Deadly Arrangements (Book Two in the Cozy Flower Shop Mystery Series) (The Flower Shop Mystery Series)

by Annie Adams

  Blank stares abounded.

  “Oh well.” She clasped her hands together. “Who wants to go for a spin?”

  After everyone had a turn riding in the new car, K.C. took the deliveries in my van and stopped at our hospital gift shop cooler to check on things. It was lunchtime when she returned.

  "Mrs. Mangum handed me a check when I delivered the monthly order. Was I supposed to pick up a check?"

  "No," I said. "I usually send Kyle a bill and he mails a payment."

  She handed over the check. "I'm telling you, something is up with this customer. If it were just this check today, it wouldn’t be odd, but—I can't put my finger on it—she just seemed so strange when she came to the door."

  I studied the check. "Kyle usually writes the payment out of his account, but the name on this check is Lori Hoffman. It's the same address as the one you deliver to, though. Maybe he ran out of checks. I bet this is her maiden name. It's signed Lori Hoffman. That's probably what's happened—he ran out of checks, so he had her write it out for us."

  The corner of K.C.'s mouth hitched and her eyes shifted. "Not very romantic to sign the check for your own flowers." She shook her head slowly. "Mark my words, something weird—weirder, I mean—is going to come of this order. My creepy-crawly senses are tingling."

  "You mean spider?" Allie said.

  "No, I mean creepy-crawly. It's all encompassing. I don't discriminate based on number of legs, antennae, or the lack thereof. Somebody or some thing is behaving like a creepy-crawly and I can sense it."

  "Oh." Allie glanced over at Daphne and they exchanged smirks.

  The front doorbell chimed and I looked up and froze in place. Allie was nearest the customer counter, so she greeted the guest.

  "What is she doing here?" K.C. whispered.

  "I have no idea." I could feel the skin on my cheeks growing hotter with each passing second.

  "Let's go find out," K.C. said.

  Samantha wore another cleavage-popper with a black leather jacket gathered at the waist. She was painted into a pair of artificially faded, designer-looking jeans tucked into knee-high black patent leather boots with three-inch heels. A sparkly, crystal teardrop pendant came up for air from between her breasts.

  "Quincy and Kayleen, it's good to see you again."

  "It's K…" I began.

  "Don't waste your breath," K.C. said through her teeth, "she doesn't care." She smiled and tilted her head to the side.

  I plastered on a smile of my own. "What brings you here—to my store? Samantha—was it?" K.C. and I stood behind the customer counter, while Allie retreated to the back with Daphne.

  "Oh, call me Sam. Alex mentioned you had a little hobby, I thought I'd come check it out. I bet it's so fun getting to play with flowers all day."

  I heard a faint, "Uh-oh," come from the designer's table. Allie knew that if there was one pet-peeve I had in this world, it was people talking about my business as if it were some flight of fancy-decide to be in business after a day of strolling through a flower garden-so easy and fun any idiot could do it-hobby.

  I held back the verbal tirade that foamed and swelled within, and kept on smiling. "Thanks so much for stopping. I didn't know you were still in town, or I would have suggested the three of us get together." I felt a shooting pain, and realized my fists were balled up so tight in my pockets that my fingernails had cut into the skin of my palms.

  "Oh, these necklaces are divine! I must have one."

  K.C. leaned over and spoke out of the side of her mouth, “There’s plenty a’ room to fit another necklace in that canyon.”

  Samantha plunked her giant purse down on the counter while she looked through the jewelry display near the cash register.

  "I'll go ahead and ring you through," K.C. said. She was obviously trying to diffuse the tension and I didn't mind. "That'll be sixty-two fifty-nine."

  "Now, if I can find my credit card in here…" She opened an expandable wallet with several credit card slots and flippable photo holders.

  "What have we here?" K.C. pointed to the top photo. "Who is this adorable little one?"

  "That's my son," Samantha said. She smiled, her face beaming with pride. "He's three years old. I miss him like crazy."

  "Look at this photo, Boss. Handsome little tyke." The little boy in the picture had a beautiful smile, blonde hair, and the most distinct chocolate brown eyes. I had only seen eyes like that on one other face before.

