by K E O'Connor
“You’re wrong,” I said. “At first, I thought it might be Julius.”
“Yes! It could be him,” Barnaby said. “Everyone knows he’s a waster, who spends his time frittering away the business profits.”
“Hey! That’s not true. Consider yourself uninvited to my Christmas party.” Julius huffed and crossed his arms over his furry werewolf chest.
Barnaby frowned and looked away. “It’s true. Julius wanted to get his hands on more money. It was only last month we had that debt collector turn up and demand five thousand before he went away. That was your debt.”
“You can count me out of this,” Julius said. “I might be bad with money, but I’ve got a decent alibi, and you all know I have no interest in flowers. I wouldn’t know a poisonous prune from a toxic tiger lily.”
I nodded. “You were almost too good of a suspect. I wondered if Felicity had discovered how bad your debts were and refused to help you. Or she was going to expose your addiction in the hope of shaming you into stopping.”
“Felicity was getting a bit tight with money,” Julius said. “But she was my niece, and I loved her.”
Barnaby groaned and leaned against the wall. “I really am not feeling too good.”
I hurried on. I didn’t need to worry about the brownies doing any real harm. There was no poison in them, but there was a strong laxative. Everyone would soon be getting nasty stomach cramps.
“Then I wondered about Horatio.”
“Me!” Horatio looked around the group. “She was my sister.”
“You were angry because Felicity didn’t help you with your latest business venture,” I said.
Horatio shrugged. “She’d gotten wise to what I was doing. Felicity wanted me involved with Fleur de Bloom. I couldn’t do it. I tried, but my heart wasn’t in it. I needed to find my own career to follow.”
“You’ve done a lousy job so far.” Julius patted Horatio on the shoulder. “Much like me. Keep looking. Something will fit.”
“You lost a lot of Felicity’s money.” Zara glared at Horatio. “It could have been Horatio who killed her to get more money.”
“Much like Julius, Horatio knows very little about flowers. He also has an alibi that checks out. He was in the pub the night of his sister’s murder,” I said.
“That’s right,” Horatio said. “I was too drunk to stand, let alone poison somebody.”
“Which leaves you two.” Julius pointed a finger at Barnaby and Zara. “One of you did it.”
“That’s nonsense,” Zara said. “I loved Felicity like she was my sister. We’ve known each other since we were young. I’d never do anything to hurt her.”
“You did lie about her relationship with Luke,” I said.
Horatio snorted with laughter. “Felicity and Luke? I can’t see that happening.”
“Neither could anybody else,” I said. “I didn’t know them or their history, so I didn’t question it when Zara said she saw them together.”
“I made a mistake,” Zara said. “But I did see them together. They often chatted with each other. And one day, they looked cozy. Besides, if you’re looking for a killer, I couldn’t have done it. I was working.”
“No one saw you,” I said. “It wouldn’t have been difficult to leave the office and sneak into the greenhouse, plant something in Felicity’s food.”
Zara licked her lips. “Felicity would think it was weird if I took her food. I sometimes took her a mug of coffee when I hadn’t seen her for a while, but that’s it. As you know, I’m no cook, and definitely not clever enough to lace food with poison.” She glared at the discarded brownie on the floor.
“It could have been you.” Barnaby avoided eye contact with Zara.
She gasped. “What are you saying?”
“You always said Felicity was bad for business. If any of your customers had the misfortune to talk to her, they rarely came back to make another purchase.”
“Oh, be quiet,” Zara said. “You have nothing to do with Fleur de Bloom.”
“I’m involved,” Barnaby said. “I have my share, and I’d often watch Felicity work.”
“Because it was the only way you could get her to pay you attention.” Zara pursed her lips.
“Did you poison Felicity because you were jealous of her relationship with Barnaby?” I asked her.
“No! Of course not. I was happy for Felicity when she met Barnaby. I was glad she was finally in a relationship. It doesn’t do anybody any good to spend so much time alone. Her plants never talked back. She was isolating herself, and although she denied it, I knew she was lonely.”
