Petals on the Pillow (16 page)

She’d shifted first from dorm room to dorm room, and then from apartment to apartment. Even since she’d started rooming with Lisa, who seemed to demand a bit more stability in her living environment than Kelly, they’d still moved every year. Lisa always spent summers back with the Jackson clan in a sub
urb north of the city. Kelly usually found a room to sublet from some other student with a home life to which he or she actually wanted to return.

With school and the daily grind of whatever work she could find to raise money for tuition, Kelly hadn’t ever had much time to try to make a home from any of the places she’d stayed. She’d told Lisa that clutter made her nervous
and that she preferred a more Spartan existence, that materialism cluttered the clean flow of her creative spirit. Even Lisa didn’t fall for that line, but she did stop trying to get Kelly to help her line the drawers in the kitchens and make curtains for the windows.

Truthfully, Kelly hadn’t the money or the inclination to dec
orate a place or fill it with personal memorabilia. Her apartments were places to sleep and keep her things, nothing more.

It was curious now that the Manor, the kind of place she’d never be able to afford, with its every surface jammed with knick-knacks and bric-a-brac seemed so much like a home to her after such a short time. Her feet slowed as she passed Harrison’s study on her way to the kitchen. Cautiously, she poked her head through the double doors that had been left slightly ajar.

Harrison’s back was to her as he tapped in numbers on the computer. She could see a huge spreadsheet on the oversized monitor in front of him. His broad shoulders filled the leather office chair he sat in like he’d born in it. His starched white shirt gleamed in the flickering light from the computer. Kelly smiled as he turned around, finally aware that someone was behind him. His neat, knotted tie jammed up against the top button of his crisp shirt. Not exactly the picture that most telecommuters painted of their more casual, comfortable life styles, Kelly thought with a grin.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing.” Kelly slipped into one of the chairs that faced his massive desk. The smooth patent leather gave way gracefully as she settled into it. As she stroked her hands up and down the smooth arms of the chair, she couldn’t resist a little jibe. “I’m just curious. Do you have a lot of business associates or clients or something who meet with you here?”

Harrison shook his head, brows drawn together. “No. Not really.”

Her smile broadened at the bemused expression on his face. “You and Kendra pretty much work here alone every day, right?”

He nodded now, confusion still clear on his face.

“So what’s with the suits? Why do you two always dress like something out of a
Forbes
fashion show when you’re not going to see anybody else?”

Harrison looked down at his dress shirt and the slacks of his suit as if he’d never seen them before. “I’m not sure,” he fal
tered. “I guess it’s just the way I’ve always dressed to go to work.”

“Oh.” Kelly let the syllable hang in the air without further comment. “Anyway, I just stopped in to say thanks again for getting all those catalogs so fast. I really appreciate your spot
ting me the money for the supplies, too. Being able to pay you back a little each month is the difference between being able to replace it all and having to do without.”

“I wish you’d let me do more than that, Kelly. I feel respon
sible somehow.” Harrison leaned forward on his desk, elbows braced and suit creasing around his powerful arms.

Kelly waved him away, reflexively not wanting to talk about it. Thinking about it too hard still hurt. Running from what hurt had always served her best and she didn’t see why this sit
uation should be any exception. “Why? You didn’t do it.”

“No. I guess not. But someone here did. We can’t quite completely ignore that.” Harrison fiddled with a pencil on his desk blotter, tapping its rubber eraser in a sharp tattoo against the green leather. Finally, he spoke. “Do you think she did it?”

“Who?” Kelly asked, her mouth a little dry. She hadn’t spoken to Harrison or anyone else about her suspicions about Betsy. She wasn’t even sure herself if she
did
suspect Betsy of having something to do with it.

“You know. Her.” Harrison’s voice was low and urgent. He glanced furtively behind Kelly, making sure they were alone. He came out from behind his desk and walked in front, finally settling on the edge of it just inches from where Kelly sat.

Kelly shook her head, unwilling to plunge in until she knew what Harrison really meant. His nearness nearly stunned her into silence anyway. She wondered how just sitting in his office he could have this effect on her, how he could make her heart race just by being close to her. “You’re going to have to explain. I’m not sure what you’re talking about,” she finally choked out.

“I’m talking about Elizabeth,” he hissed between his teeth, clearly reluctant to acknowledge what had been going on out loud. “Do you think you could have smashed those brushes yourself when Elizabeth was ... you know, controlling you?” Kelly sat back in her chair, completely flabbergasted. Of all the things she thought he might be suggesting, she never dreamed he might think she’d do that to her own things. “You think I did that myself?”

“No. No, of course not.” Harrison took Kelly’s hand in both of his. “But you don’t ever remember what you’ve said or done when she’s there. Maybe she got you to do this, too.”

“Why would you think that?” Kelly felt the blood drain from her face.

Harrison shrugged. “No one heard or saw anyone else go into Betsy’s room that night except you. You’d be the one with the most opportunity.”

“Betsy’s room is corridors away from everyone else’s bed
room. A herd of elephants could have paraded up the main staircase without anyone noticing,” she protested.

“I suppose,” Harrison shook his head. “I guess someone could have even come in from outside.”

“But why? It doesn’t make any sense. Who would want to sneak into the house to smash my brushes and ruin all my paints.”

“I don’t know. I thought maybe Elizabeth might want that. She....” Harrison faltered again. “She speaks about you when she’s there. In the third person. Maybe she’s jealous because you’re an artist, too.”

Kelly shook her head and chewed on her bottom lip. It felt wrong. She wasn’t sure why, but she knew Elizabeth had nothing to do with what had happened in Betsy’s bedroom. “No. I don’t think she’s jealous of me. I think for some reason, she connects with me. I think the fact that I’m an artist is one of the reasons she was able to contact me. I think it’s one of the ways we communicate.”

