The Mulberry Tree Read online

  Between the weight loss and the removal of that big schnozz of hers, Phillip had to admit that Bailey was a looker. Pudginess had been replaced with slim curves, and without that nose, you could really see her beautiful eyes and small, full lips. One morning at breakfast, Carol, holding a metal spatula, had leaned close to his ear and said, “You keep on looking at her like that, and I’ll ram this—”

  But Phillip did admit that Bailey looked good. “Do you think anyone will recognize me?” was the first thing Lillian had asked when the bandages were removed.

  “No one,” the doctor, Carol, and Phillip had all assured her, each trying not to say how much better she looked, because that would have been saying how bad she used to look.

  Now Phillip got out of the car and motioned to the man in the car behind him to remove the suitcases from the trunk and put them inside the house. He’d arranged for two cars to be waiting for them at the airport: the SUV he’d bought for Lillian, and a black sedan from a local car service to follow them and drive Phillip back to the airport.

  On the plane ride to Dulles Airport in D.C., Lillian had put her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. When Phillip had spoken to her, she’d just nodded. He figured that she wasn’t speaking to him because he’d taken the job with Atlanta and Ray. He wanted to explain to her why, but at the same time, the less she knew, the better. If she wasn’t going to fight for herself, then he was going to do it for her. And the only way he knew how to do that was from the inside out.

  It had been a three-hour drive from the airport to the tiny mountain town of Calburn, where the farmhouse was. On the drive Lillian had put aside her anger and had pumped him for everything he knew about the town and the house.

  Unfortunately for Lillian, Phillip could honestly say that even though he’d been James Manville’s friend for twenty years, he knew nothing about his childhood. Truthfully, he wasn’t at all sure that this farmhouse was even connected to James’s past.

  “How can Jimmie be related to people like Atlanta and Ray?” she’d asked. “I can’t understand that.”

  Phillip was tempted to say, “That’s because you never saw James do business. If you had, you’d know that he was more like them than you realize.” But he didn’t say that. Let her have her dreamy-eyed visions about her dead husband, he thought.

  Lillian—Bailey, he corrected himself again—had walked around the house to look at the back. The investigator Phillip hired had taken photos of the property, so he knew that the back was more tangled than the front, and he dreaded having her see it. Using the key that James had given him when he’d signed over the deed to the house, Phillip opened the front door.

  The door fell off its rusty hinges and crashed onto the floor, taking the jamb with it. In astonishment, Phillip turned and looked at the man behind him, whose arms were loaded with suitcases. Turning back, Phillip stepped onto the fallen door and into the house.

  The place was ghastly. Thick, dusty cobwebs hung down from the ceiling all the way to the floor. He could hear creatures—mice, rats, and whatever else they have in the country—scurrying about under the floor. The sunlight that came through the dirty windows showed years of dust floating through the air.

  “Take the luggage back to the car,” Phillip said over his shoulder to the man behind him. “She’s not staying here.” He waited until the man was gone, then he turned, stepped onto the door and out into the fresh air. He’d never thought of James Manville as evil until this moment. That he’d leave his wife this filthy place and expect her to live here was either insane or truly evil. Since he knew for a fact that James was not insane, that left—

  Lips tight with anger, Phillip walked toward the back of the house to find Bailey.

  The photos hadn’t lied: the back really was worse than the front. Huge trees, vines that were covered with lethal-looking thorns, bushes as tall as trees, and weeds as big as something in a science fiction movie fought each other for space and light. The tangled mass of plants around him made Phillip shiver. To his right were stones set in the ground to make a narrow path through weeds as high as his head. The many bees buzzing around him made him quicken his step. “Lillian?” he called, then caught himself. Like the lawyer he was, he looked around to see if anyone had heard him make the error of calling her by her former name. But as he looked at the tangle of weeds, he knew that an army could be hiding ten feet away, and he’d not be able to see them. “Bailey?” he called louder as he quickened his pace. Still, there was no answer.

  Immediately, his mind filled with all the horrors of the country: snakes, rabid skunks, deer that could kick a person to death. Were there wolves in these mountains? What about wildcats that hid high up in trees and jumped on people? What . . . about . . . bears?

  If the jacket she was wearing hadn’t been bright pink, he never would have seen her. She was entangled in the biggest, ugliest tree he’d ever seen, and all he could spy were her denim-clad legs and part of one pink sleeve. Oh, God, he thought, she’s hanged herself. In despair over James and this hideous place, she’d somehow managed to commit suicide.

  Heart pounding, he ran toward the tree, ducked under two low limbs, and then saw her. She was alive and looking upward raptly as though she were seeing some heavenly vision. It’s worse than suicide; she’s lost her mind, he thought.

  “Bailey,” he said softly, but when she didn’t respond, he said, “Lillian?” She just kept looking upward. Slowly, carefully, he stepped toward her—but he also inspected the ground. Weren’t people supposed to stand still if they saw rattlesnakes? Was a poisonous snake the reason she wasn’t moving?

  “Bailey?” he said softly when he got closer to her. “We can go now. You don’t have to stay here. If you want a little house somewhere, I’ll buy it for you. I’ll—”

  “Do you know what this is?” she whispered.

  He looked up, but all he saw was an old tree that badly needed pruning—or better yet, removal. “I know,” he said, “it’s a horrible old thing. But you don’t have to look at it.” He put his hand on her arm to pull her away.

  “It’s a mulberry tree,” she said softly, her voice sounding almost reverent. “And it’s very old. It’s a black mulberry tree.”

  “Nice,” Phillip said, then pulled harder on her arm.

  Bailey smiled. “The Chinese duped James the First.”

  At first he thought she meant James Manville, but then he realized she meant the English king, Elizabeth the First’s incompetent successor. What did an English king have to do with a derelict farm in Virginia?

  She spoke again. “James decided to grow mulberry trees in England so he could raise silkworms and make silk an industry in England. The silkworms feed on mulberry leaves, you know. So James imported thousands and thousands of mulberry trees from China. But—” She broke off and smiled as she touched a leaf of the big tree. “The Chinese tricked him. They sent the English king trees that bear black mulberry fruit instead of white. Black mulberries are great for eating, but silkworms won’t touch them.”

  Phillip looked at his watch. It was 2:00 P.M. Three hours back to the airport, and his flight was at six. Of course he’d have to find a seat for Bailey on the same flight. “Look, why don’t you tell me more about mulberry trees and the kings of England on the way back to the airport? You can—”

  “I’m not leaving,” she said.

  It was Phillip’s turn to want to burst into tears. Why did all women have to be contrary? “Bailey,” he said firmly, “you haven’t seen the inside of that house! It’s falling down. The door collapsed when I opened it. How can you possibly spend the night here? The place is filthy! It’s—”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  At the sound of a large truck on the rarely used gravel road in front of the house, Phillip started chanting, “No, no, no, no,” even as Bailey leaped over two tree limbs and started running down the overgrown path.

  The furniture had arrived.

  Three

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