A Root Awakening

Book 16: Flower Shop Mystery

by Kate Collins

Genres: Mystery; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Abby Knight's marriage may be in full bloom, but house hunting is no bed of roses in latest novel in the New York Times bestselling Flower Shop Mystery series...

Now that they’ve tied the knot, flower shop owner Abby Knight and her husband, Marco, want to put down roots. When it comes to picking a house, Marco can’t wait to get his hands dirty, while Abby isn’t ready for a fixer-upper. But conflict really sprouts when they’re checking out a dilapidated Victorian and watch a construction worker take a life-threatening tumble.
 
Since witnesses claim the man shouted for help, suggesting that the fall was no accident, the victim’s flamboyant wife hires Marco to find the person responsible. Meanwhile, Abby keeps secret from Marco her own investigation into the home’s inhabitants, a family whose off-kilter behavior has aroused her suspicions. If only Abby’s very pregnant cousin, Jillian, will stop distracting Abby with false labor pains, she can conclude her own inquiries before Marco finds out…and her case blossoms into a disaster.

Release date: February 3, 2015

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 336

Sample

PRAISE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING FLOWER SHOP MYSTERIES

Other Flower Shop Mysteries

OBSIDIAN

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER ONE

Monday

“Are my newlyweds ready to go inside for a look?”

Our Realtor pressed her hands together as though praying, her smile as desperate as her enthusiastic nods, as if to say, Of course you’re ready! At that price, you’d be fools not to be. Please, please, please?

I glanced at Marco, who was studying the dilapidated Victorian home with a shrewd and, yes, disdainful eye. Good. We were on the same page.

“No,” I said, just as Marco said, “Sure.”

I turned to my handsome hubby in surprise. “Sure?”

“No harm in looking.”

“I am looking, Marco. The question is, what are you seeing?”

It was peculiar for us to be at odds because our tastes ran in remarkably similar veins. Hand us a menu and we’d pick the same entrée every time. But clearly he wasn’t seeing what I was seeing today, because directly in front of us stood a narrow, wood-sided two-story with peeling paint, a porch that tilted dangerously to the right, a sharply peaked roof whose tiles had curled, dingy gray gingerbread trim, and a detached shed-turned-garage that might have held a Volkswagen Beetle—with no door handles.

The old house, built sometime in the early 1900s, swarmed with roofers and painters who’d been hired to get it ready to be put on the market. Lorelei Hays, our overly eager Realtor, had heard that the Victorian was going up for sale and wanted us to see it before the crowds beat a path to the warped brown door. As far as I was concerned, a path would have been an improvement over the cracked cement sidewalk on which we stood.

I loosened the emerald-and-navy-plaid scarf around my neck and took off my green gloves. The March sun was making a rare appearance in a week that had been rainy and cold. My little dog, Seedy, kept tugging at her leash, so I turned to see what she wanted and saw her wagging her shaggy tail, gazing up toward the roof where a painter was giving the decorative trim along the roofline above an attic window a coat of white paint. I doubted it was the worker who’d intrigued her. Seedy was a rescue dog who’d had an abusive owner, and she was still wary around most men. But I didn’t see anything else that could have attracted her attention.

Studying the Victorian’s shabby facade, I could only imagine what the inside was like. No, I didn’t want to imagine it, because I was definitely not interested. The only positives were that it would be available in a month and it was located five blocks off the town square in my hometown of New Chapel, Indiana. And because my flower shop, Bloomers, and Marco’s business, Down the Hatch Bar and Grill, were located on the square, we could have walked to work.

Lorelei bounced on the toes of her black patent pumps. “So? Are we ready to see the interior?” She was wearing a marine blue two-piece suit trimmed in black braid, with shiny black button earrings and a black tote bag, all nicely accenting her short platinum hair.

Marco had wanted to go with a well-seasoned Realtor, but I had opted to give a newbie our business because it hadn’t been that long since I’d opened Bloomers and I remembered how it felt to be the new kid on the block. In her late forties and just starting out in real estate, Lorelei fit the bill. But so far, she hadn’t shown us a single house we’d liked, and we’d been looking since October.

