“It didn’t sound like you were speaking in English,” Jo noted.
“I wasn’t,” Harriett said. “These seeds were found in a grave that was over two thousand years old. Silphium only understands ancient Greek.”
“You’re telling me you know—” Jo started to ask. Then she stopped. “Never mind.” She couldn’t get distracted from her mission. “Harriett, what were those seeds you threw off the roof at Jackson Dunn’s house?”
“A variety of Scotch broom,” Harriett replied. “As a weed, it’s very difficult to eradicate, but it does have lovely flowers.”
“Scotch broom,” Jo repeated. “Do bees like it?”
“Of course.” Harriett rose out of the flowers like a cobra emerging from a snake charmer’s basket. Even without shoes, she was at least four inches taller than Jo. “Is there something you’re trying to ask me, Jo?”
Jo studied the witch looming over her. She’d never been frightened of Harriett, and she wasn’t now. But she was wary of Harriett’s power. Jo now realized Harriett needed to be handled with caution. There was something about her friend that wasn’t quite human anymore.
“You knew Jackson Dunn was allergic to bees. And yet you spread seeds for a plant that would attract them.”
“Yes.”
“He’s in the hospital,” Jo said.
“You don’t say?” Harriett replied with a hint of amusement but not a drop of concern.
“Were you trying to—?” Jo didn’t want to say the words.
“Kill him?” Harriett shrugged as if the question were moot. “Not necessarily. No more than he was trying to ruin my career by excluding me from his rooftop gatherings. And no more than he was trying to traumatize me by grabbing my pussy.”
Jo cringed at the phrase. “Yes, but—”
“But what, Jo?”
“I thought we were supposed to be the good guys.”
“No,” Harriett said, and Jo could see she was no longer joking. “Nessa is a good guy. I do what I believe to be necessary.”
Jo felt the atoms inside her vibrating like mad and slamming into each other. “I’m the protector. I’m a good guy, too.”
“Are you sure that’s what you are?” Harriett asked her. “You’ll have to decide soon. Do you want to follow the rules that have been laid out for us—or would you rather find the path that’s meant for you?”
“I just want to make the world a safer place for my daughter,” Jo said.
“Yes, but are you sure you’re willing to do what it takes?” Harriett asked. “What if the world as it is will never be safe for her? What if you realize you have to burn it all down?”
They heard the sound of a car pulling up fast in the driveway. The engine switched off and a car door slammed. “Harriett!” Nessa shouted. “Where are you? Jo! Are you here?”
“We’re in the garden,” Harriett called. Her eyes remained focused on Jo. It was Jo’s decision, she was saying, whether or not to tell Nessa about the bees.
Jo’s lips stayed sealed as Nessa emerged from the brambles and charged toward the two of them, her phone in her hand.
“The lab just emailed the results of the DNA test that Franklin and I ordered.” The words came gushing out before she’d reached Harriett and Jo, as though Nessa could no longer hold them in. “Laverne Green, the woman who claimed to be our girl’s mother, is no relation of hers whatsoever. She was lying.”
“Is there a chance she might have made a mistake?” Jo asked. “Maybe she saw the missing person post and honestly thought the girl was her daughter.”
“Nope.” Nessa shook her head. “There’s no way she made a mistake. Remember—she had an envelope filled with pictures. They were Polaroids, too, like the photo in the locker. She had to know that the person in those pictures wasn’t her daughter.”
“Has Franklin heard about all of this?” Jo asked.
“He found out this afternoon and tried to get in touch with Laverne Green. She’s disappeared.”
“If she isn’t related to the girl, who is she?” Jo asked.
“I think she must be an actress, but Franklin isn’t convinced. He says it would be extremely expensive to hire a good actress and forge a birth certificate and medical records for a make-believe child.”
“The person responsible would have to be very connected and very rich,” Jo said. “Like Spencer Harding.”
“You think he’s capable of arranging something like that?”
“Leonard Shaw’s girlfriend, Claude, was in my gym today. Apparently, Spencer’s a pretty bad guy. She’s convinced he had Rosamund murdered, and she seems to think he knows people who can get just about anything done.”
“Leonard Shaw’s girlfriend was at Furious Fitness?” Nessa asked. “Why?”
Jo’s eyes were on Harriett as she delivered her answer. “She said she needed somewhere to run. Apparently, they’re having a problem with bees out on the Pointe.”
“Bees?” Nessa asked. “How strange.”
“Yes,” Jo agreed, still staring at Harriett. “Very.”
Later that night, after her groceries had been delivered, Harriett didn’t bother to dress. She left the house without a stitch on to walk among her plants in the moonlight. She pictured the confusion on Jo’s face earlier that day when she’d shown no regret for what had happened to Jackson. Harriett wondered how long Jo would think in terms of good and evil. Her friend was an intelligent woman, and such simplistic concepts were beneath her. But some people, even smart people, relied on those labels to make sense of the world. They slapped them on everything without ever realizing the placement was arbitrary.
When Harriett was a girl, she’d been taught to live in fear of evil. Her grandparents, who’d raised her, had warned her that men would whisper lies in her ear and steal her purity the moment she let down her guard. She was told the urges she felt were sinful. The boys who would have satisfied them were filthy. The girls, unspeakable. After high school, Harriett had fled from the Midwest to New York. But even there, a thousand miles from home, wherever she looked, everything had been labeled.