The Poppy Drop

by C L Bauer

  about that. I was going to pick up something.”

  “I saw a coffee place on my way here, a couple of blocks that way.” He pointed in the direction. “You want to grab something?”

  She should say no, right? Why? She was hungry? He probably didn’t know anyone else in town except that FBI agent, so why not?

  “Meet you there.”

  Chapter Ten

  Lily was making her list in her head while she drove to the coffee shop, only he didn’t pull into the coffee shop. She parked next to his car.

  “I thought we were going for coffee? This is a very nice restaurant.” He seemed to be walking faster than usual.

  “Do they have breakfast?”

  “Yes, but it's a little pricier.” She hated to be cheap but she really wasn’t in the mood to spend over twenty dollars on an organic omelet.

  “Fine. I’m paying. Come on,” he motioned to her. “I’m really hungry.”

  She cocked her head to the right and rolled her eyes. She followed anyway.

  She’d only eaten there one other time last year when her sister had been visiting. They’d gone after church and drank mimosas until it was time for lunch. She would not be drinking today.

  The coffee was very good and the complimentary orange juice was a nice treat. They were seated out on the patio under a huge black umbrella. Agent Pierce ordered a very large breakfast but Lily just ordered a mini omelet with toast.

  It was silence between them again.

  “It’s going to be hot today. You can already feel it, but this is nice. Nice breeze.” Lily attempted to begin a conversation.

  He nodded.

  He was watching a family with two toddlers cross the parking lot.

  “Do you like kids?” Oh my gosh, she did not just ask that. What was wrong with her? Had she lost all social conversation skills?

  “That little guy has been hitting his sister and no one sees him doing it.” He was laughing at the sight. “Um, kids, yes, I do like kids. How about you?”

  “I love my nephews and nieces but they’re too far away to spoil all the time. I don’t see too many children in my work unless they are flower girls or ring bearers.”

  He took a sip of coffee and looked right at her. His eyes weren’t sparkling and seemed darker than she had seen. He was shifting uncomfortably in his chair.

  “So, I need to tell you a couple of things,” he began seriously. “We are still trying to gain some sort of contact with the Cartel to call them off. We know the ones responsible and we actually know their contact in the Miami Airport. Sad to say they have several so it’s a hot mess.”

  “What does that mean for me?” Lily fidgeted with the paper napkin ring. It didn’t sound good.

  “Well, you are stuck with me for a few more days. We don’t want to watch you all the time but they now know you are under our protection. They just want their drugs, not you.”

  “Comforting. When will all this be over?”

  Their food came interrupting the access to the information she needed most.

  “Soon,” he answered quickly while the server placed their plates on the table. “Soon.”

  Small talk took over the conversation in between bites. She had been starving but you’d thought he’d been on a ten-mile hike the way he attacked his food.

  “So did you get flowers on your last birthday? I mean, do you give flowers to a florist?” Agent Pierce was scraping off half the butter on his toast.

  “Never have had flowers delivered to me.”

  “On your last birthday or on any birthday?”

  “Never any time.”

  He dropped his knife and fork. “Never, ever?”

  “Nope.”

  “What the heck? So what does a significant other send to the florist girlfriend? This is fascinating.”

  “Um, well, balloons. But my family, well, the cookie cake was probably the best, delivered by one of the local bakeries.” Lily smiled thinking about that birthday. It had been a good one before everyone moved away, some permanently with death.

  “I didn’t notice any flowers in your house last night.”

  “Kind of like that old story…the shoemaker’s children have no shoes. Besides, I get tired of seeing them. The house is my refuge sometimes.” She’d finished her breakfast and was now focused on her coffee.

  “This was good,” he announced as he finished the last bite. “I love having breakfast out but back home I’m usually alone so I just pop into one the coffee shops. This was a real treat.”

  “So this isn’t a usual Sunday morning for you?”

  He smiled. “Definitely not. I live near Alexandria and I usually go for an early run, then the coffee shop, grab a newspaper, sit on the doorstep and read it. Then I’ll shower and figure out what I’m doing for the day. When I’m not working, I’m sort of lost. I’m trying to…” his voice trailed off.

  Lily completely understood what he was saying. She had her work and that was it.

  Occasionally she would meet with girlfriends but most of them were married with families or divorced and looking for that exciting someone.

  The server brought the bill and before Lily could protest, his credit card was in the man’s hand.

  “You really didn’t need to do that.”

  “I wanted to do it. Besides, I would’ve gone for a run, found a coffee shop, you know,” he laughed.

  “Same old, same old. Happy to have saved you from it.”

  “So boss, what do we have on the agenda this week?”

  Lily leaned across the table with a very serious look on her face. He leaned in too as if she had the most important information since the Bible.

  “Weddings. More weddings.”

  Chapter Eleven

  This Monday was no different than any Monday in June. Lily had a substantial amount of cleanup work to do today and she didn’t have the distraction of shoppers coming into the store. Today, Abby was not coming into work; Lily liked the quiet of working alone. She loved Abby but too much sunshine actually did give a person a sunburn. Abby was the sun and Lily was a pale white girl who melted in the heat. She preferred the shadows, the corner of a room where her back could be supported by a thick wall and she could just watch what happened around her.