Our landlady had been patient thus far—she didn’t normally allow pets—but she’d been dropping enough hints lately that we knew we had to find something soon.

Marco was still analyzing as the roofers nimbly navigated the steep pitch. Two painters in blue coveralls stood on scaffolding on the right side of the house applying tan paint to the second story, while the third painter, the apparent object of Seedy’s attention, balanced at the top of a tall extension ladder. All of the workmen wore navy baseball caps and light blue coveralls with the logo HHI—Handy Home Improvements—on them.

“Judging by the condition of the outside,” I said to Marco, “this house is going to need a lot of time and money pumped into it.”

“You look like do-it-yourselfers,” Lorelei said. “It could be the perfect little project for you to work on together, a real bonding experience.”

Or grounds for divorce.

Deep in contemplation, Marco rubbed his jaw. “I can see us working on it.”

“Clearly, Marco, you’ve forgotten about our experience painting the bathroom at Down the Hatch over Christmas.”

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said.

“For you.”

“Sunshine, you’re the one who wanted to put seven coats of paint on it.”

“One application of sugar maple does not cover glossy navy blue, Marco. I can still see blue showing through—and that was three coats, by the way, not seven.”

He put his arm around me. “I think the bathroom looks great. Come on, sweetheart. We should at least have a look at the inside.”

I moved us off the walkway. “Between your long hours at the bar and your private investigations, when would we have time?”

“You’ve been looking for something to do in the evenings,” he said.

“Not renovating a home—alone!”

“You wouldn’t have to do it alone. I’d be there as much as possible, and I’ll bet your niece and your cousin would love to lend a hand.”

That, in itself, was reason to say no. Tara, my fourteen-year-old niece, would need to take a Twitter break every five minutes, while my cousin, Jillian—a spoiled pregnant diva precariously near her due date—wouldn’t even paint her own fingernails, let alone someone else’s walls. Besides, between running her personal shopping service and doing dry runs to the hospital, she was too busy.

“Just take one walk-through,” the Realtor urged. “If you don’t like its charming layout or don’t see any potential, we’ll cross it off your list.”

We had a list? “Sorry,” I said to both of them. “I really don’t like it.”

A cry from the roof made me turn in alarm just in time to see the extension ladder fall in an arc away from the house, the painter still clinging to the rungs. Everyone, including me, stood frozen in horror as the ladder carried the painter backward until the poor man hit the ground with a loud thunk, his head smacking the cement sidewalk with an audible crack. Then he lay still, the aluminum ladder on top of him.

As though someone had pressed a button, all of us sprang into action. I scooped up Seedy and ran toward the man along with Marco and Lorelei, while workmen scrambled to get to the ground. Marco was on the phone calling for an ambulance before we’d even reached the man’s side.

The Realtor lifted the ladder aside as I put Seedy down and crouched beside the painter, whose coveralls read Sergio on the pocket. “Sergio,” I called, feeling for a pulse in his neck. “Can you hear me? Can you squeeze my hand?”

His eyes were closed and he made no response, but his pulse beat steadily beneath my fingertips.

Another man in coveralls, the name Sam on his pocket, dropped to his knees on the other side, grabbed Sergio’s face, and gave it a shake. “Sergio, buddy. Talk to me.”

“Don’t shake him,” Marco commanded, putting away his phone. “His neck could be broken. Step back and wait for the paramedics.”

The other painters joined us and within minutes the roofers were there, too, all standing in a semicircle around their fallen coworker. In the distance I heard a siren, and then another, and a minute later a squad car roared to a stop and two cops jumped out and jogged over. One of them was Marco’s buddy Sergeant Sean Reilly, whom Marco had trained under during his stint on the New Chapel police force.

“What do we have?” Reilly asked Marco as he knelt beside the man.

“He’s a painter.” Marco turned toward the house and pointed. “When we got here, he was at the top of the ladder painting above that attic window. I heard someone cry out and looked around to see him falling backward.”

