by Moure, Ana
“But then, just as the wedding was only a couple of hours away, Natalie found out as she went through your trash bin to look for a bra strap. She found the pregnancy test. I don’t know whether she suspected that Trevor was the father, but she had enough reasons to hate you already, because her beloved boyfriend had left her because he was in love with you.”
“She saw it as a good chance to bring you down, get your father to disinherit you and shame you in front of the whole town. The only mistake she made is that she didn’t hide her discovery fast enough and Jasmine saw her fish it out. Maybe Natalie even told her what she now knew as she probably never expected that her own sister could cold-bloodedly murder her on the day of her own wedding.”
“Dad!” Jasmine suddenly cried out and ran to kneel in her father’s feet. “Dad, it’s not true! Don’t let him say these awful things about me!”
“Quiet now, Jasmine,” her father hissed. “How did she do it? How do you think she killed her sister? We all know there was nothing wrong with Natalie before she collapsed.”
“There is a flower called Daphne,” Prim said, stepping forward next to her husband, “Or, as we call it around here, lady laurel. The town is full of these bushes in private gardens and even in the village green. It has pretty purple flowers, but it is also one of the most deadly flowers if ingested.”
“So, you are saying Jasmine fed her sister a flower?” the Father asked impatiently.
“No,” Prim continued calmly, “That would have been absurd, wouldn’t it? The poison of the Daphne is concentrated in its berries and sap. If it enters the bloodstream, it can cause coma and even death. Jasmine used this same flower to make her own corsages for the wedding. She punctured her sister’s wrist, so the poisonous sap could seep in and let her believe it was just thorns. The Daphne has no thorns. She used a needle or another sharp object.”
“I saw the puncture marks on Natalie’s wrist,” Sage added, joining her sister in the middle of the room, “When I examined the body last night. The skin around it was irritated and blistered, just like it is in cases of Daphne poisoning.”
Silence weighed down in the room.
“No!” Jasmine wailed, “It’s not true! Daddy, don’t listen to them! I didn’t think she was going to die. I though I’d just make her a little sick… Make her miss the wedding. I didn’t kill her!”
The Father wasn’t even looking at his daughter.
Her wails reverberated through the room.
“Jasmine Pendergrass,” Ben said, stepping forward and reaching back for his handcuffs, “You are now under arrest…”
Epilogue
Sage stepped off the stone stairs and dipped her toes into the cool morning sand of the beach. It was so clean and fine that it massaged her feet pleasantly as she walked towards the shore, her flip-flops swinging in her hand. It was beautiful. Everything around her was tinged in pink as the sun had just swum out from the horizon.
It turned out that only a few days of getting up at sunrise could make you a morning person.
She’d already had a blueberry pancake breakfast at home, together with her nephews, and hurried out the door on a small mission. She was clutching a mug full of freshly brewed coffee that warmed her palm in the crisp morning. When she reached the small deck with fishing boats, Dan was already there, fiddling with the ropes of his own small boat. A week had passed since the day of Jasmine’s arrest and the last time she had seen him on a similar morning.
He didn’t notice her at first, so she had a few moments to admire his back as he continuously leaned over the mysterious fishing equipment, sorting something out. The sand and the gentle noise of water lapping in equal intervals muffled her steps and she secretly enjoyed the fact that he didn’t suspect her approaching.
“Good morning, captain,” she called out.
Dan’s shoulders heaved in surprise for a moment, but then he turned in his slow, lazy manner, a half-smile already on his face.
“Isn’t that the last person I expected to see this early,” he said.
“Well, it’s not really a coincidence,” Sage said, “I was looking for you.”
“Hm, I knew I shouldn’t have shared my secret free morning routine with you,” he said, “Next thing you know, you’ll be camping out here to get to corner me with questions.”
“No, no, I swear,” she said, smiling, “No more questions. It’s more like… I wanted to thank you.”
“Jump in then, I was just taking off.”
Sage hesitated for a moment as the offer came quite unexpectedly. Plus, her dress wasn’t exactly the most appropriate fishing attire, but then he turned to her once again and extended his arm to help her get on board. She noticed the little lines around his eyes and the dimples in his sunburned sides when he smiled and couldn’t help but think they made him even more attractive.
“Alright then,” she said and wobbled onto the boat, leaving her flip-flops on the shore and trying not to spill any coffee on herself. His strong hand steadied her immediately and she made it safely onto a small bench lining the side of the boat. She watched as he untied the rope that was latching them to the dock and pushed the boat out into the sea. The small engine soon purred into action and started propelling them further in towards the pink horizon.
“Thank me for what?” Dan said in a while, when there was nothing more for him to do than sit and steer the boat forward.
“Here,” Sage said shyly and extended the mug of coffee towards him.
“What’s that?”
“My way of saying thank you,” she said, “I thought… Well, you make coffee for everyone in town, every morning, so I thought you deserved someone to make you a cup on your day off. Plus, you were nice to me when you had no reason to be and answered all my insane questions.”
Dan let out a small laugh.
“That’s nice, Miss Town’s Hero, Murderer-Catcher, Mystery-Solver,” he said, taking the mug and bringing it to his nose to smell, “I’m starting to change my opinion of these big city folks. You do have some nice manners after all.”
Sage blushed and looked at the small puddle of water at the bottom f the boat. She hadn’t realized that the news of her involvement in Natalie’s case had spread around.
“I was only trying to help,” she said demurely, though inside she was still incredibly proud of herself for being a major part of solving the case.
“So, what now?” Dan asked.
“What do you mean?”
“Are you leaving Rosecliff now that your work’s done? Is small town life starting to lose its charm?”
Sage looked into his deep gray eyes, but needed to look away quickly as she felt a naughty butterfly loop around in her stomach. She stared at the calm, flat surface of the morning sea instead, the rush of air ruffling her hair as the boat moved forward.
“No,” she said finally, her lips stretching into a smile, “Not at all. In fact, I think it’s starting to grow on me.”
Author’s Note
Thank you for purchasing my debut cozy mystery, A Flower Girl Murder!
I hope you had just as much fun reading it as I had writing it. If so, it would mean a lot to me if you dropped me a line in the form of a review or just said “Hi.” You can find me at: [email protected]
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