“No, of course not. But we’ve talked on the phone several times and you were adamant that the whole thing needed to go. That you wanted to replace the past with the future—”
“That is not my future,” I almost shriek, pointing toward the copious rows of belladonna plants. “Look, I don’t know who you are or what possessed you to do this or how you even got in here, but I assure you, we have never spoken on the phone. The only people I let near my father’s garden are Miguel and his crew. And you are definitely not Miguel.”
“I’m not, no.” It’s his turn to fumble in his pocket and he has more success than I did, finally coming up with a business card that he holds out to me. “My name is Jensen Barksdale. I run Luxe Gardens. I assure you, we really have spoken on the phone several times in the last couple weeks about what you wanted done with these gardens. Your voice is very recognizable.”
I look from him to his card and back again. “You could give me a million of these cards, but that doesn’t prove anything. Do you have a contract signed by me detailing the work you claim I wanted done? Work that has destroyed my father’s prize gardens?”
Now he’s the one taking a step back…and the one looking a little frightened, as if I’m the crazy person in this equation. “I don’t have a contract, no. But we spoke just this morning, Ms. Romero. I called over to let you know I was on my way and you gave me a code to use for the front gate—23715. You told me to get started as you were busy all morning but that you’d be back this afternoon. We talked about how you didn’t expect the whole garden to be finished today, just the east side, which we’ve completed.”
I’m so horrified that it takes a minute for his words to sink in, but once they do…once they do I start to really freak out. Start to question what I know to be true. Because he has the right gate code.
He’s using the visitor’s code, the one I change monthly for visiting repair people, etc. It’s brand new, since I changed the old one two days ago after the photo shoot. I haven’t given it to anyone yet—except for maybe Jensen Barksdale, if I decide to believe him.
Still, what he’s saying is impossible. I remember every second of what I was doing today clearly and I never spoke to this man. I sure as hell didn’t give him a code to my house and ask him to come in and destroy the gardens. Just the idea is absurd.
So maybe he hacked the equipment somehow and got the code that way? I need to call my security company, see if they can figure out if someone’s been messing around in my system. Considering we never spoke, it’s the only thing that makes sense.
Except, as I stand here trying to figure things out, he pulls out his phone. He scrolls through his recent call screen, then holds it out to me with a frown. “This is your number, right?”
“It can’t be. I’ve never—” I freeze. It can’t be, but it is. It is my number. And not my public cell, either, the one a lot of people know the number to. No, this is my private one. The one only a handful of people even know about and that I use only to conduct personal business.
Jensen must be able to see the truth on my face, because he slides his phone back in his pocket. “Look,” he says quietly, gesturing to the south side of the house. “I’m really sorry if there’s been some mistake. Obviously, we won’t continue the rest of the job. But I can’t put this part of the yard back the way it was. The plants are already dead. I mean, I can come back tomorrow and rip out the belladonna, and replant with similar flowers, but they’ll take some time to grow.”
“I know.” God, do I know. I don’t even want to think about what Miguel is going to say when he sees this disaster. He’s spent over twenty years taking care of this garden like it was one of his own children.
I walk the few steps to the beginning of one of the winding stone paths my father had had laid throughout the garden when I was a child. At one time, this particular path had been lined with every size and color and kind of rose imaginable—they were my favorite flowers when I was young and my father had indulged my affinity for them. He’d even let me pick out which colors I wanted and where I wanted them to be placed along the path.
I’d wander the rose path, as we called it, almost every day. Partly to smell the roses and partly because it led directly to a large, wedding cake white gazebo that I had—for many years—considered my own personal haven. I can’t begin to guess how many afternoons I whiled away in that gazebo, playing Rapunzel or Sleeping Beauty or my personal favorite, Mulan.
The gazebo is gone now, destroyed by my father not long after everything went bad. I never would have asked him to do that. Just like I would never have had the gardens demolished, no matter how uncomfortable they make me.