Neighbors began to emerge from their houses. Then an emergency van pulled up and the two-man crew hopped out and sprinted toward us. While they began their examination of Sergio, I turned to see why Seedy was tugging on her leash and saw a short, stout woman and two children coming down the steps of the Victorian. They stopped a short distance away to watch the proceedings. I checked my watch. It was noon. What were the kids doing home from school?

The woman wore a thick brown cardigan over a white blouse and jeans, and white athletic shoes. Her long dark-brown hair hung flat against the sides of her head. She had small brown eyes and a wide nose set in a round face devoid of makeup. She was holding her children’s hands as though she was afraid some danger might befall them. They must be the current occupants of this house, I thought.

The boy, who appeared to be around ten years old, had jet-black hair with a heart-shaped face and vivid blue eyes. He was wearing a quilted navy jacket, jeans, and black sneakers. The girl, whom I pegged at six years old, had wide cheekbones in a tiny face and long black hair. She wore a deep purple hooded jacket and black corduroy pants with purple-and-white sneakers. Oddly, neither child seemed interested in the accident. Instead, the boy was watching my dog, while the girl seemed more interested in me.

I was accustomed to people staring at Seedy, one of the homeliest dogs I’d ever seen. Her big pointed ears had tufts of hair on the ends, her lower teeth protruded, her muzzle was grizzly, the ridges of her spine showed, her brown, black, and tan fur was uneven, her tail was bushy, and she was missing a hind leg. But the first time I’d gazed into her loving brown eyes, I’d been captivated.

Considered unadoptable, Seedy had been at the top of the list to be euthanized when I’d found her at the animal shelter. I’d worked hard to find her a home, thinking that Marco wouldn’t want to start married life with a new pet, not to mention that his landlady didn’t allow them, but to no avail. In the nick of time, my intended had swept in and rescued her. Taking her had been the second best decision we’d ever made. The first, naturally, had been to marry each other.

I wasn’t used to people staring at me, however. Maybe it was my bright red hair that drew the girl’s attention.

Seedy wagged her tail and gave a little yip, tugging as though she wanted to go see the children, so I walked her over to where they stood.

“Hi,” I said, and received shy smiles from the children. Their mother was watching the paramedics work, a look of alarm on her face, so I said, “Do you know what happened?”

She shook her head. “I was in the kitchen.” Her voice was like soft cotton.

“One of your painters fell from way high up.”

“Is he dead?” she asked.

“He’s unconscious. I can’t tell how serious his condition is.” I stuck out my hand. “I’m Abby Knight . . . Salvare. I own Bloomers Flower Shop.”

She let go of the girl’s hand to shake mine. “Sandra Jones.” She put her hand on top of the boy’s head. “This is Bud”—she put her other hand on the girl’s head—“and this is Daisy. What do we say to Miss Abby, children?”

“Hello, Miss Abby,” they replied in unison.

“Your dog has three legs,” Daisy said. She pointed toward Seedy, but her vivid green eyes were still on me.

“Yes, she does, but she doesn’t let that stop her,” I said.

Daisy reached out to let Seedy sniff her hand, but her mother pulled her back. “You don’t want to get bit, honey. Remember our rule? We never pet a strange dog.”

The girl gazed at the dog with such longing that I crouched down to show her how friendly Seedy was. “My dog’s name is Seedy. She likes children. She won’t bite.”

“Unfortunately, Daisy is allergic to dogs,” Sandra said.

The child gave her mother a puzzled glance, as though that was the first time she’d heard that information.

The boy stepped forward. “I’m not allergic,” he said almost defiantly, and crouched down beside me to run his hand along Seedy’s back. “She has really sharp bones.”

“She’s a rescue dog,” I said. “She was badly abused. But now she has a good home and gets lots of food and attention; don’t you, Seedy?”

Seedy yipped and wagged her tail. She gave the boy’s hand a lick, making him laugh.

“I had a dog,” Daisy said.

“When?” Bud asked with a scoff.

She thought for a moment, then said to her mother, “I had one, didn’t I?”

“Didn’t I what?” Sandra asked in a schoolteacher’s voice.

“Didn’t I, Mommy?”

“Of course you did, honey,” Sandra said, giving her an affectionate smile. She whispered to me, “Imaginary playmates.”