  "He's adorable," I said. My legs felt like spaghetti and something similar to K.C.'s creepy-crawly senses were tingling in my stomach. Lucky I hadn't had lunch yet.

  "I just need your John Hancock here and you'll be good to go," K.C. said.

  "Will you be here long, Sam?" I had to know what her up-to-no-good plans were, even though it didn't matter, because I trusted my boyfriend to tell me if any of them involved him.

  "You are so sweet to ask, Quincy, but I'm afraid our schedules won't sync. Alex has some meeting tonight, so dinner is out. I'm leaving tomorrow afternoon…maybe we could all have breakfast together. I know Alex has to go to Salt Lake tomorrow for work, so maybe we could meet there somewhere. I'll be sure to give you a call after I talk to him." She smiled at me with her hot pink glossed lips and winked.

  K.C. grasped my wrist with her left hand and shoved the bag at Samantha with her right. "Here ya go, drive safe now, bye-bye."

  "Ta-ta," Samantha said, then wiggled her way out of my store.

  "You can let go. As much as I wanted to, I wasn't going to hit her," I said.

  "I wasn't worried about you. I needed something to occupy both hands so I couldn't punch her in the kisser. Where's my taser? If she comes back in here, I'm gonna light 'er up like the Fourth of July. How dare she come in here and tell you what your man's schedule is?" She took a few deep breaths and blew them out hard. "Ya know, she was probably just making it all up to get your goat, Boss. I bet that's all."

  I walked to the back design room and pulled the top cardboard box from a stack of empty ones to the floor. I repeated the mantra "I trust my boyfriend" over and over while I stomped down the entire stack of boxes. "There. Ready for recycling," I said, and looked up to see K.C., Allie and Daphne crowded together in the doorway, watching me. "What?" I shrugged.

  "Are you okay?" Allie said.

  "I'm totally fine. I'm sure she tricked Alex into telling her everything about himself, including his schedule, and his entire life,” I stomped the boxes again for good measure, “during dinner while she had him hypnotized with her—necklace."

  K.C. nodded to Allie and Daphne while cupping her hands out in front of her chest.

  "Who's hungry?” I said. “I'm headed over to Skinny's." Nothing like a noggin-sized scone slathered with honey butter to soften the sting of a she-wolf invading your territory.

  ***

  K.C. insisted I was too upset to drive and offered to take me to lunch in her new car. I needed to stop at the bank across the street to make a deposit and put an arrangement on the counter. After only eight different warnings during the two minute drive about spilling the water from the arrangement on her upholstery, we made it to the bank. Next stop, Skinny’s.

  "Now listen, sis, just because the little boy in that picture had beautiful brown eyes and blond hair, doesn't mean he has anything to do with Alex."

  "Oh," my shoulders slumped and I buried my face in my hands, "I forgot all about that when she started blathering on about Alex. I remember now though."

  "Sorry."

  "No, no, I don't mean it that way. It's just…ooh I can't stand that woman. She's already caused so much trouble between Alex and me, and now this."

  "Well I don't mean to pry, kiddo, but do you think there's any way Alex could be—you know—related to the little cherub?"

  I rolled down the window to let in some air since it felt like there wasn't much available inside the car.

  "Boss, are you all right?"

  "I'll be okay, we're almost there. I just need some water,
and a scone, and a vat of honey butter."

  K.C. turned the car into the parking lot of Skinny's.

  "They have a history," I said. “I don't know how much I should tell, I…"

  "Stop. Go no further." She shut off the car and turned to look at me. "Do you trust him?"

  I paused a moment and looked her in the eye. The answer struck me as clear as an autumn morning. "Yes." I trusted him.

  "Good. Then nothing else matters. You'll work it out. He may not even know the boy exists. And they might just look incredibly similar. It might just be a one in a million coincidence that they look exactly alike, but hey, there's always that chance, right?"

  I felt a smile tugging at the corner of my mouth.

  "Right." She was right. I trusted Alex no matter what. Maybe for some people that feeling was a given, just as ordinary as waking up in the morning and brushing your teeth. But for me, the realization that I trusted a man—this man—without any more hesitation, felt amazingly, and for the first time, monumentally normal. My insides swelled with happiness—or maybe it was just hunger.