  That’s another reason why she detested this Cartel insanity. She just wanted to be left alone.

  But did she? Amazingly, there was no Agent Pierce greeting her today. She carefully keyed in the code sequence de jour. Lily took a deep breath as she walked into a quiet shop, one void of any burglary damage. So far so good.

  She was startled by the front door buzzer. Lily turned quickly, her keys still in her hand, to see Big John’s smiling face. His hands were filled with two coffee cups.

  “How’s my little girl?”

  She released her breath, relaxing the grip on the keys. “One of those coffees better be for me.”

  “You know it is,” he answered as he handed the cup over. “I thought I better check in since the store is closed today. I heard about your problems.”

  She took a quick drink and motioned for him to take a seat opposite her at the table. “You heard about that?”

  “Yes, some of my former buddies on the force heard about your break-in from some patrol cops. They told me to keep my eyes open.”

  Good, one more set of eyes couldn’t hurt. It was normal to sit down and talk to John early on a Monday morning but he was earlier than usual today. But she really needed to just have normal, the sooner the better.

  “How’s your wife?”

  “Well, that’s why I’m here early. She has a doctor’s appointment this afternoon and I want to go with her. She’s having trouble with her hip again.”

  John’s wife had a bad spill in December. The hip was healing through the winter and with physical therapy she was almost up to par. Lily had heard she’d spent time with her daughter in Florida in the spring and a little of that sunshine could do any body good. But John seemed worried and that
worried Lily. He was such a gentle soul and he and his wife seemed to have a heavenly marriage. They’d been together for nearly forty years. They had survived a lot, even the death of their oldest son. A death of a child had to be devastating but to make it even worse, if possible, he had been killed by the police. John had still been on the force at the time.

  His son had been involved in drugs and was caught at the wrong place, with the wrong people, at the wrong time. No wonder he had retired within a year after the incident.

  They had their daughter but she had moved away years ago. Currently, she lived somewhere on the east coast of Florida with John’s only granddaughter. Of course, he had shared everything about that little girl. His smile was from ear to ear whenever he even mentioned her.

  “I’m sorry she’s going through that,” Lily said softly. “How did she hurt it again?”

  John looked down at his coffee cup. “She fell. That’s all. She just fell.” He looked up at Lily seriously. “Everyone needs to be careful. You just don’t know when you’re going to get hurt.”

  Lily saw an emptiness she had never seen. That man loved his wife so much that it looked like he was taking on her pain. The look sent a shiver down her back…you know the one… someone is walking on your grave feeling.

  She’d never been so grateful to hear that dang buzzer at the entrance. Both of them jolted to standing positions as Agent Pierce entered. He looked at John and then Lily, adding a smile in her direction.

  “Hi, Babe.”

  Lily gulped the sip of coffee down. She had done everything not to spew it out all over the table. Babe? John looked at Lily and then at the man in the doorway.

  “Something you forgot to tell me, little girl?” John cocked his head in confusion.

  “Well, I really haven’t had time, you know weddings and all, but this is, this is,”she was stammering.

  Agent Pierce extended his hand out to John. “I’m Dev. Lily and I have been going out. We started months ago online…her sister knew a friend of mine, you know how that goes.”

  John smiled and then looked back at Lily.

  “Well, well. Miss Lily, look what you have found.”

  She scrunched her shoulders as if she’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar. Her eyes had widened at the story that was being laid on her friend.

  “So you know Lily’s sister?”

  “No, my friend in Virginia knows Elizabeth. I think their kids go to school together, one of the girls.”

  “Ah, yes. Well that makes sense. So you two started talking online?”

  “Yes. I had just gotten out of the military and I was trying to restart my life. We hit it off on Skype. Then I ended up with a business that does some work in Kansas City and I took the opportunity to see where our relationship might head.”

  Lily watched in amazement. The man who couldn’t tell a lie to save his soul when he was with her was a real piece of work. Pretty soon John was suggesting where he should go for the best ribs, Dev was mentioning the local beer he enjoyed. Lily finally sat down and finished her coffee, watching them as though they were actors on a movie screen.

  Dev was relaxed and charming. Heck, she started to believe they were in a relationship.

  She was believing every little detail. He knew her sister via a friend of his? Did he really know her? Oh Lord, this was getting terribly confusing. So much for an ordinary day. She heard John call her name and she was shocked out of her stupor of fantasy.

  “Lily,” he began. “I think you’ve found yourself a good one. You deserve someone like this. Well, I better get going. You take care and Dev, it was certainly good to meet you.”

  John grabbed Dev’s hand in his. “Now, make sure my little girl stays safe. Don’t you be hurting her.”

  “No sir. I’ll make sure Lily is not hurt by anything or anyone.”

  Lily smiled but deep down she thought there was some kind of secret messaging going back and forth between these two alpha males. She suddenly felt like territory that each dog was claiming.

  John was waving back at her as he left the store.

  She stood with only Agent Pierce in the shop. Her hands were placed defiantly on her hips.