“They’re home from school early today,” I said.

“They’re homeschooled,” Sandra said with a mixture of pride and exhaustion. “Bud, Daisy, our gingerbread cookies should be about done. We’d better go back inside and make sure they don’t burn.”

The boy rose with obvious reluctance.

“Say good-bye,” I said to Seedy, who obliged by giving two yips and wagging her tail as the children reluctantly took their mother’s hands.

“Bye, Seedy,” Bud said sadly.

I heard a car door slam and turned to see a large, balding man with a bad comb-over, wearing an XXXL shirt and battered blue jeans, climb out of a faded blue Chevy van. He paused to look at the emergency situation unfolding just yards away and then continued in our direction.

Seedy glanced around, saw the man coming, and dropped low to the ground with a whimper, her little body beginning to tremble. I scooped her up and held her close, murmuring assurances as he got closer.

“What happened?” the man asked Sandra.

“One of the painters fell,” she said. “Norm, this is Abby Knight Salvare. She was here to see the house when the accident happened. Abby, this is my husband, Norm.”

“We’re baking gingerbread cookies, Daddy,” Bud said as I shook Norm’s hand.

“We were just saying good-bye to Miss Abby so we could go check on them; weren’t we, children?” Sandra asked.

“I’ll be in as soon as I see what the situation is,” Norm said, ruffling Bud’s hair. “Save me a cookie.”

Norm strode toward several of the workers while Sandra hustled the kids to the front door. Daisy kept glancing back at me and paused at the door to give me a look that I didn’t know how to translate, except to say that it felt as though she recognized me from somewhere.

I put Seedy down and walked toward Marco, still pondering the girl’s puzzling glance. My internal radar was clanging a very distant warning, and I didn’t know why.

Lorelei stood beside her black Camry talking on her cell phone, while the paramedics loaded the painter onto the stretcher and the remaining two painters carried the aluminum ladder to their van. I went to where Marco and Reilly stood, then turned to watch as Norm talked to the roofers, who were heading back to their jobs. One pointed to the peak of the roof and gestured, obviously describing the accident. I expected Norm to come talk to the cops next, but instead he went inside his house.

“Any news on the painter’s condition?” I asked the men.

“He’s still unconscious,” Reilly said, hooking his thumbs through his thick leather belt. “His blood pressure is very low but his other vital signs are holding steady. The EMTs didn’t know any more than that.”

“Does anyone know why he fell?” I asked.

“One of the roofers said he’s had some health problems and thought he might have suffered a heart attack,” Marco said.

Seedy was tugging again, this time in the direction of a small white-and-red tube lying on the ground where the man had lain. Curious, I handed Seedy’s leash to Marco and went over to investigate.

“What did you find?” Reilly asked.

“This,” I said, and handed him a white Magic Marker with a red cap.

As Reilly examined it, Seedy barked and wagged her tail as though she wanted him to toss it for a game of catch. “Sorry, girl,” Marco said. “Not this time.”

“It must have fallen out of the painter’s pocket when he fell,” Reilly said. “I’ll pass it along to the detectives. In the meantime, I’m going to start taking statements from everyone here, but if you need to get going, I can stop by the bar and take yours later. You don’t need to stick around.”

“Make sure you talk to the people in the house, Sarge,” I said.

With just a hint of bemusement, Reilly said, “Anything else I should do, Captain?”

“No, seriously, Reilly,” I said. “Just see if you sense anything off.”

“Like what?” he asked.

“I’m not sure. There was something about the way their little girl looked at me.”

“I can’t question them about a look, Abby,” Reilly said.

“Let’s go, Sunshine,” Marco said, leading me away. “See you this evening, Sean.”

“I just want Reilly to be observant, Marco,” I said as we walked toward his car.

“I’m sure he will.”

But I wasn’t. While I liked Reilly and knew him to be an honest cop with a big heart, I’d had enough dealings with him over the years to know he was a by-the-rules kind of guy. Until I could put my finger on what was bothering me, he wasn’t going to pry.

“You’re leaving, then?” our Realtor asked, hurrying over. “Without seeing the inside?”