“If you weren’t jealous of her relationship, were you jealous of her success with the plants?” I asked. “You said you could never achieve the kind of things she did. Were you envious of her ability?”
“Even if I was, it would be ridiculous to kill her,” Zara said. “Felicity was the reason Fleur de Bloom was such a success. Her green fingers made us a lot of money.”
“That pot of money has gone now Felicity is dead,” I said.
“Exactly my point,” Zara said. “I wouldn’t get rid of her because that means the end of this business.”
“You told me she was annoyed with you.” Barnaby rubbed the back of his neck, still not making eye contact with Zara. “You said you were glad she’s gone.”
“Ignore him. It’s the poison getting to his brain and turning him into an idiot,” Zara sneered at Barnaby.
It looked like true love was not alive and well between those two. Was Barnaby trying to shift the blame onto Zara?
“None of us are involved,” Zara said. “You have to let us out unless you want to be the one charged with murder.”
“I won’t be charged with anything. You’ll be fine for another twenty minutes,” I said. “As someone in here already knows, angel’s trumpet doesn’t work fast unless you get a massive dose.”
“It’s working faster on me than anybody else. Let me out!” Barnaby lunged at me.
Julius stepped in his path and blocked him. “We’ll have none of that. Lorna is trying to help Felicity. We can wait a few more minutes before we get medical attention. Lorna’s a smart young woman. She’ll have an antidote close by.” His gaze shifted to me. “Don’t you?”
“Of course.”
“Well, then, I want to hear what Lorna has to say. I need to know what happened to my niece.”
“You’re a money grubbing old fool.” Barnaby glared at Julius.
“I am getting on a bit, but I’m not as stupid as you think I am. I watched you wheedle your way into Felicity’s affections. Did you get concerned you weren’t getting enough out of the relationship, so you did something about it?”
Barnaby’s cheeks flushed. “You’re not clever enough to kill Felicity with poison. You’d have probably poisoned yourself by mistake.”
Julius grabbed Barnaby’s arm and moved him away from me. “Go on, Lorna. Do you think Zara killed Felicity?”
I looked at the panic growing in Zara’s eyes as everyone’s attention turned to her. She was about to crack.
Barnaby glared at Zara. “Tell them the truth. You did this.”
Zara’s jaw dropped. “Are you kidding me? You really want to go there?”
“We are here,” Barnaby said. “We’ve all been poisoned by this crazy woman you hired. If you don’t tell the truth, we’re going to die.”
“Lorna won’t let that happen,” Zara said. “She is always so obliging and eager to please. She won’t want our deaths on her conscience.”
I was seeing a new, darker side to Zara, a side I wouldn’t mind dropping dead. I might be obliging, but nobody walked over me. “Why did you want Felicity out of the way? What had she done wrong to you?”
Zara glanced at Barnaby one more time before her shoulders sank. “I was sick of her eccentricities. Other people thought it was cute, but she was so rude to customers. She hadn’t a clue how to deal with people. It wasn’t cute or endearing that she loved plants more t
han anything else. It was weird. And it was bad for business.”
Felicity floated closer to Zara, concern on her face.
“You killed her to save the business?” I asked.
Zara continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “I went into town about eight months ago. Everybody I spoke to complained about Felicity. They said she was abrupt and had no time to chat. I was in this for the long-haul. I plan to leave a legacy with Fleur de Bloom. It has a gold standard reputation that was being tarnished. Felicity was a genius when it came to cultivating unique and beautiful flowers. None of that mattered if every time she talked to someone she drove them away and they badmouthed the business. Rumors spread fast, and the damage would eventually have gotten too bad. We’d have gone under.”
“So you killed her?” Horatio asked. “You hated Felicity that much?”
