A happily-ever-after. “But what does that have to do with me? Why are you here now?”
“You knew about the pills. Shirley told me. Shirley tells everybody everything. I had to get them back.”
I had a thing or two to tell Shirley myself, if I ever got out of here.
“I peeked in the front window and saw you with the bag, staring at the pills and staring at the computer. You have no idea how long I searched her room for them. Finally, I figured she’d just used them all.”
“Let me get you help.” I forced my voice to be braver than I felt. “Because now I know about it, and you can’t blame Jenny if something happens to me. Sarah?”
“No, that’s just code for going back there. I won’t go back there.” She took another step forward, pinning me against the wall in the cooler.
Chapter 23
I figured I was going to die right there, just like Derek, my blood spattered in our walk-in cooler like so many red rose petals. I prayed that Larry or Amber Lee would find me, and that Liv would be spared.
Sarah Anderson might be petite, but I’d seen those muscles of hers, from all that working out in the gym. But I didn’t plan to go down without a fight. I looked around, grabbed a white rose from a pail nearby, and held it out like a weapon. Pretty pitiful, but at least the thorns might do some damage, maybe help Bixby identify my killer.
Sarah halted, looking confused at the long-stemmed rose.
A flash of movement came from the cooler door. Liv charged into the walk-in. Without stopping, she knocked Sarah to the ground.
Sarah squirmed and turned. She raised her hand, still clutching the knife, poised now to strike Liv in the back.
If my next actions were instinctive, I’ll admit to having strange instincts. I wrapped the rose stem around Sarah’s arm and tugged, trying to pull her arm and the knife away from Liv.
The thorns caught hold in her milky skin, sending long catlike scratches up her arm.
Sarah shrieked and dropped the knife before shriveling up into a ball.
I picked up the knife and looked around the back room before grabbing a full spool of two-and-three-quarter-inch poly satin ribbon with a taffeta embossed texture—in daffodil yellow.
When I got back to the cooler, Sarah struggled a little, but the fight was gone out of her and she mostly pouted and whimpered and nursed her scratches. I managed to hold her down while Liv used the ribbon to tie Sarah’s arms behind her and then secure her legs. Finishing up, I noticed, with a perfect bow.
I raised my eyebrows.
“Force of habit.” She stood and brushed off her hands.
• • •
Bixby looked ready to pounce but kept to his chair like someone had chained him down. He settled for drumming the table with his fingertips.
I answered his questions sweetly, with the demure smile Grandma Mae had taught us that every Southern lady should master.
Bixby slapped his hand on the table after I finished my statement. “Just promise me, Audrey, that you’ll never do anything like this again.”
“Do what? I was only trying to help a fr—”
“Do things like withholding evidence, confronting a suspect. Putting yourself and your cousin in such a dangerous situation.”
“Believe me, Chief, it will never happen again.” I might have punctuated that with an innocent flutter of my eyelashes. It was an easy promise to make. What were the odds that I would get tangled up in another murder investigation in Ramble? About the same as having a freak snowstorm on the Fourth of July.
Then again, with global warming . . .
Not that I regretted “sticking my nose in,” as Bixby put it. Jenny would soon be released, and a dangerous murderer now sat behind bars. Hopefully she’d get the psychological help she needed.
As I exited the interrogation room, I spotted the enclave huddled around Mrs. June’s desk. Liv gathered me in a hug and held on. “Are you okay?” I asked. The idea that she could have been hurt brought tears to my eyes.
She pulled back and met my gaze. “Yes, are you?”
Before I could answer, Amber Lee pulled me into a rocking bear hug. “Don’t scare me like that,” she said. “I can’t lose my friends and my job on the same day.”
Eric was next to hug me. “I’m glad you’re both all right. When Liv called, I nearly went out of my mind.” He put his arm around his wife and kissed the top of her head. “I don’t know what possessed you to tackle the woman instead of calling the police.”
“There wasn’t time.”
“She’s right.” I smiled at her. “Liv saved my life.”
She hugged me again. “And you saved mine.”
“Still,” Eric said, “you are going to the doctor’s.”
“Yes, sir.” Liv saluted. “I will, but I’m fine. You see, I led with the shoulder.”
“I just want to make sure it didn’t hurt the—”
Liv interrupted him with a hand on his arm and looked to me. “Audrey, there’s something we’ve been meaning to tell you, but I didn’t expect this would be the place.”
“You’re expecting a baby!”
“Congratulations!” Mrs. June shouted, and then she and Amber Lee rushed Liv for a group hug.
As soon as Liv extricated herself, she raised her eyebrows in surprise. “How did you know?”
“Decaf, nausea, and you’ve been a tad . . . emotional.”
She cast me a warning glance.
“Just a smidge.”
Liv shook her head. “Well, Sherlock, maybe you do have the makings of a detective.”
“Oh, no,” I said. “Being a wedding florist is more than enough danger and excitement for me.”
“I still don’t understand what happened,” Amber Lee said. “I get that Sarah killed Derek. But why did she come after you?”