“We’ve ruled this one out,” Marco said. “Right, Abby?”

I turned to stare at the front of the Victorian, my internal radar still buzzing.

“Abby?” Marco prompted.

“On second thought,” I said to Lorelei, “I’d like to see the inside after all.”

CHAPTER TWO

While Lorelei was on the porch talking with Mr. Jones, Marco studied me. “What made you change your mind?”

“It’s a female’s prerogative,” I said, giving him my sweetest smile.

“Abby, I know you too well. You’ve got your snoop face on.”

That was flattering.

Lorelei came toward us and she wasn’t smiling. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to see the house today. It’s a bad time for them. We’ll have to come back. What does your schedule for tomorrow look like?”

“Let’s go home and think about this house some more, Abby,” Marco suggested. “We’ll let you know what we decide, Lorelei.”

“No sense putting off the decision, Marco. We need to find a new place soon.” I turned to Lorelei. “Say around eight o’clock tomorrow morning?”

Lorelei left with a smile on her face. Not so my disgruntled hubby, who scowled but didn’t speak on the drive back to the flower shop. So I kept busy by pointing out various landmarks to Seedy, who lapped up every word as though she understood.

“And here comes the town square, Seedy. See the big limestone courthouse in the middle? It was built way back in the early nineteen hundreds. There’s Daddy’s bar across the street, and here comes Bloomers. See that bright yellow door? I chose that color because it’s my favorite. And the red-and-white-striped awning? That was Lottie’s idea.”

“Dogs can’t see red, Abby.”

How about that? Silent Salvare finally spoketh. “It’s not like she knows what I’m talking about anyway, Marco. Are you annoyed that I set up that appointment?”

“Not if you actually want to see the house.” He cast me a skeptical glance. “Do you?”

I debated my answer. If I said yes, I’d be lying. If I said no, he’d be even more annoyed. Talk about a rock and a hard place.

When in doubt, punt. “Look, Seedy. Here’s Bloomers. And there’s Lottie making a new display for the bay window.”

“That’s what I thought,” Marco said.

“You don’t have to go tomorrow, Marco. I can look without you.”

He glanced at me with raised brows, as though to ask, Are you sure?

“It’s just that if you’re with me, you won’t have to worry about me getting myself into trouble.”

This time Marco lifted one eyebrow as he glanced my way. His message was clear: You’re going to snoop, aren’t you? He might have been a man of few words, but his facial expressions could fill a tome.

“So,” I said, running my fingers through Seedy’s fur. “Coming with me?”

He sighed. “Do I have a choice?”

I leaned across the console and kissed him. “You made your choice when you said, ‘I do.’”

Seedy yipped once and put her little paw on the window, eager to escape the car and return to her haven in my workroom.

“Are we meeting at the bar for supper?” I asked.

“Looks like it. Rafe is off tonight so I need to be there all evening.”

Oh, joy. Another evening alone.

From the time Marco had bought Down the Hatch nearly two years before, he’d spent almost every evening there, so our habit was to meet for supper before I headed home for the evening. But since bringing his younger brother Rafe onto his staff, Marco had been able to cut down on his hours, giving us two nights a week and one weekend a month together, along with our usual Sundays off. However, because his private investigating business had been growing, I found myself home alone more than I liked, even when I worked the more interesting cases with him. Thank goodness for Seedy.

“Then I’ll see you after five.” I slid out of the car and put Seedy down on the sidewalk. I watched her hobble toward the bright yellow frame door; then I stood for a moment gazing at the three-story redbrick building that housed Bloomers.

The shop occupied the first floor, with the display room up front, a coffee and tea parlor off to one side, the workroom in the middle, and a small bathroom and kitchen across the back. A heavy fireproof door opened onto the alley and a steep staircase near the back door led to the basement. We kept larger supplies and huge flowerpots down there, along with pieces of my mom’s art that we were too embarrassed to display in the shop. I tried not to go to the basement very often. It was a scary place.

