward the bed, wishing Miguel would get home. But he often worked late in the fields and she had mostly gotten used to it.

Except that lately, when he didn’t get home and the hour grew late, Maria was afraid.

She flicked a glance at the bed, her gaze lighting on the comfortable queen-size mattress, bigger than any she had ever slept in before.

She ached to slide beneath the covers, to rest her head on one of the pillows and drift off to sleep. She was so very tired. Her back ached and her feet hurt. Surely tonight she would sleep and not wake up until Miguel came home. Surely, what had happened to her last week and the week before would not happen again tonight.

It was after midnight, the house completely quiet as she pulled back the pretty yellow quilt on top of the bed and lay down on the mattress, pulling the sheet up beneath her chin.

She could hear the crickets in the field and the gentle, rhythmic sound gave her comfort. The pillow felt soft beneath her head. Her long black hair, left unbound the way Miguel liked it, teased her cheek as she shifted on the mattress, and her eyes drifted closed.

For a while, she dozed peacefully, unaware of the eerie creaks and moans, of the subtle shift in the atmosphere. Then the air grew thicker, denser, and the soothing chirp of the crickets abruptly halted.

Maria’s eyes snapped open. She was staring up at the ceiling and a heavy weight seemed to be pressing down on her chest. She could hear the eerie moaning, the creaking that wasn’t the wind. In the darkness of the bedroom, the sickening, suffocating smell of roses drifted into her nostrils and the bile rose in her throat.

The putrid smell enveloped her, seemed to force her down in the mattress, to suck the air from her lungs. She tried to sit up, but she couldn’t move. She tried to cry out, but no sound came from her throat.

Oh, Madre de Dios! Mother of God, protect me!

Silently she began to pray, to beg the Virgin Mary to save her, to send the evil away.

She was so frightened! She didn’t understand what was happening. She didn’t know if what she felt was real or if she was losing her mind. Her mother had suffered a tumor that eventually killed her. Toward the end, she had raved and ranted and imagined things.

Was that what was happening to her?

She twisted on the bed and tried to sit up, but her body remained completely frozen, rigid on the sheet. Something shifted, seemed to invade her mind, to fill her thoughts until she could think of nothing but the words spinning round in her head.

They want your baby, a small voice whispered through her terror-filled brain. They’ll take your baby if you don’t leave.

Maria choked on a sob. Fresh horror filled her. She wanted Miguel, prayed he would come home and save her. Silently, she cried out for God to bring him home to her before it was too late.

But Miguel did not come.

Instead, the small voice began to fade into the silence as if it were never there and the heavy smell of roses drifted away in the darkness. For long moments, she lay there, afraid to move, afraid of what would happen if she did.

Maria swallowed, managed to drag in a shaky breath of air. She tried to lift her arms and found that her limbs responded, allowing her to shift on the bed. She lay there staring at the ceiling, inhaling sharp, deep breaths, her hands trembling. She was shaking all over, she realized, her heart pounding as if she had run a thousand miles.

Tentatively, she extended her legs. She moved her arms, crossed them over her chest to control the trembling, then shakily pushed herself upright in the bed. Long black hair fell over her shoulder, reaching nearly to her waist. She drew her legs up beneath her chin, pulled the nightgown down to cover them, and rested her chin on her knees.

It was a nightmare, she told herself. The same dream you had before.

Maria’s eyes welled with tears. She pressed a hand against her mouth to muffle a sob and tried to convince herself it was true.

Zachary Harcourt opened the front door of the house that was once his home at Harcourt Farms. It was a big, white, two-story wood-framed house with porches both front and rear, an impressive house that had been built in the forties and remodeled and improved over the years.

The molded ceilings were high, to help with the heat, and expensive damask draperies hung at the windows. The floors were oak and always polished to a glossy sheen. Zach ignored the sharp ring of his work boots as he walked down the hall into the room that had been his father’s study, a man’s room, paneled in dark wood, with shelves lining the walls filled with gold-edged leather-bound books.

The big oak, rolltop desk where his father used to sit still dominated the study, but now his older brother, Carson, sat in an expensive leather chair.

