Chapter 25 Eliza #2
A crack of thunder made me scream and heave in a lungful of earthy air laced with Chanel No.
5, my tense body stiffened until I was sure it would snap.
Light rain tapped against glass overwhelming my senses as it came at me from all directions, echoing in the expansive space.
A hum of terror thrummed low. Too loud and too quiet all at once.
I held my breath, pressing my trowel into the crack, and wedged up a decent-sized clump of dirt. On my next push into the crack, the point of the shovel hit something hard, and I froze.
I feverishly dug at the dirt, deciding to remove the fern altogether. Something light in color remained where the furry rhizomes had stretched and crept out mischievously.
Carefully, I used my fingertips and brushed the dirt from it. I threw my trowel to the side, and it clanged behind me as a scream tore out of me.
The bones of a hand lay barely under the soil, with two bent fingers stretched out, mimicking the way the rhizomes of the rabbit’s foot ferns crawled out onto the ground.
Bones.
A hand.
Frantic, I slid my body backward, screaming until Sowerby burst through the conservatory doors.
“What in god’s name?” Sowerby’s words slowed as his mouth fell open, registering me on the ground. His eyes sparked with knowing as he looked carefully at the disturbed patch of soil across from me. “Oh my—Jasper,” he gasped before covering his mouth.
“It’s a hand. There’s a hand!” I shouted, feeling the blood drain from my face. “It’s—there’re bones buried next to the corpse flower!”
This whole time, Hester’s body had been buried in the conservatory. Right where I spent every waking hour. Jasper had done it after all. Killed Hester and buried her in the garden to be forgotten. He must’ve thought I wouldn’t dig that deep, that I wouldn’t find her bones.
I turned and vomited on the black bat flowers.
The old man’s eyes flickered closed before he calmly spoke again. “You need to call the police, dear.”
The doors slammed open again, and this time, Jasper barged through. “What’s going on? Eliza, are you okay?” He ran toward me, stopping when Sowerby stopped him from moving any closer to me.
“Stay away from me, you fucking psycho!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, sliding my body back across the stone path, frantically smashing and cracking stems and leaves as I pushed myself as far away from both men as possible.
Small wheezing pants came as I struggled to tap the three numbers on my phone and call the police.
“Eliza, what’s going on? What happened?” Jasper rumbled, looking between me and Sowerby, confused.
“It was you. It was you this whole time!” I screamed, causing my voice to vibrate and scratch my throat.
“That’s why she’s stayed in the manor. You did it—you fucking killed her.
Who’s ever going to look in a dilapidated old garden?
” I shook, covering my mouth with my trembling hand as I struggled not to get sick again.
“That’s why you let the conservatory fall to ruin.
That’s why you made the deal with me, you didn’t think I’d last long enough to find her! ”
This whole time.
The color drained from Jasper’s face as he glanced at the disturbed soil.
Sowerby gently grabbed his arm and guided him from me and the conservatory while I called the police.
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I watched from outside of the garden, fogging up the square pane of glass with my breath in silence as I watched all of my hopes and dreams die just as poor Hester had.
I adjusted my bag, my car keys jangling in my hand, my bag cutting a dent into my shoulder with the weight of my belongings; the rest of what I’d brought with me was in another bag on the ground at my feet.
My cheeks felt tight with the raw sting of tears that stained them.
“Ma’am, I’m sorry, but we really do need to cordon off the area,” the young officer said as he tried to move me away from the glass.
“What will happen to all of the plants? There are incredibly rare, expensive plants in there. You can’t just let everyone trample over them like that.” I watched as months of hard work were stomped and smashed as the police swarmed through the conservatory like fire ants.
“That’s not really my call, miss. I’m sorry, but you need to leave,” he repeated.
“The corpse flower, that big one—you have to be careful. It’s almost extinct. It’s going to bloom—tomorrow and…there’s supposed to be a big party—” I couldn’t say the words out loud without my voice cracking and streams of tears cascading down my cheeks.
“Ma’am,” he said, ushering me toward the driveway, where my car was packed and waiting with the rest my things.
“But—”
He let out a huff, opening my car door and angling me so I had nowhere to go but into it.
“Listen, I will make some calls and do what I can about your plants, but I’ll tell you right now, there’s nothing that can be done about that big, tall one.
It’s directly over the remains. The bulldozer has to get in and—” Realizing he was saying too much, he suddenly shut up and tried to get me to sit down in the driver’s seat.
“Where are Jasper and Sowerby?” I asked.
“Ma’am,” he nearly whined in frustration.
“Tell me where they are, and I’ll go.”
Another long huff before he finally caved. “Jasper Blackwood is in custody getting processed at the local jail.”
“And Sowerby? The older one?” I pressed, needing to know his involvement. When he had looked at the broken soil, he had known. I was sure of it.
“The older gentleman is currently speaking to their attorneys. Miss, I can’t tell you any more.”
The car door closed, and I placed my hands on the steering wheel and tried to catch my breath.
The phone rang twice. Numbly, I held it to my ear.
Nick told me to hurry over and fill him in on everything.
He was devastated hearing everyone would miss the blooming of the corpse flower.
I hadn’t been allowed to take the propagations from the conservatory with me.
The only plant I was allowed to take was the ghost orchid that Jasper had given me from my room.
I glared at the perfect white flowers wrapped in the cupholder beside me.
After hanging up with Nick, I immediately phoned Dr. Lithgow, who flew into an absolute tirade, cursing me for not having smuggled out anything and promising to rain a fiery hell on the police department if they didn’t adhere to the legal protection for rare plants before he hung up on me to make some phone calls.
It didn’t sound like I still had a job, even if he hadn’t said it in so many words.
Shifting in my seat, I realized I still had Hester’s locket in my pocket.
I had meant to leave it in my room when the cops had me go up to collect my belongings.
It felt wrong to leave it at the manor where Jasper could get it but wrong to take it.
I took it. I needed strength more than ever, and every time I looked at the worn locket, I was reminded of Hester’s resilience, how, even in her death, she refused to give up until her murderer was caught.
Admittedly, there were still things that didn’t make sense to me, like why she seemed to want Jasper and me to be together—the happy look on her face when he was in my bed. She never acted like she was upset or afraid of him, though maybe she just wasn’t anymore.
I couldn’t believe she had been in the conservatory the whole time.
Why hadn’t I ever thought of that? It made perfect sense why Jasper never let anyone touch it, saying it was too painful.
Yeah, it probably was painful for him to remember how he’d murdered his mother and buried her in her own goddamned garden to decompose with her own plants.
At least, in the end, I’d been able to help her.
Once they exhumed her body, hopefully they would be able to finally put all of the missing pieces together and charge Jasper.
Part of me never wanted anything to do with Blackwood Manor again, but a more curious—and admittedly broken-hearted—part of me needed to know why Jasper had done it.
Idiotically, I found myself holding on to a tendril of hope that maybe it had been some sort of an accident, that he hadn’t killed his own mother on purpose.
Though at fifteen years old, even had it been an accident, there’s no possible way he could have buried that body by himself. It was obvious Sowerby had helped him.
When the old man had stormed into the conservatory at the sound of my screams, he had glanced at where I had been digging and then settled his face with a look of resignation.
I should have known something was odd about that space.
Sowerby refused to be near it whenever he was in the garden.
It made sense why he got so jittery and weird when he had been helping me in there.
Looking back, it was obvious he had wanted me to be the one to find her body. That’s why he had been nagging Jasper to get a crew in to fix it up…but why? Was it possible he had known about it and wanted justice for Hester, too?
All I knew was that Sowerby had known that body was there the entire time, and the two of them had been covering up Hester’s death together.