“She was after the pills I found. When Jenny took what she thought were sleeping pills, she was actually taking Sarah’s antipsychotic meds. Once I found them, Sarah decided the trail would lead to her. And also, I’d figured out that she was the mysterious woman with the red hair.”
“But she’s a blonde,” Eric said.
“But we found the red wig in her locker at the health club,” Mrs. June said. “Incidentally, that’s also where they found Jenny’s missing engagement ring. Apparently Sarah was too sentimental to dispose of them with the rest of the bloody clothing. There are traces of blood on both, so they’ve been sent to the state labs for DNA testing.”
“I guess hell has no fury, and all that,” Eric said.
“But it was more than that,” Mrs. June said. “Add in a deep-seated psychological problem and a love for money and all she thought it could buy for her.”
“Money?” Amber Lee asked.
“Another reason Sarah was so desperate to marry Derek,” I said. “She figured no one could send her away if she was Mrs. Derek Rawling. No one would dare.”
Mrs. June nodded. “And, according to her confession, she was also the one blackmailing Derek’s father. She figured if she couldn’t have Derek, she could at least have some of his money.”
“Blackmailing him for . . . ?” Amber Lee asked.
“For his son’s activities, as well as the old man’s gambling operation,” Mrs. June said.
“Which he’s now shut down,” Eric said. “Mr. Rawling plopped the file on my desk this morning. Said he wanted me to try to renovate and lease the place as a proper restaurant. I suspect any evidence of gambling has been removed.”
“Will the Rawlings be implicated in all this, do you think?” Liv asked.
Eric shrugged. “Money still does talk.”
“But I’m sure a lot of people won’t,” Mrs. June said. “I doubt there’ll be enough evidence to tie old man Rawling to the illegal gambling club. Only I suspect a lot of his high-profile political
friends won’t stick around to find out.”
I nodded. “The party’s over.”
The outside door swung open. Ellen Whitney entered, dressed in teal from her head to the tips of her teal toenails jutting from her teal sandals. To see her looking more like herself made me smile.
I was shocked, however, to see her return my smile.
“It’s true, then?” she said. “My baby can come home?”
“Pretty soon,” Mrs. June said. “Bixby’s waiting on the papers authorizing her release.”
“Oh.” Ellen’s face fell.
“But she should be arriving any moment,” Mrs. June said.
Ellen glanced to the door, which opened on cue.
Jenny, looking a little gaunt, but minus the handcuffs and prison garb, walked in escorted by Ken Lafferty.
Ellen swallowed hard as she straightened her silver and teal necklace, then she ran to her daughter and embraced her, rocking her as they clung to each other.
Liv wiped away a tear.
And, despite my promise to Bixby, I knew I’d do it all over again.
Chapter 24
A while would pass before I’d be able to shake the adrenaline rush that occurred whenever anyone opened the alley door. Especially early in the morning when alone in the back room. I froze and watched until I saw Larry’s shock of hair and his plaid shirt.
“Hey, Audrey.”
“Larry, I didn’t know we were expecting a shipment today.” Except for people coming into the shop to hear more about the murder, business had returned to normal, and we had plenty of stock to keep our customers in flowers.
“That’s not why I’m here.” He placed a long box on my workstation. “These are for you . . . and your cousin.” His fair complexion burst into a fierce blush.
“Don’t say you brought us flowers.”
“Open it.”
When I did, I beheld the most perfect pale blue roses I’d ever seen. “You did a wonderful job tinting these. You can barely tell—”
“They’re not tinted.”
I leaned closer and took a better look. Only the palest pink shone through the blue. “What hybrid is this? I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any so blue.” The blue rose has been the holy grail of rose developers for years. No one had mastered one.
A broad smile transformed him again into a Kewpie doll. “I just got the registry papers on it.”
“Yours? Oh, Larry! That is wonderful! What did you name it?”
“I call it the Mae rose, after the woman who convinced me to never give up. She had confidence in me long before I had any in myself.”
I’m afraid I might have gotten his shoulder a little damp with my tears as I gave him a hug. “After our Grandma Mae. That is so sweet.”
“That’s why I didn’t want anyone else in the greenhouses. I needed to keep it a secret until it was safely registered. Not that I don’t trust you. But this is a small town, and things get out. But could you do me a favor, Audrey? Could you choose a meaning for it?”
I carefully lifted one of the blooms from the box and examined its delicate texture. “According to florigraphy, blue roses can mean anything from royalty to impossibility to mystery.” I smiled. “But not impossible, is it? Maybe something mysterious, but in a positive sense.”
“It’s a beauty.”
“What about mysterious beauty, then?”
“Mysterious beauty.” He scratched his chin. “I think I like it.”
“You’re going to sell all of these that you can grow,” I said.
“Audrey, I’d like the Rose in Bloom to market the cut roses for me.”
“Of course we’d be delighted to carry them.”
“I mean, exclusive, like.”
“But people from all over the country are going to want these.”