“I see you still don’t believe in knocking.” Carson turned toward him, one hand still resting on the paperwork on his desk. The enmity on his face was unmistakable. The same dislike was reflected in Zach’s eyes as well.

The men were about the same height, almost six foot two, though Carson, two years older, was heavier through the chest and shoulders, built more like their father. He was blond and blue-eyed like his mother, while Zach, a half brother born on the wrong side of the blanket, was more leanly built, with the nearly black, slightly wavy hair that had belonged to Teresa Burgess, his father’s long-time mistress.

It was said that Teresa carried a trace of Hispanic blood from a distant grandmother, but she had always denied it, and though Zach’s skin was darker than Carson’s, his cheekbones high and more sharply defined, he had no idea whether or not it was true.

One thing was certain. Zach had the same distinct gold-flecked brown eyes that stared back at him when he looked at his father, marking him clearly as Fletcher Harcourt’s son and Carson’s brother—much to Carson’s chagrin.

“I don’t need to knock,” Zach said. “In case you’ve forgotten, which you usually do, this house still belongs to our father, which means it is mine as much as it is yours.”

Carson made no reply. After the fall that had left Fletcher Harcourt’s motor functions impaired and his memory distorted, Carson, the eldest son, had been made conservator of the farm and all of their father’s affairs, including his health care. It had been an easy decision for the judge, since Zach was younger and had a prison record.

At twenty-one, Zach had spent two years in the California State Penitentiary at Avenal for manslaughter, convicted of a drunk-driving offense that had resulted in a man’s death.

“What is it you want?” Carson asked.

“I want to know what’s happening with the benefit. Knowing your penchant for getting things done, I assume everything is in order.”

“Everything’s under control, just like I said it would be. I told you I’d help raise money for this little project of yours and that’s what I’m doing.”

Two years ago, Zach had set aside his pride and come to Carson with the idea of establishing a boy’s camp for teens with drug and alcohol problems. As a youth, he’d been one of those kids, always in trouble, always butting heads with his family and the law.

But the two years he’d spent in prison had changed his life and he wanted that to happen for other boys who weren’t as lucky as he had been.

Not that he’d thought himself lucky at the time.

Back then, he’d been sullen and resentful, blaming everyone but himself for what had happened to him and what his life had become. Out of boredom and hoping to find a way of shortening his sentence, he had started to study law and discovered he seemed to have a knack for it. He had gotten his GED, taken the SAT’s and passed with extremely high marks, then gone to Berkley and enrolled in Hastings Law School.

Impressed by the changes he was trying to make in his life, his father had helped him with the tuition, and combined with the money from his part-time job, Zach had managed to get through school, graduating in the top percentiles of his class. He had passed the bar exam with flying colors and Fletcher Harcourt had used his influence to get Zach’s felony record expunged so that he could practice law.

Zach was now a successful lawyer with an office in Westwood, an apartment overlooking the ocean in Pacific Palisades, a slick new 645 Ci BMW convertible and the Jeep he drove whenever he came up to the valley.

He was living the good life and he wanted to give something back for the success he had found. Until that day two years ago, he had never asked his brother for anything—had sworn he never would. Carson and his mother had made Zach’s life miserable from the day his father had brought him home and announced plans to adopt him.

There was bad blood between them that would never go away, but Harcourt Farms belonged to Zach as much as Carson and though his brother had complete control, there was plenty of available land, and the location he had chosen for the site was exactly the perfect spot.

Zach remembered the day he had approached his brother, the amazement he had felt when Carson had so readily agreed to his proposal.

“Well, for once you’ve actually come up with a good idea,” Carson had said from his chair at the rolltop desk.

“Then you’re saying Harcourt Farms will donate the land?”

“That’s right. I’ll even help you raise the money to get the project off the ground.”

It had taken Zack several months before he realized his brother had once again neatly turned the tables. The project became Carson’s—though it was mostly Zach’s money that provided the funding—and the entire town was now in Carson’s debt.

Zach no longer cared. With Carson as spokesman, the money continued pouring in, enough to keep the farm running and even enough to expand. The more boys who could be helped, the better, as far as Zach was concerned. Zach would gladly stay out of the picture if it meant helping those kids, and with Carson’s name attached instead of his own, the upcoming benefit on Saturday night would likely be another success.

