by Cindi Myers
“He meant, I’m a friend.”
“He really likes you, I can tell.” She dropped the daisy in the bucket they had set aside for flowers to be discarded and faced Eve. “I think you should go out with him,” she said. “I know he’s older than you, but he’s good-looking, don’t you think? And I see older guys with younger women all the time. And it’s not like you’re a teenager or anything. Would it be so weird?”
Eve couldn’t help but laugh at this onslaught. “It takes two people to decide to date,” she said.
“But I can tell he really likes you. Yesterday afternoon at that press conference thingy, he couldn’t keep his eyes off you. But he’s probably shy, because of the age difference and you’re so beautiful and everything. So I think you should ask him out.”
Eve felt her cheeks heat, whether from the information that Grant had been watching her, or Janie’s comment that she was beautiful—or the knowledge that she wasn’t being entirely truthful with this sweet girl about her and Grant’s history. She put a hand on Janie’s shoulder. “Let’s just see how things develop naturally,” she said. “Okay?”
Janie shrugged, and Eve left her to finish the flowers.
At ten, Sarah arrived, bringing the mail. “Lots of junk, as usual,” she said, handing the bundle to Eve. “But there’s a letter in there for you.” She winked. “It looks personal.”
Janie emerged from the back room. “Hello.”
“Janie!” Eve motioned the girl forward. “Sarah, this is Janie Sanderlin. She’s visiting her dad for a little while and will be helping us out.”
“Is your dad the Ranger Brigade commander?” Sarah asked, glancing between the girl and Eve.
“He is,” Janie said. “And I’m really excited about working here.” She turned to Eve. “Maybe I should have told you before, but the only other job I’ve ever had is babysitting.”
“You’ll do fine,” Eve said. “Sarah, would you show Janie how to package the prom flowers while I look through this mail?”
“Sure thing,” Sarah said. “Come on. We’ll get the packaging knocked out pretty quick, and then I’ll show you how to make bows.”
The pair retreated to the workroom while Eve stood over the trash can in her office, sorting the mail. More than half went straight into the recycling bin, she filed a few bills to pay later and then she finally came to the letter Sarah had mentioned.
The letter was in a thin, prestamped envelope, the kind sold over the counter at the post office. The address was in block printing, but the sight of it sent a shiver up Eve’s spine. She picked up a letter opener and slid it under the envelope flap.
Dear Eve,
I haven’t seen anything that looked like my press release in the newspapers, so I’m guessing you decided not to pass it on. I was counting on you to help me out, since I’m not really in a position to do these things myself. That’s probably hard for you to understand, but I’ll explain more after all this is over.
I know we had our problems there at the end, but we had a lot of really good times together before that. I still love you, even if it wouldn’t work for us to be together. For the sake of that love, would you help me out here?
No matter what you hear, I haven’t done the things they’re accusing me of. I can’t tell you more because I don’t want to put you in any danger. Please believe that.
If you still have that press release, please send it to someone who will dig more into that story. They’ll be surprised by what they find.
Love,
Dane
* * *
GRANT MADE IT a point to get to the flower shop shortly before six o’clock Saturday evening. As much as he appreciated Eve’s offer to take Janie home with her, he wanted to spend as much time as he could with his daughter. Angela had agreed Janie could stay in Colorado until her new semester started in three weeks. He was even trying to persuade Beth to fly out the last week so they could all be together.
Half a dozen people crowded the shop when Grant arrived, and it was several seconds before he spotted Janie in the crush. She stood next to Sarah at a table next to the flower cooler, chatting with people who waited in line and stapling paperwork.
Eve, who stood at the cash register, ringing up sales, looked up as he entered and smiled, but didn’t stop working. Grant stepped to one side and waited for the rush to ease.
Ten minutes later, the last customer stepped up to the register. “Dad!” Janie raced across the shop and stopped in front of him. “Is it six o’clock already? I’ve had the most amazing time.”
“Hello, Commander,” Sarah said, joining them. “This is quite a daughter you have here.” She put a hand on Janie’s shoulder. “She’s been a huge help to us today. I don’t know what we did without her.”
“It was fun,” Janie said. “Sarah’s been teaching me how to make corsages. My bows are still a little lopsided, but I know if I keep practicing I’ll get really good at it.”
The last customer left and Eve followed them and switched the sign to Closed, then locked the door. She leaned against the door for a moment. “What a day,” she said.
“You’re not usually this busy, are you?” Grant asked, one arm across Janie’s shoulders.
“Prom time. We’re getting lots and lots of orders.” Eve straightened and came to stand with them. “Sarah had the idea to advertise in the school newspapers and it’s really paid off.”
“I was telling the commander what a big help Janie has been,” Sarah said.
“You did a terrific job today,” Eve said to the girl. “I hope you’ll come back Monday.”
“Of course I will.” Janie turned to her father. “That’s the plan, isn’t it? Please say yes.”
He nodded, amused by Janie’s enthusiasm for this new job. “That’s the plan.”
Eve patted Janie’s shoulder. “Will you help Sarah straighten up the back room while I talk to your dad for a minute?”