“I didn’t hate her, but I was tired of constantly defending her. And it was too hard working with her. The older we got, the more eccentric she became. She was difficult to work with and difficult to have as a friend. I forced myself to remember the early days of our friendship, when she was quirky and so passionate about flowers she could get everybody excited about them. That changed when we set up this business, and she got engrossed in creating the next best thing. Barnaby will back me up on this. He felt the same.”
“I have no clue what you mean.” Barnaby studied the end of his wizard’s beard. “Felicity was my girlfriend. I didn’t want anything bad to happen to her.”
“Stop lying,” Zara snapped. “I am not taking the fall for this on my own.”
“You wanted Barnaby for yourself?” I asked Zara.
“That’s not true,” Barnaby said. “I cared for Felicity.”
“You didn’t care about her enough to stop from sleeping with Zara,” I said.
“You cheated on my sister and killed her?” Horatio advanced on Barnaby, his fists clenched.
Barnaby waved a hand in the air and scurried backward. “No! I was always here for Felicity when she needed me.”
“That was the problem,” Zara sneered. “Felicity never needed you. She had everything she loved inside that greenhouse. She pushed her love into those flowers. That made you angry.”
“I didn’t mind her doing that,” Barnaby protested. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You knew what you were talking about that night you asked me out,” Zara said. “And you knew what you were talking about when you asked me about poisons.”
“You’re in on this together?” Julius asked. “You both wanted Felicity dead?”
“No, not dead.” Zara scraped her hair off her face and sighed. “I wanted her out of the way. I needed her to take a break. She was always working, and that made her eccentricities worse. She was running on empty and making mistakes.”
“You could have booked her a long weekend at a spa,” I said. “You didn’t need to debilitate her using poison.” My cell phone pinged, signaling a message. I resisted the urge to check.
“I didn’t mean for it to go this far,” Zara said.
“Was it just angel’s trumpet you used? That wasn’t the only toxin in Felicity’s system.”
Zara nodded. “Until the police reported back on their new findings, I didn’t know Felicity had other plant toxins in her system. It was hideous timing. What with the allergic reaction from the bee stings and the angel’s trumpet on top of everything else, her system collapsed with the stress. I only meant for her to get sick and take a few weeks off. I never meant to kill her.”
“You’re claiming this was an accident?” Julius grunted in disbelief. “You accidentally murdered my only niece because you thought she worked too hard. More like you couldn’t accept the fact she was twice as clever as you and had a chap you were interested in.”
Zara looked at the ground. “It wasn’t just me. We both did it. That’s how I got the poison into Felicity. Barnaby took her a pie. The angel’s trumpet was in that. The plan was to make her sick, get her some rest, and talk about changing her lifestyle. Show her there were other things outside of her greenhouse and the plants.”
“You killed her because you were being kind?” I shook my head. Whatever Zara’s motives were for wanting Felicity out of the way, she’d still poisoned her and stolen her boyfriend. My cell phone pinged three more times. Someone was desperate to get hold of me. I slid the phone out of my pocket.
“I didn’t take her a pie.” Barnaby looked at the door. “I really need to leave. My head is pounding. I’m going to throw up.”
“You need to stand by me and stop wimping out,” Zara snapped. “You’re involved, as well.”
“What you really both need to do is speak to the police.” Julius glanced at me. “Although, if you could let us out so we can get treatment for this poison you’ve fed us, I’d appreciate it.”
“Why did you have to poison all of us?” Horatio asked. “You even ate some brownie yourself.”
I glanced up from checking my messages. They were all from Helen. “I didn’t. I only pretended to. I know what’s in it.”
Zara sighed. “Can’t we come to an agreement? You’re brilliant at your job. I’ve loved having you and Helen around. I know you’ve enjoyed working here too. I made a terrible mistake getting involved with Barnaby and trying to get Felicity out of the picture. It was an accident, and I am sorry for it. We can talk about a pay rise if you keep this quiet.”
“No amount of money will keep me quiet.” I looked over to where Felicity hovered, her stern gaze shifting from Zara to Barnaby. Felicity deserved justice.