“I just wanted to check,” Zach said, thinking of the black tie affair he wouldn’t be attending. “Let me know if there’s anything you need me to do.” Instead, he would spend the weekend building the barn, working with the Teen Vision boys, something he had discovered he loved to do.

“You sure you don’t want to come?” Carson asked, though Zach figured having the black sheep of the family in attendance was the last thing Carson wanted.

“No thanks. I wouldn’t want to cramp your style.”

“You could bring Lisa. I’ll be taking Elizabeth Conners.”

The name hit a cord in his memory bank. Liz Conners. She was four years his junior. Once, before he’d gone to prison, he’d been drunk and high and he had come on to her pretty hard outside the coffee shop where she had a part-time job after school. Liz had slapped his face—something no other woman had ever done—and he had never forgotten her.

“I thought she was married and living in Orange County someplace.”

“She was. She’s divorced now, moved back to town a couple of years ago.”

“That so?” San Pico was the last place Zach would want to live. Coming up to visit his dad in the rest home and working on expanding the youth farm was the most he could manage. “Tell Liz I said hello.”

Inwardly he smiled, thinking he was the last person Liz Conners would be happy to hear from. He’d kind of thought Liz was the sort of woman who’d be able to see through a man like his brother. Then again, there was no accounting for people’s tastes.

Carson said no more, just returned to the stack of work on his desk. Zach left the study without a goodbye and headed for his car. He was surprised Carson knew he had been seeing Lisa Doyle and he didn’t like it that he did. He didn’t like Carson knowing anything about him. He didn’t trust his half brother and never had.

Whatever Carson might think, Lisa wasn’t really his type. But she liked hot, raunchy sex, no strings attached, and so did Zach, and they had been sleeping together off and on for years.

And he didn’t have to worry about getting a motel room when he was in town and Lisa didn’t have to worry about picking up some stranger in a bar when she wanted to get laid.

It was a good deal for both of them.

Elizabeth looked up at the sound of a knock at her door. The door swung wide and her boss, Dr. Michael James, stuck his head through the opening. Michael, just under six feet tall with sandy hair and hazel eyes, had a Ph.D. in psychology. He had opened the office five years ago. Elizabeth had been working for him for the past two. Michael was engaged to be married, but lately he seemed to be having second thoughts and Elizabeth wasn’t sure he was going to go through with the wedding.

“How’d it go with Raul?” he asked, another of the young man’s supporters. Raul had a way of endearing himself to people, though on the surface he seemed to do his best to achieve just the opposite.

“He’s decided to enroll in the program.”

“That’s great. Now if he’ll just stick to it.”

“He was excited, I think. Of course, Sam could sell sour milk to cows.”

“So you were impressed with the farm. I thought you would be.”

“It’s really coming along. Carson has done a wonderful job.”

“Yes, he has. Though it seems to me everything he does is a bit self-serving. Lately, I heard a rumor he may be running for a seat in the state assembly.”

“I don’t know him very well, but he seems community-minded. Maybe he’d be good for the job.”

“Maybe.” Though Michael didn’t seem completely convinced.

They spoke for a moment more, then Dr. James left the office and the phone rang. When Elizabeth picked it up, she recognized Raul Perez’s voice.

“I am calling about my sister,” he said simply. “I saw her this morning after Miguel went to work. She was very upset. She tries to hide it, but I know her too well. Something is wrong. Do you think you could stop by the house sometime today?”

“Actually, I’ve been meaning to get over there to see her. I’ll stop by this afternoon. Will your sister be home?”

“I think so. I wish I knew what was wrong.”

“I’ll see if I can find out,” Elizabeth promised and as she hung up the phone she wondered what it could be.

In a job where she dealt with family violence, drugs, robbery and even murder, it would take a great deal to surprise her.

Three

It was after five o’clock, and the office was closed by the time Elizabeth was able to leave. She made the drive through town in the after-five traffic, nothing like the bumper-to-bumper, endless line of cars on the L.A. freeways she used to battle when she lived in Santa Ana, but enough to keep her stopped on Main Street through two sets of red lights.