“You bet.” Janie raced off, Sarah following in her wake.
Grant turned to Eve. Something in her expression had caught his attention. “Is something wrong?” he asked.
“Come into my office.”
He squeezed in, then she shut the door behind him, then picked up an envelope from the desk. “I had another letter from Dane today,” she said. “I don’t know what to make of it.”
Careful to handle the letter only by the edges, he unfolded it onto the desk and leaned over to read it. He cringed inwardly at the declaration of love, but pushed on. “That press release accused TDC of falsifying reports, right?” he asked when he had finished.
“Yes,” she said. “But the mine site has been cleaned up. At least, it looks clean. Is he trying to say it isn’t?”
“That part about not saying more because he doesn’t want to put you in danger,” Grant said. “That makes me uncomfortable.”
She hugged herself. “The whole situation makes me uncomfortable.”
He pulled her close and she rested her head on his shoulder. “Thank you again for taking in Janie and giving her something to do,” he said.
“Are you kidding?” She smiled up at him. “She really has been a tremendous help.” She laughed.
“What’s so funny?” he asked.
“We had a very serious conversation this morning, in which she tried to persuade me to ask you out. She pointed out that, despite our age difference, you are actually pretty good-looking, and going out with you wouldn’t be so horrible, would it?”
He wasn’t sure whether to be appalled or flattered. “What did you tell her?”
“I told her I thought we’d see how things developed naturally.”
He pulled her closer, hands on her hips. “And how would you say things are developing?” he asked. “Naturally?”
Hands on his shoulders, she pressed her forehead to his. “I love being with you,” she
said. “The other night was...special.”
“But?”
She stepped back. “But I want children. I’m not willing to compromise on that.”
“I know. And I’m not suggesting you compromise.” But he was forty-five. He’d be close to retirement age before any child he had now graduated high school. He’d made so many mistakes with the girls, and they had all suffered for it. How could he go through all that again? “I need to focus on Janie while she’s here,” he said. “We’ll talk more later.”
She sighed and looked away. He wanted to pull her close and tell her that everything would be all right. But how could he make that kind of promise when he knew not every problem had a solution, and not every ending was a happy one?
He collected Janie and drove home. Once inside, she dropped her backpack and headed for the kitchen. “What’s for dinner?” she asked. “I’m starved.”
“How about spaghetti?” He moved to the pantry and took out pasta and a jar of sauce. “There’s meat thawing in the refrigerator. Get it for me, okay?” He took off his jacket and shoulder holster and draped them over a chair, then unbuttoned his cuffs and began rolling up his sleeves.
Janie opened the refrigerator and took out the package of ground beef. “You can cook?” she asked.
“Don’t act so surprised.”
“You never cooked when you lived at home.”
“I didn’t have to. Your mother is a very good cook.”
“Well yeah, but everyone likes a night off now and then, right?”
He winced. Would Angela have liked if he had offered to cook every once in a while? He had never even thought about it. Only when he had been out on his own, forced to learn his way around a kitchen or subsist on takeout, had he really discovered a talent for making at least basic meals. “You can set the table,” he said.
He unwrapped the meat and dumped it in a skillet, then set water to boil for the pasta. Janie arranged plates and flatware on the little table in the middle of the kitchen. “I like it here, Dad,” she said. “Maybe I should stay.”
He could only imagine what Angela would say to that idea. And he was pretty sure the novelty of a new place would give way to the reality of living in a remote area with most of her friends and her mother and sister two thousand miles away. “It’s great having you here, Pumpkin, but you need to go home to your mom and sister,” he said. “I’m going to miss you, though.”
“I can come back after school is out, right?”
“You can come back as often as you like. But no more surprise visits, okay? When you want to come see me, you let me know and I’ll buy you a plane ticket.”
“It probably would be nicer to fly than all that time on a bus. But it was an adventure, you know? It’s good to have adventures.”
“You and your sister have certainly been my adventure.”
“Ha! That’s something, coming from a cop.” She looked around. “What do you want me to do now?”
“I forgot to collect the mail on the way in. Check the box, will you?”
She left to check the mailbox, bouncing as she moved, full of energy even after a long day. He watched her go, the familiar tightness of loss in his chest. He was going to miss her when she went back to her mother. The house would be emptier, and so would his life. Raising children was so hard—but he couldn’t think of anything more rewarding.
Could he do this again?
He pushed the idea away. Maybe he’d learned some things, but he was still the same person. He had the same job and the same habits, none of which seemed compatible with the demands of raising a family. How often had Angela reminded him of that? He might have fallen out of love with her, but he couldn’t deny she was usually right.
Chapter Seventeen
“We got the test results from the dump site.” Tuesday morning, Jason Beck dropped a stack of papers onto Grant’s desk. “And some new results from the Mary Lee Mine.”
“When did you test the Mary Lee Mine?” Grant asked.
Beck flushed. “Someone from Wilderness Conservation took the tests the day before the press conference and forwarded the results to us.”
If Grant had to guess, he would pick Beck’s fiancée, Cara Mead, as the anonymous tester, but since these results were unlikely to ever end up in court, given their uncertain provenance, he let it pass. “Summarize the findings for me,” he said.