  I unbuckled the seatbelt and reached for the door latch.

  K.C. touched my shoulder. "Now, just because you trust Alex doesn't mean you can trust her. And it sure doesn't mean we can't mess with her." She nodded toward the entrance of the café. Samantha stood just outside the door talking on her cell phone.

  "What's she doing here?" I said. "We can't go in there now."

  "Why not?"

  "Because she'll think we're following her. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of thinking she got to me."

  "Hey, chickadee, all we're doing is going out to lunch. She just happens to be going to the same place." K.C. tapped her fingernails on the steering wheel. "It's odd though…"

  "What is?"

  "Skinny's is a local canteen. I mean, not that other people can't come here, it's just that they don't that often. So, I'm wondering how Miss Thing knows about the place. Someone she knows must have told her." She slammed her lips shut as if she'd tried to keep the last few words from escaping. She'd been too late.

  "I suppose it's possible Alex told her about this place. So what? She's good at snaking information out of people.”

  “Ooh, I know. Maybe she’s been stalking him and happened to see Skinny’s when she drove by. A stalker’s gotta eat too."

  I couldn’t help but laugh. "I guess I’m just a little jealous. But it's not like they're having lunch together. He would have told me." I basked in the glow of my newfound confidence in our bond of trust.

  "You really do trust him then?"

  "One hundred percent." I glanced around the car and found the 8-tracks behind the seats. I raised my right hand and placed my left on a Willie Nelson. "In fact, I, Quincy McKay, announce that I will no longer subject myself or others to the misery of living a life filled with suspicion or distrust of my boyfriend. I do solemnly swear on this holy record of the Red-Headed Stranger."

  "You swear huh?"

  I made an "x" across my chest with my pointer finger. "Cross my heart and hope to die, stick a needle in…"

  "Boss…"

  "…my eye.”

  "Oh boy." K.C. leaned forward and reached toward the windshield with both hands. Her blond bob fell forward, covering her face.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Who, me?" She patted down the dashboard and then leaned to her right, invading my personal space to an uncomfortable level. "I'm just looking for um—my tire gauge, because I—want to—gauge a, the amount of air, in the, a—whatchamacallit…"

  "The tires?" I leaned back, against the door to get out of her way. "K.C.! You're squishing me! What's going on?" Backed against the car door, I leaned to my left to avoid breathing in some platinum blond hair. "Hey, is that…"

  "No!” K.C. threw herself back into her own seat. I strained to get a better view out the windshield. "No, no, no, that is not who you think it is." K.C. thrust herself up and over the steering wheel like a porpoise propelling out of the water.

  "That's him, isn't it?" I leaned forward to the windshield so I could see around K.C. until my nose bumped the glass.

  "No, Quincy…" K.C.'s bosom smashed into the horn on the steering wheel and the sound echoed off the building with such force and volume the bison on Antelope Island probably covered their ears.

  I didn't notice whether Samantha got a good look at my pig nose or K.C.’s blond hair stuffed up against the windshield because I ducked as far under the dashboard as a tall girl could get as soon as the horn honked.

  I hadn't spied on a boy since when I first got my driver's license and offered to run errands for my parents just so I could borrow the car and drive past Scotty Bennett's house every night for a month. But it looked like that was exactly what I was doing, except this wasn’t Scotty and this wasn’t just a school-girl crush.

  Now it appeared I was childish and crazy and that I didn't trust my boyfriend, which wasn't the case at all. I thought about texting Alex, but that would just add to the crazy Quincy show. He already had incentive enough with my family interruptions and my general weirdness to run away as fast as he possibly could. Texting would just encourage him to run faster.

  "So," K.C. sat back and smoothed her hair, "Bulgy Burger drive-through, then?"

  I nodded from my crouched position on the floor.

  A tapping sound came from the driver's window.

  "Jumping Josephine!" K.C. said, startled.

  I looked up and saw a man tapping on the window. It was the man who had lectured about the Booby bird. K.C. rolled down the window. I unfolded myself from the floor.

  "Jack, good to see you," K.C. said.

  "I'm sorry if I startled you," Jack said as he eyed the interior. "Wow, what a swell car. Hey, I heard about Fred and Gordon. How are they?"