Downtown San Pico was only ten blocks long, some of the store signs printed in Spanish. Miller’s Dry Cleaners, perched on the corner, had a laundromat attached. There was a JC Penney catalog store, several clothing stores, and a couple of diners, including Marge’s Café, where she had worked part-time in high school.

As she drove past the coffee shop, she could see the long Formica counter and pink vinyl booths inside. Even after twenty years, the place still did a brisk business. Aside from The Ranch House, a steak and prime rib restaurant at the edge of town, it was the only decent place to eat.

A few straggly sycamore trees grew out of the sidewalks that lined the downtown streets but not many. There were a couple of gas stations, a Burger King, a McDonald’s and a sleezy bar called The Roadhouse out where Highway 51 intersected Main Street. The biggest boon to the area had been the arrival two years ago of a Wal-Mart, built to service the town and several outlying farming communities.

Elizabeth continued down Main and turned onto the highway, heading for Harcourt Farms. The little yellow house where Maria and Miguel Santiago lived sat just off the road in an area of the farm that included three other overseers’ houses, half a dozen farm laborer cottages, and the big, white, wood-frame, two-story owner’s house, which sat some distance away.

Elizabeth’s car bumped over a set of abandoned railroad tracks not far from the house. She pulled off the road into a spot next to the driveway and climbed out of the Acura.

She had saved for two years to get the down payment for the car and she loved it. With its red leather seats and wood-paneled interior, it made her feel younger just to sit behind the wheel. She had bought the car because she thought that at thirty, she shouldn’t be feeling as old as she often did.

She walked along the cement sidewalk past a flowerbed blooming with red and yellow zinnias. Elizabeth knocked on the front door of the house, and a few minutes later, Maria Santiago pulled it open.

“Ms. Conners.” She smiled. “What a nice surprise. It is good to see you. Please come in.” Maria was a slender young woman, except for the protrusion of her belly and her ever-increasing breasts. Her long black hair was braided, as she often wore it, and hanging down her back.

“Thank you.” Elizabeth walked into the house, which Maria kept immaculately clean. The girl, as neatly kept as the house, wore a pair of white, ankle-length pants and a loose-fitting blue-flowered blouse. Except for the tight lines around her mouth and the faint smudges beneath her eyes, she looked lovely.

“Miguel and I, we want to thank you for what you did for Raul. I have never seen him so excited, though of course, he tried not to show it.” She frowned as a thought occurred. “He is not in more trouble? That is not the reason you are here?”

“No, of course not. This has nothing to do with Raul. Except that your brother is worried about you. Raul asked me to stop by.”

“Why would he do that?”

“He thinks you are upset about something. He isn’t sure what it is. He hoped that you might talk to me about it.”

Maria glanced away. “My brother is imagining things. I am fine, as you can see.”

She was pretty, with her big dark eyes and classic features, and more than six months pregnant. Elizabeth had come to know Maria and Miguel through her dealings with Raul and she liked them both, though Miguel’s overly macho attitude could be irritating at times.

“It is hot outside,” Maria said. “Would you like a glass of iced tea?”

“That sounds wonderful.”

They sat down at a wooden table in the kitchen. Maria went over to the refrigerator and pulled out a plastic pitcher, then popped cubes from an ice tray into two tall glasses and filled them with chilled tea.

She set the glasses down on the table. “Would you like some sugar?”

“No, this is perfect just the way it is.” Elizabeth sat down at the small round table covered by a flowered plastic tablecloth and took a sip of her tea.

Maria stirred sugar into hers, paying slightly more attention to the task than necessary, Elizabeth thought, wondering again what the problem could be. Raul was a shrewd young man. He wouldn’t have called without good reason.

“It must be hard being alone all day this far from town,” Elizabeth began cautiously.

“There is always work to do. Before it got so hot, I worked in my garden. Now, with the baby getting bigger, I cannot stay out in the sun for so long. But I have clothes to mend and food to prepare for Miguel. Since we moved into the house, he comes home for lunch. He works very hard. I like to make sure he has something good to eat.”