I opened the door and let Seedy go in ahead of me. No matter how many times I entered, I always got a thrill from knowing Bloomers was mine. Well, okay, the bank’s until the mortgage was paid off—like that was ever going to happen. Yet it was my name on the sign above the door, and I still puffed up with pride when I saw it. Little ol’ me, the law school flunk-out, had her very own business.

I took a moment to gaze around the interior, inhaling the sweetly perfumed air. The flower shop had an old-world charm, with original wood floors, a high tin ceiling, and brick walls that dated back to the early 1900s. I’d worked hard to keep the same feel with the decor, using a heavy round oak table with claw feet in the center of the room to display silk arrangements, an open antique armoire, a wicker settee in the back corner shaded by a leafy ficus tree, and an oak sideboard.

There were also large potted plants on the floor around the perimeter of the room, wreaths, sconces, and decorative mirrors on the walls, silk floral arrangements in the big bay window, and assorted gift items on shelves. The only modern touches were a glass-fronted cooler on the back wall and the cash counter to the left of the door.

Through the wide doorway on the right I could see women seated at three of the white wrought-iron ice cream tables in the parlor. I’d emptied a storage room and added the parlor as a way to draw in more customers, and it had worked better than I’d ever expected. Most of its success I attributed to the woman who ran it for me, Grace Bingham, who not only brewed the best tea and gourmet coffee in town, but also baked scones every morning to sell in the shop. The flavor of the day depended on what was in season. Today it was apple.

“Hey, sweetie,” my other assistant, Lottie Dombowski, said as she stepped down from the bay window. “How’d the house hunt go? See something worth a second look?”

More like someone worth a second look. “The outside of the house was in deplorable condition,” I said, but before I could tell her the rest of the story, she put her arm around my shoulders and gave me a motherly squeeze.

“You’ll find something. Don’t give up the dream. The perfect house will come along when the time is right.”

After months of hearing about one futile house hunt after another, Lottie should have been as disillusioned as I was. But not her. She was a fighter. As the mother of eighteen-year-old quadruplet sons, she had to be.

Born in Kentucky, the large-boned, forty-seven-year-old had brassy curls à la Shirley Temple and wore pink barrettes to keep the hair off her face. In fact, she wore pink everything except jeans, which were white. I couldn’t actually have vouched for her underwear, but she swore it was also pink, and if I didn’t believe her, I could ask her beloved hubby Herman.

Lottie had once owned Bloomers, but Herman had suffered such serious heart problems that the resulting surgeries and insurance expenses had nearly bankrupted them, forcing her to sell the shop. At the same time, I had been experiencing my own kind of failure. I’d been booted out of law school after my first year and subsequently dumped by my then fiancé, Pryce Osborne II. His parents, part of New Chapel’s elite, hadn’t wanted Pryces II through X to bear the stigma of my humiliation.

Down at heart and desperate for a job, I’d returned to the little shop where I’d worked summers during college, a haven that had called to me even back then. When I learned of Lottie’s situation, I took the rest of the college money my grandfather had left me, dashed it over to the bank, signed my life away, and hired Lottie back to train me.

Grace Bingham glided out of the parlor to join us and said to me in her crisp British accent, “I heard a but in your comment, love.”

Lottie gave her a puzzled look. “Excuse me?”

“You cut her off, Lottie, dear—not that you meant to, but there it is, isn’t it? Abby, love, would you like to finish now? The house was in deplorable condition, but?”

Grace smiled serenely and waited, knowing she was right. Her fingers were interlocked in front of her, her posture as perfect as her short, stylish gray hair. An impeccable dresser, today she wore a lilac sweater set and gray skirt with gray flats.

Lottie looked at me for verification. “I cut you off? I surely didn’t mean to. What else were you going to say about the house?”

“It wasn’t about the house. It was what happened at the house. One of the painters fell off his ladder and had to be taken to the hospital. That brought the occupants out—a mom and two kids, maybe six and ten years old.”

“Home at this time of day?” Grace asked.

“Homeschooled,” I said. “While I was talking to the kids, Daisy, the little girl, kept looking at me strangely.”

“Strangely?” Grace asked. “As in mistrustful? Frightened? Curious?”

“Maybe curious. Anyway, I’ve arranged to go back tomorrow morning.”