  K.C. gave him the rundown of everyone's condition and the story of the assault and probable kidnapping of Brock.

  "Let me know if there's anything I can do," Jack said before leaving.

  "It was real nice of him to stop," K.C. said as she rolled up her window.

  "It sure was, but now that he's gone, can we go?"

  "Yeah, let's blow this Popsicle stand. Uh-oh."

  I followed K.C.'s gaze and saw Elma, the grumpy, and only, waitress at Skinny's walking toward the car. Just the person I did not need to see. She carried two foam drinking cups. "Oh, what does she want?" K.C. said.

  Elma tapped the driver's side window with a poison-green fake fingernail. She chomped on her gum hard enough to make her rouged jowls jiggle and shake.

  K.C. rolled down the window and Elma leaned in, her stiff beehive hair impeding her full progress into the car. Elma shoved the cups under K.C.'s nose.

  "Sweetcheeks told me to bring these out here to you two." Elma grinned and chomped on her gum.

  "Do you mean Alex?" K.C. said.

  "If that's the cop with the nice butt who hangs out with Quincy…then no."

  “Who, then?” I asked, my eyes scrunching down to slits. I knew full well who’d sent them.

  “Sweetcheeks is the girl he’s with. Now if I’d said Sweetass,” she winked, “you’d know I was talking about him.” She licked her lips and I held back a gag.

  I reached across K.C. and took the containers from Elma's green-clawed hands. "Does Alex know she did this?"

  Elma shrugged. "Beats me." Her face filled the window as she looked me up and down then slowly shook her head. "Tsk, tsk, tsk. Sure is a shame, Quincy." The glitter on her false eyelashes caught some sun and the flash blinded me.

  I sighed. "What is a shame, Elma?"

  "Wasting your chance with a man like that. Looks like he's moving on to a new model."

  "Oh, what do you know?" K.C. said. She started to roll up the window.

  "I know you're about to be banned," Elma said. She pulled a digital camera out of her apron pocket.

  "K.C.!" I whispered frantically, through unmoving lips. "Think of the scones! Roll it down! I can't lose
my scones." Banishment from scones would push me over the edge. Life without Skinny’s scones was unfathomable.

  "Oh, all right," she muttered and rolled down the window.

  "We're sorry, Elma," I said.

  "Hmmph." Elma pursed her lips and glared at K.C. "Fine. I'll give you another chance." She pointed a pudgy index finger at K.C. "But watch it. You're this close to having your face plastered on the wall."

  The wall of shame was a new feature at Skinny's. If Elma or Skinny got fed up with someone, the camera would come out and the victim would find their mug shot pinned to the wall behind the cash register. I don’t think Skinny was actually responsible for any of the photos populating the wall.

  "Stick a sock in it sister," K.C. said as she backed the car. Hopefully it wasn't loud enough for Elma to have heard.

  After finishing our Biggy Bulgy Burgers with bacon and tater tots with fry sauce, we drove out west. We’d decided to take a trip to the marsh to check out the availability of greenery we needed to cut for the big grassy arrangement that had been ordered.

  K.C. and I drove to Clint Wheeler's dairy farm just outside the road leading to the bird refuge.

  Neither of us were dressed for mucking along ditch banks, but that didn't stop us from going. We pulled up to a cinderblock and metal building which looked to be the milking barn. A beautiful Victorian house with a wrap-around porch loomed in the background. Gingerbread woodwork decorated doorways, window frames, the roofline and any available corner. Someday, my little house would be restored to look like this one.

  A large garage made of metal siding stood across the way from the milk barn. I grew uneasy and shivered at the memory of a similar building in which I was almost killed a couple months before. We got out of the car and went to the front door of the milk barn. K.C. knocked then pulled on the handle.

  "It's locked," she said. "C'mon."

  I followed her to the garage building and found myself slowing down and falling further behind K.C. the closer we got to the entrance.

  K.C. knocked and opened the door. A gruff voice called out "yeah," after she had already walked in. Inside, a sixtyish year old man stood at a workbench. He wore tan work gloves and gripped a pair of pliers in one hand and some kind of mechanical part in the other.