Page 20 of A Secret In The Garden

Jasper’s low, raspy whisper interrupted my thoughts. “Don’t move one fucking muscle, do you hear me?” I froze just as I’d lifted a pan off the drying rack on the counter. “Attagirl, now get on my fingers.”

I nearly dropped the pan before I realized he was talking to the dove. A third-degree blush overtook my face and body in complete mortification. When I glanced at him, he’d managed to get the bird on his finger. His large, muscular body was rigid as he slowly moved to the door. I saw the tips of a black tattoo creeping up past the collar at the back of his neck. I wondered what it was of. My eyes scanned his back, trying to imagine if he had others. I bet he did. I swallowed a gulp of air. Oh my god. I was attracted to him—like really-fucking-physically attracted to him. Hello, body? He’s a fucking MURDERER!

“Eliza, could you please be a lamb and follow me to open the window?” he asked calmly as he walked into a large laundry room at the back of the kitchen.

At the sound of him calling me a lamb, my mind automatically pictured a sacrificial slaughtering. Trying not to make any quick movements, I got ahead of him, flipped the latch on the window, and pushed it up. We both flinched when the window screeched, afraid that the bird would get wild again.

“No, no, don’t fly off. I know you’re frightened, and I know I’m scary looking, but I’ve got you. I won’t let anyone harm you.” His low, raspy voice was soft as he spoke to the bird. “I’m going to set you free, okay?”

“Okay,” I whispered before snapping my head up and sucking my lips inside of my mouth. Another blush crawled across my cheeks.

“You okay?” he asked me.

I heard the window close.

He’d already set the bird—or quite possibly his mother—free while I stood there and stared at him like a woman in heat.

“Yeah…” I answered, completely caught off guard by everything that had just happened.

“Must’ve gotten in through one of the broken conservatory windows and followed you in the house,” he reasoned as we walked back to the kitchen together.

“Yeah…must have,” I said as I tucked the locket back under my shirt carefully. “I’m sorry about what I said to you in the conservatory,” I said, my voice thick with something that felt like regret but was tangled up with all my other emotions now. “I just… Everything’s been so much, and I didn’t know how to handle it, I guess.” I could have just let things go, but I wanted things between us to be okay. Perhaps Hester was behind this. “What is your tattoo of?” I found my station by the counter in the kitchen again. My fingers gripped the edge of the sink to stop the slight tremor in my hands. I couldn’t tell if it was from exhaustion or the weight of the conversation that hung between us or something else, but I didn’t dare let go.

His eyes narrowed slightly, and a smirk touched his mouth. He took a step closer, and I could hear the soft rustle of his shirt as he moved, feel the subtle tension in his body. Another dark tattoo, this one on the inside of his palm, flashed into my focus as he hooked the back of his shirt collar and lifted it, revealing a black-and-gray photorealistic skeleton hand curled around the back of his neck. A small gasp left my mouth at the haunting realness of it—and how hot it looked on his tan skin. It made him look even scarier and more unhinged. It looked so out of place and yet oddly perfect all at the same time—though that was kind of how he looked—all scarred and muscular in his expensive suit. He looked like he should be some sort of MMA fighter or something. My feet shuffled backward, but my heels hit the cabinet, stopping me from moving back even another inch. Surprising even myself, I boldly grabbed the hand covered in tattoos and flipped it over to see what was on his palm. It was some sort of dragon-looking snake that formed a circle with its body as it swallowed its own tail. Inside was something written in Latin.

“It’s an ouroboros,” he said with darkening eyes. He watched me with the focus a wolf keeps on a doe that’s about to run. “It symbolizes creation and destruction, war and peace.”

“What does it say? Is it Latin?”

He nodded. “Ego sum finis. I am the end.”

I swallowed and dropped his hand, but not before he noticed how mine trembled. He was powerfully intimidating from far away; this close, it was almost hard to breathe.

“You don’t have to explain,” he said, his voice quiet but insistent. “I get it. I know the rumors. This place—it gets to you over time. Believe me, I understand. I’m sorry too.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I suppose I don’t need to tell you, I’m not really good with people, never have been.” There was a vulnerable crack in his voice before he cleared his throat. “I—I didn’t kill my family, Eliza. I want you to know that. The ghosts of victims, everything, it’s just lies and rumors.”

There was something dark in his eyes that wouldn’t let me believe his gentle tone. It felt like he was trying to trick me. Like he could snap at any second and the gentleness would be replaced with danger. My nerves tingled under my skin, waiting to see if he would pull out a gun and put it to my temple or wrap his palm around my throat and watch as he squeezed.

“No one knows what really happened—at least, not anyone outside the manor.”

It seemed important to him that I know, and I didn’t know what to do with that. It wasn’t what I expected from him. There was something sincere in his tone that felt genuine. He seemed so tender and human now even though I knew better than to believe it.

“Why does everyone think that?” I said, still staring at the sink, unable to meet his eyes. “How did they die?” I knew I shouldn’t ask, but I couldn’t seem to help myself.

The silence in the room was thick, heavier than anything I had felt in a long time, none of the secrets wanted to come to light. Anger and hurt tugged at his face. For a moment, I wondered if maybe I should tell him about the ghost visiting me. Maybe it would disturb him, and he’d tell me what had really happened. Maybe then I could find evidence or whatever it was the ghost wanted from me.

But then, his voice—soft but steady—reached me. “My parents aren’t dead,” he said, and something in my chest tightened, then released, like a knot slowly unraveling. “They are still very much alive.”

They are still very much alive.

The words sat at the edge of my brain, refusing to sink in no matter how many times I replayed them. His parents weren’t dead. His parents weren’t dead?

Then how was the ghost of his dead mother haunting me? If it wasn’t Hester Blackwood, then who was it?

He could have been lying to me. He had to be—which meant he really did do it. What was I talking about? Of course he did it! Was I crazy? Was something wrong with me? I knew I had seen the ghost; I knew it. Not to mention the dove flying out of the locket. What was going on in this house?

I tried to keep a neutral expression, but I couldn’t slow down my breathing—I was about to have a panic attack. I looked at my palms, searching for some sort of proof that I was still here, that I was real. My shaking hand flew to my chest and felt for the locket beneath the fabric of my shirt.

The locket was there, the one the ghost led me to. The ghost was real. What was going on?