“Communicate? I thought you didn’t remember anything from when she, uh, visits you.”

“Maybe communicate isn’t the right word. What I feel isn’t that direct.” Kelly stood up and began to pace the room. Her footsteps made a swishing noise as she wore a path in the plush carpeting. “When you spend half your life with a paintbrush in your hand, some things become automatic. The way you make a certain stroke or the way you blend from one color to another or apply a highlight are almost like reflexes, things you do without conscious thought. I think that somehow my painting reflexes are one of the ways she reaches me.”

Harrison snorted. “That’s only because you didn’t see your
self jerking around like a puppet on a string with that weird blue light flashing all around you.”

“But there has to be a reason that the light flashed around me and not somebody else.”

“I don’t suppose it has occurred to you that no one else has been foolhardy enough to traipse around at the end of that dock in the middle of the night before this.” His smile was pained and weary.

Kelly shook her head, ignoring his attempt at humor. “It’s more than that, Harrison. I can’t explain it, but I can feel it. Somehow our reflexes match. It’s also why I know that Elizabeth would never, ever have smashed my tools. She would know what they meant to me. She would understand how they’re almost like extensions of my fingers, of my mind. How they seem to do my bidding sometimes without my even knowing what I meant to do myself. She would know that brushes like that wind up feeling like old friends in your hands. It wasn’t her. Or me.”

Harrison reached out and caught her wrists, stopping her pacing. He brushed her hair back from her forehead for her. “All right. It wasn’t Elizabeth.”

The corner of Kelly’s mouth tweaked up in a smile. She stepped closer to him, liking the way his thighs brushed against her hips as she stepped between them. She looked down into the intense green laser beams of his eyes and wondered how she could have ever thought them cold. “Listen, about Betsy. I know what you did this morning wasn’t easy. You might never know what it meant to Betsy, but I know she’ll never forget it.”

“It was only what I should have been doing all along.” Harrison dropped his head, no longer meeting Kelly’s eyes.

She shrugged backing out of his embrace. “Maybe. Maybe not. We all do the best we can most days. I just know how much she’ll appreciate what you did today.”

“I’d never have seen it through her eyes if it wasn’t for you.” Harrison held on to Kelly’s hands and pulled her back close to him. His lips brushed against her temples in the gentlest of kisses. “I’ve been so wrapped up in my own feelings, my own pain, for so long, I never thought about what it was doing to her. No matter what her mother was or wasn’t, Betsy’s an innocent.”

Both Kelly and Harrison jumped at the sound of someone
clearing their throat in the doorway.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean
to interrupt.” Kendra stood inside the double doors. Light from the foyer cast her face in darkness, but there was no mistaking her silhouette against the bright white rectangle of light behind her.

“That’s all right, Kendra. I was just leaving. Thanks, Harrison.” Kelly squeezed Harrison’s fingers and slipped out the door.

***

Harrison watched her go with a swelling in his heart that still surprised him each time he looked at her. He wondered if he’d have had the nerve to send out that notice advertising for muralists if he’d known what changes it would bring to his life. He shook his head in wonder. The man who’d faxed out that advertisement to the Institute of Art seemed a distant memory now. Alone. Aloof. In pain. Kelly had opened the shutters he’d drawn across his life and let the light back in. As much as he’d thought he didn’t want that, had wanted to stay in the familiar gloom he’d cloaked around himself for protection, just watch
ing Kelly walk into his study was like a revelation.

Heat. Warmth. Sunshine. He couldn’t quite believe it was all within his grasp again. Or that it had been less than a week since she’d come to the Manor.

“It was nice of you to replace her supplies.”

Kendra’s voice cut into Harrison’s ruminations. She’d sat down in the chair next to the one Kelly had just vacated. Her note pad was flipped open on her properly pressed together knees. She jotted down a few words on the tablet, squinting through the reading glasses perched primly on the tip of her aquiline nose.

“It was the least I could do.” Harrison ambled back behind his desk. He sat and leaned back in his chair, swiveling slowly back and forth. “I don’t know who or what destroyed all her things, but it did happen in the Manor. I feel somewhat responsible.”

“Hmmm,” Kendra murmured. She continued to write without looking up.

“What does that mean?”

“What does what mean?” Kendra peered at Harrison over the rim of her glasses.

“What did that ‘hmmm’ you made just now mean?” Harrison leaned forward and rested his thick forearms on the desk. “What aren’t you saying, Kendra?”

She flipped her notepad shut. Leaning back in her own chair, she crossed her long slender legs at the knee. Her smile was warm and genuine. “You know me too well, Harrison.”

“We’ve been working together a long time, Kendra,”

Harrison replied. He smiled back. “Now spill it. Whatever it
is.

“Do you remember Janice?” Kendra pulled off her reading glasses with one hand and rested her chin in the other. The glasses twirled between her slender fingers while she waited for Harrison’s answer.

He drew his brows together. “Janice?” His mind remained blank.

“Yes. Janice. She was an office assistant at St. John Industries. She worked there not too long before you decided to work from the Manor.”

Realization dawned on Harrison. “Yes. Of course I remember Janice. Long hair. Big glasses. Incredibly short skirts. Always in the midst of some personal crisis.”

“Yes. That’s my point exactly.” Kendra leaned forward and shook her glasses at Harrison.

“It is?”

“Haven’t you noticed how some people always seem to be the focus of a million little dramas? It was never Janice’s fault that her boyfriend wrecked her car or that she couldn’t get along with the people in the copy center or that there was an accident on her route to the office or any of the other things she claimed kept her from showing up to work on time or getting her job done. Trouble always seemed to brew up around her.”

“Correct me if I’m wrong, but when we finally fired Janice, didn’t we find a fifth of whiskey in her bottom desk drawer?”