“The results from the dump site show some of the same findings as the first tests from the Mary Lee Mine,” Beck said. “Traces of uranium and thorium.”
“Some,” Grant said. “But not all?”
“No, sir. There are a couple of other things—asbestos, for one—that never showed up at the Mary Lee.”
“So we can’t be sure the debris actually came from the Mary Lee?”
“No, sir. I believe it did, but we can’t be one hundred percent sure.”
Grant glanced at the reports. “With these findings, we can’t even be fifty percent sure. An expert witness would tear this apart in court.”
“Yes, sir.”
“What about the latest tests from the Mary Lee?” Grant asked.
“They come back clean. Whatever TDC did up there, they got rid of the bad stuff, in a hurry.”
“So they did what they were paid to do. Dane Trask doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Beck frowned. “Dane Trask?”
Grant shook his head. “Never mind. Ask Hudson to come see me when he gets a chance.”
“Yes, sir.”
When Beck was gone, Grant pulled up the copy of Dane’s letter that he had scanned in. He had logged the letter into evidence, but he hadn’t mentioned it to anyone else yet. He wanted time to try to figure out the significance of the correspondence, if any. Was Trask a nutcase who was fixated on getting his former employer in trouble? Was he paranoid, imagining danger where there was none?
Then again, it appeared the man might have been framed for murder. That might make anyone wary. As for the embezzlement charges, Grant didn’t have enough knowledge of that case to pass judgment, though Dane didn’t act like a man who had stolen a bunch of his employer’s money. In those cases, the guilty party at least attempted to skip town. Dane kept hanging around, even with a price on his head that had would-be bounty hunters coming out of the woodwork. Apparently, a park ranger had arrested a man just two days ago who was stringing trip-wires across trails in the area of the park where Dane had been most frequently spotted.
Worse than Trask’s vague accusations against TDC was his declaration that he still loved Eve. She hadn’t commented on that part of the letter. Was that because she didn’t care—or because she cared too much?
Two minutes later, Officer Hudson sauntered in. The man walked with a kind of swagger, as if all his joints were a little loose. “Beck said you wanted to see me?” Hud said.
“Any results from that photo from Marsha Grandberry’s phone?” he asked.
“Not yet,” Hud said. “But I’m working on it. I’ve got a computer program that sharpens photos pixel by pixel. It can do some amazing things, but it takes time.”
“Let me know as soon as you have something.” Ever since he had found that photograph, he couldn’t shake the idea that the picture showed something significant. He might be all wrong. What looked like a person might turn out to be a tree, or if it was a person, it might be a tourist from Akron who hadn’t seen a thing.
But sometimes in an investigation, you did get lucky. They could use a little luck with this one.
* * *
“THANK GOD THAT’S over with for another year.” Sarah shut the door to the shop Friday at six and flipped the sign to Closed.
“I can’t believe that cooler was full this morning and now it’s empty,” Janie said, eyeing the cooler that was empty of everything but a few rosebud arrangements and loose flower petals.
Janie whooped and Sarah joined in. “Go home, Sarah,” Eve said. “Take lots of pictures of Robby and his date.”
“I’m on my way.” Sarah already had her purse in hand. “I told him he wasn’t to leave the house before I got there. And he can’t anyway, because I have his keys.”
“I can’t believe she took his keys,” Janie said, as Sarah hurried down the sidewalk away from them.
“I guess parents have to learn how to outsmart their children.” Eve sagged back against the counter. “How do you feel about ordering in pizza for dinner? Your dad texted me that he has to work a little late.”
“He texted me, too, and pizza sounds good.”
“You don’t mind coming to my house with me, do you?” Eve asked. Part of her was looking forward to having the girl over. Over the past week of working together, the two of them had become good friends. Janie was funny and optimistic, and a hard worker, too. Grant deserved part of the credit for that, surely.
“No. I want to see your house,” Janie said.
“All right. Do me a favor and stash these roses in the back cooler. I want to shut this one down and first thing Monday we’ll give it a good clean-out.”
“Sure thing.” Janie hugged the four bud vases to her chest and headed for the back room, while Eve leaned into the cooler to flip the switch at the back.
When the door buzzer sounded, she didn’t recognize the chime at first, since they were closed and she’d seen Sarah lock the door. Then a hand clamped over her mouth and strong arms yanked her backwards out of the cooler.
“Don’t struggle, or you’ll just get hurt,” Toby Masterson said. The blade of his knife flashed in the overhead lights, then she felt the sting of it against her throat. “You come with me now, and everything is going to be all right.”
* * *
JANIE EASED OPEN the door of the big walk-in cooler and stood for a moment, searching for a place to put the bud vases. Sarah had explained this morning that flowers like these, that didn’t sell by Saturday night, could sometimes be used in other arrangements Monday morning. Rosebuds would be blooming roses in mixed arrangements or for corsages. Longer-lasting flowers like mums and alstroemeria could last a week or more if cared for properly. Running a flower shop was a balance between always offering fresh, beautiful flowers and wasting as little as possible.