  She stared at him as if he had grown an extra head.

  “What?” Dev knew that look. His mother used to have the same stance when he came home late from baseball practice.

  “You can lie and you do it quite well, Agent Pierce.”

  He smiled coyly, tilting his head to the left. “Not lying, Ms. Schmidt, playacting. When it’s necessary, I can do it very well.” He straightened his head and stared into her eyes.

  “This isn’t a game, Ms. Schmidt. I know you don’t like lying to your friends but it is necessary, at least for now. You need to get over your naivety.”

  Now she was mad. “Excuse me? Naivety? I’m taking all of this very seriously and I want it over. NOW! Could you please just leave?”

  “Are we having our first fight?” Dev casually retrieved his phone from his pants pocket and checked a text message.

  “Arrrgghhh,” Lily sputtered. She walked away from him to the back room and began to clean.

  It was several minutes until Dev leaned up against the door to watch her. Her face was beet red and he could see her hands shake when she moved a couple glass vases to storage. She kept her head down as she worked around the room. He casually watched her, studied her again.

  “Lily, I’m not really trying to make light of this situation. Listen, as soon as we have confirmation that you are not in danger, we will be gone and you can go back to your little life.”

  She stopped in her tracks, throwing a broom down on the floor. Dev straightened up. What had he said now?

  “My little life? That’s so kind of you big bad government agent.” She came closer to him and looked up at his stoic face. There were no twinkling eyes, no smile. “You are a real jerk. I want you gone. I want you away from here. Can you just go sit out in your car? My little life is just too little to have you in it, so bloody well get out.” She shoved her hands against his chest.

  Dev backed away. He felt another text message through his pocket. It was probably Tom suggesting something as he watched this all unfold from the safety of his downtown office. He knew she was just upset but he was having doubts about what his next move should be. He never had this feeling in Iraq or Afghanistan or any of the other “stans” he had operated in.

  He slowly walked backward, his hands extended out in an almost surrender movement. “I’m going. I’ll be outside and around. I’ll stop back in later with some lunch. I’ll bring you something.” Short, choppy sentences worked on small children and terrorists. He was hoping it worked on short angry women.

  Quickly, without any more words or actions, he was gone and Lily was left alone standing in the middle of her shop, her world. She sat down in the middle of the floor with legs crossed, holding her head in her hands. Tears flowed down her face and began to puddle in front of her.

  “It’s my little world,” she cried out loud. “Mine, not yours. And it’s not that little. It’s, it’s… oh Lord help me.”

  Dev sat in the car in front of the shop. Tom had texted. He called him quickly. “What’s she doing?”

  “Well, Dev, she’s sitting on the floor, crying, muttering. Oh, wait, she’s getting up and going back to work.”

  Dev shook his head. “She uses work as her therapy. That’s all she has right now that she can control and I’m taking away that control. She’s not happy with this whole thing. We need to get this over for her as soon as possible.”

  Tom Fullerton laughed.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Well, do we need to get this over for you too?”

  “Talk to you later.” Dev placed his phone down on the seat next to him.

  He strained to see inside the shop. He could watch via his phone through the security system but he wanted to give her some privacy. He shook his head.

  What was it with her? H
e’d had other undercover work and he had excelled in most missions and cases but with her it was different. He liked her. She was very likable…all her clients loved her.

  It was easier dealing with terrorists, at least you knew their motives and how they were going to treat you…they were going to kill you unless you killed them.

  But her? What was the end game with her? And did he even want, or need to play?

  It was noon before he entered the shop again. She looked at him from around the door of the backroom.

  “I brought lunch and an apology for entering your life. Can we eat?”

  Lily watched him skeptically as he laid down two bottles of water and two sandwiches from the deli around the corner. She walked slowly to the table and sat down without saying a word.

  He was unwrapping the sandwich for her, placing a paper napkin on her lap.

  “It’s turkey, provolone, everything but peppers, no mayo but I have mustard here.” A mustard packet appeared in front of her face.

  “Thank you.” Lily took the packet. He’d ordered exactly what she would’ve ordered. Had he paid that much attention to last week’s sandwiches? Of course he did. He was a spy.

  “I made a joke that was very inappropriate and it will never happen again.” He was calm.

  Lily almost thought he sounded more detached than apologetic. He’d built some sort of a wall between them in the last few hours. She had no intention of breaking it down. Actually, she was more mad at herself and her little world than she was at him. She was just angry that he had realized that she did exist in her own bubble, with only her work to feed her needs. It was a sad thing to realize you were alone and your life depended on only making others happy, never enjoying that same joy.

  “I’m sorry too,” she blurted out. Why had she said that? There was an uncomfortable silence.

  He finally looked over at her. “You have nothing to be sorry about. This has all been overwhelming for you and I am truly sorry that you are having to endure the uncertainty, the hovering, me. I was over the line and it won’t happen again.”

  “No, I, well, it’s just too much. I just don’t like lying to my friends or even to my clients. They come in and out of my life and they deserve all the truth and integrity that I can offer. Not to mention the flowers.”