“Quite right,” Julius said. “You two need to be put behind bars. Cheating, poisoning, and lying. That should get you away for a good few years.”
“You’re not so squeaky clean,” Barnaby said. “You took money off Felicity, as did Horatio. Maybe the police will want to talk to you about where all the money has gone. This is our business.”
“You have barely any stake in this place,” Julius said.
Barnaby smirked. “I do. Zara is giving me half of her investment. We are partners in everything.”
Zara snorted a laugh. “There’s not a chance of that now you’ve pointed the finger at me. Besides, I only said that because I needed your help to poison Felicity. You know nothing about this place. If you get involved, you’ll only mess things up.”
“You heartless cow.” Barnaby glowered at her. “We had an agreement. You said you love me.”
“You can believe that if you like.” Zara shook her head. “Felicity said it’s a good job you’re so easy on the eye. It makes up for your lack of brains. She was right about that.”
Barnaby spluttered a series of nonsense words, and his cheeks flushed scarlet.
It looked like the budding relationship between Zara and Barnaby was over. Zara had used him to get what she needed, poison into her best friend.
“This is outrageous,” Julius said. “My niece should never have been treated so badly.”
I pressed my lips together. It was too late for his concern now. Neither Julius nor Horatio had looked out for Felicity when she was alive. If they had, they’d have realized all was not well with her and helped before it was too late.
I opened the first cell phone message from Helen, and my breath quickened. We have the proof! It was Barnaby in the greenhouse.
“Please, we do need something to counteract the angel’s trumpet poison,” Barnaby said. “Have you heard enough from us?”
I looked at Julius and Horatio. “Are you both prepared to tell the police everything you heard tonight?”
“Absolutely,” Horatio said. “I want to see those two behind bars.”
“Same here,” Julius said. “And we won’t mention you tried to bump us off with poison. Your motives are noble, even if my stomach doesn’t agree.”
I made a call to Gunner, letting him know what had happened. As I did so, I pulled out four small bottles and passed them around. “This is the antidote. It will counteract
the effects of what you’ve taken.”
Zara looked at it suspiciously. “How do we know this isn’t more poison?”
“I don’t have any reason to poison you now,” I said. “We’ve all heard your confessions.”
“That was under duress,” Zara said. “I’d have said anything to get out of here. This proves nothing.”
“Me too,” Barnaby said. “We were forced to say we killed Felicity. This won’t stand up in court, and you’ll go to prison for holding us captive.”
“You’re right. However, there’s CCTV footage showing that Barnaby poisoned Felicity.”
Barnaby slumped against the wall. “That’s not possible. I mean, I was often in the greenhouse with Felicity. It doesn’t mean I fed her poison.”
“You’re lying.” Zara smirked. “You did it on your own. I’m innocent. I panicked and confessed because of Lorna’s entrapment.”
Barnaby glared at her as he pulled out his cell phone. “I’m not as dumb as you think I am. I recorded our conversations about poisoning Felicity. I didn’t trust you not to drop me in it. I might have handed Felicity the pie, but you doctored it with angel’s trumpet. You’re as guilty as I am, and I have the evidence to prove it.”
Julius hurried over to me. “Is that enough proof? Is it safe to take this antidote? You wouldn’t really poison us again, would you?”
It was more than enough evidence. CCTV evidence, verbal confessions, and now recordings of Zara and Barnaby plotting together. “It’s fine to take. Besides, I actually gave you laxatives, not angel’s trumpet. If you take that liquid quickly, you shouldn’t suffer too many ill effects, but you might like to stay near the toilet for a day or two.”
Barnaby’s mouth fell open, and Zara gave a strangled cry.
“Laxatives!” Julius roared with laughter. “That’s the best trick of the night. You gave us all a fright, and you found justice for my niece.” He engulfed me in an enormous, furry hug. “Happy Halloween, Lorna Shadow.”