“Which is why I need to concentrate on cultivating more. I’m not equipped for retail.”
It meant more shipping, but this would be a big boon to our business. Maybe we could keep our new interns. “Liv is going to be ecstatic.”
I arranged the blue roses simply, in a clear glass vase with accents of baby’s breath. I set them on the counter in the shop, where they were the center of attention all day—well, they shared attention with talk of the murder.
Jenny had moved back home with her mother, and Sarah had been transported to a psychiatric facility for further examination.
Amber Lee busied herself repeating the story of the “knife fight in the walk-in cooler,” and how I’d stopped a deranged killer with only the thorns from a rose. It all sounded so much more exciting when she told it. Her former students must have enjoyed story time. I think she would have taken people on paid tours if Liv hadn’t nixed the idea.
“Weren’t you going to leave early for some hot date?” I asked her.
“Oh, please,” she said. “Don’t remind me. I could blame you for that disaster.”
“What did I do?”
“Remember when you told me to learn more about Worthington?”
“Is that who you’ve been seeing? You and the Rawlings’ butler?”
“Yeah, until Bixby threw him in the clink. Good riddance.”
“Why?”
“That cottage and garden plot of his on the Rawling estate? It seems he was growing a healthy crop of marijuana. That’s the only reason he joined the garden club. He used all our soil information to increase his crop yield. Even got Larry to come to one of our meetings to show us how to set up an indoor hydroponics system.”
“I thought I saw them chatting at the funeral.”
“I bet Larry didn’t know what he was up to, either. I hate being used like that.” She shook her head. “And you know what? He’s not even British.”
Another customer entered, and Amber Lee plastered on a smile and went to greet her.
• • •
In an afternoon lull, as Liv chugged her decaf and I leaned against the counter in a carbohydrate slump, the bell over the door startled me awake.
Nick Maxwell walked in, dressed in those sparkling baker’s whites.
“Come to get a bouquet?” It had been several days since his girlfriend had received fresh flowers.
“Yes.” He smiled that dazzling smile of his, and I let another refrain of the only-friends mantra cycle through my head.
“Actually, no. I brought you something.” He whipped out a cupcake from behind his back and set it on the counter. “I wanted to congratulate you on catching the real killer. I knew you could figure it out, and I’m glad you’re safe.”
“Thanks, I . . .” I looked at the cupcake with a perfectly formed red sugar tulip on the top. Did he know that the red tulip was a confession of love? Probably not.
Pull yourself together, Audrey. Just a friend, just a friend.
“I have a confession to make,” he said.
“A confession?”
“I haven’t been buying flowers for a girlfriend.”
“You’ve been using them as models for sugar flowers, haven’t you?”
“No . . . well, that’s what I ended up doing with them. But that’s not why . . . I mean, I already had all my molds set. I . . . well . . . I wanted to get to know you a little better.”
“Me?”
He smiled again, and everything but his face blended into some kaleidoscopic periphery. “Yes, and I wondered if maybe, sometime this weekend when we’re both not working, if maybe we could, I don’t know, have dinner?”
“I’d like that.”
“How about the Ashbury?”
“I . . .” I let out an unconscious breath. How could I tell him that place to me was cursed? The scene of my breakup—and everybody else’s wedding.
“Or I could cook.” His eyes twinkled. “I’ve been known to make things other than cake, you know.”
&
nbsp; “That sounds lovely. I . . .” I went to the self-service cooler and pulled out a perfect garden daisy and handed it to him. I share your sentiments.
“Thanks.”
The bell rang as another customer entered, but my eyes followed Nick as he saluted me with the daisy and backed out of the store.
I took a sniff of the cupcake. Instead of smelling like flowers, it smelled of vanilla and almond and sugar.
I guess love doesn’t always smell like roses.
Turn the page for a preview of Beverly Allen’s next Bridal Bouquet Shop Mystery . . .
For Whom the Bluebell Tolls
Coming soon from Berkley Prime Crime!
“Audrey, I . . .”
I stood on my front stoop, hand-in-hand with Nick Maxwell after one of our sporadic dinner dates. The moon cooperated, already aglow in the dusky sky, and a gentle breeze stirred the leaves in the trees—very welcome after the heat of the day. I closed my eyes, waiting for our good-night kiss.
Chester interrupted our romantic moment, scratching on the glass window and yowling for me to get inside and serve his every whim. (Did I mention Chester is my cat?) My neighbor Tom added percussion to the feline chorus, using the last remaining moments of daylight to tack up a Fourth of July banner a few feet away. Ah, the joys of apartment living. Then my phone started ringing in my living room.
“I should let you get that. Good night, Audrey.” Nick planted a chaste kiss on my forehead and gave my hand a squeeze before sending Tom a wave and walking back to his truck.
I leaned against the doorframe for a moment and watched him go. I knew Nick was encouraged by the growth of the bakery, which now supplied fresh baked goods and breads to local restaurants. But his early hours had really taken a toll on our date time.
Bloom and Doom Page 26
