Nightshade on Elm Street: A Flower Shop Mystery (16 page)

“Gal doesn’t know what she’s missing,” Halston commented.

They all nodded.

I grabbed Marco’s arm and tugged him away before I burst out laughing.

“So where
did
Pryce go?” I asked, as we waited for a green light. “His car wasn’t in his driveway.”

“It’s not important.” Marco reached across to rub the back of my neck, which was getting more painful by the hour. “We got sidetracked today, Sunshine.”

“By the missing watch?”

“Among other issues.”

“Speaking of the watch, I wasn’t satisfied that Halston was telling the truth about Orabell’s Piaget. He seemed to be in a hurry to get off the subject.”

“I caught that, too, but our job is to find Melissa, not to solve their problems.”

“After listening to the interviews today, Marco, I don’t think anyone knows where Melissa is, unless Claymore was able to shed light on her whereabouts.”

“All Claymore knew was what Jillian told him.”

“My gut feeling is still that Melissa has gone underground. She’s too hurt and humiliated to show her face in town, that’s all, not because anything bad happened to her.”

“Pryce did make one good point, though, Abby. Melissa should have contacted her brother by now.”

“Marco, I know you grew up with sisters, but sometimes I’m surprised by how little you understand the workings of the female brain. What makes you think she hasn’t contacted her brother, then made him promise not to tell Pryce where she was?”

“Is that what you did?”

That stung. “No, I didn’t do that. I didn’t have contact with Pryce after he broke our engagement, but I never hid from him. What would you do if one of your sisters had just had her heart broken into tiny bits and asked
you not to let the jerk who dumped her know where she was?”

“I’d honor her request.”

“Of course you would, which is why I’m saying Melissa’s brother may have done the same thing.”

“And then I’d grind the jerk into a fine powder. Obviously we’ve hit a dead end with these people, Abby, so tomorrow I’ll do an Internet search and see where that takes me.”

He drove into the apartment’s parking lot, turned off the engine, and pulled me close. “What do you say we go up to your place, work on that foot massage, and see where
that
takes us.”

Straight to nirvana, I was sure.

Tuesday

When I walked into Bloomers the next morning, what greeted me was not the beautiful silk floral centerpiece that was usually placed on our round, antique oak table in the middle of the shop. No, it was Mom’s new creation—the eye mask tree—and that wasn’t the best way to start a day.

“Good morning, love,” Grace said, coming out of the coffee parlor. “I have fresh vanilla scones this morning with raspberry-flavored coffee. Would you care to try them?”

“Sounds delicious, Grace. Thanks.” I stopped to adjust one of the masks. “It doesn’t look like we sold many of these eyesores yesterday.”

“Not a one, sadly. I thought surely the lady poetesses would snap them right up, but they merely glanced at them and walked away.”

“Did we price them too high?”

“They’re significantly lower than sleep masks at the drugstores, dear. Perhaps we should wait a day or two
before dropping the price. Interest may pick up. Let me get your coffee and scone and bring it into the workroom. I want to explain about your messages.”

She had to explain them? That sounded portentous.

“Morning, sweetie,” Lottie called as I stepped through the purple curtain. She was pruning mum stems with her floral shears. “We got a bunch of orders in overnight. Big funeral tomorrow. Isn’t that great?”

“In a morbid way,” I said, pulling out the chair at my desk.

“Here we are,” Grace said, coming into the workroom with a cup and saucer in one hand and a plate with a scone on it in the other. “Lottie, dear, don’t forget to help yourself to a vanilla scone. It’s the first time I’ve made this recipe for the shop.”

I picked up a stack of pink memo slips just as Grace set the plate and cup before me.

“Have a bite of scone, love,” she said, and plucked the slips out of my fingers. “The butter in it will help calm your nerves.”

My nerves were going to need calming?

I crammed a big bite in my mouth. “Okay, go ahead,” I mumbled, spewing crumbs. “This is delicious.”

“That does it,” Lottie said, laying down her shears. “I’ve gotta try one.”

“On to business,” Grace said. “First of all, your Mr. Juggles called.”

“Mr. Juggles?” Lottie asked, pausing at the curtain.

“That’s the juggler I’m going to hire,” I explained. “He was supposed to get back to me about a price.”

“That wasn’t why he called,” Grace said. “Mr. Juggles is sorry to inform you that he has to have emergency shoulder surgery next week because he tore a tendon while performing last night and will be out of commission for at least eight weeks.”

The morning was not going well. “Great. He was the only local juggler I found.”

“There has to be more than one in the area,” Grace said.

“Chicago,” I said with a sigh. “I found a whole list of them there, but they were pricey, and I’d have to pay their travel expenses. I’ll have to squeeze in a few minutes somewhere to search for someone closer.”

Lottie came into the workroom carrying a scone wrapped in a napkin. “Did you tell her about the pinwheels yet?”

“I’m just about to do that now.”

“There’s another problem with my pinwheels?” I asked, reaching for my scone.

“I know you wanted to call around for them yourself, love, but when you mentioned yesterday that you’d be gone all evening, I decided to see what I could find out for you. Well, it was fortunate I did.”

She placed a memo slip on the desk. “To start with, the sales representative from this company told me they don’t carry flower pinwheels any longer, only solid-colored paper or miniature metallic ones.”

She put down another slip. “This company sells happy-face pinwheels in addition to solid-colored paper ones.”

Next slip came down. “This company carries ten varieties of pinwheel, including the flower kind, but they’re twelve inches across, and I knew that would never work.”

She put down another. “Now, this company had flower pinwheels at one time, but sold out at Easter and forgot to reorder because there’s been no activity on that item lately.”

“Wait, Grace,” I said before she could put down another slip. “Did you find them anywhere?”

“I’m getting to that,” she said, then laid out three more pieces of paper. “I found seven at this company,
thirteen at this one, and five at this one. Apparently, flower pinwheels are a spring item, Abby. Everyone I contacted is either low or out of stock. Shall I continue?”

There went my pinwheel idea. “No. Thanks anyway, Grace. And thanks for making all these calls. That would have taken me a long time to research.”

“Which is why I stepped in, dear. You have more on your plate than one person can handle. Now, let me think…. Yes, it was Antoine de Saint-Exupéry who said”—Grace took hold of the edges of her blazer and straightened her shoulders—“‘One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions. Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born.’ Saint-Exupéry was speaking, of course, about teamwork.”

I held up my thumb as I chewed another bite of scone. “Gotcha.”

Then I caught Grace and Lottie exchanging glances. What had I missed? “Is there a problem?”

“Well,” Grace said after some hesitation, “I don’t want to talk out of turn, dear, but I feel I must speak my mind on the subject of your shower.”

“You don’t like my festival theme?”

“It’s not that, sweetie,” Lottie said. “Festivals are always fun. But sometimes…well, every so often…not always, by any means, but once in a while you seem to”—Lottie made a traveling motion with her hands—“and that just leads to—” She balled up her hands into fists and shook them.

“The only thing I got out of that, Lottie, is that I shouldn’t travel so fast.”

“What our Lottie is attempting to explain,” Grace said, “is that trying to execute your plans by yourself, while it sounds admirable, may be your, shall we say, undoing?”

“It’s not going to undo me,” I said, wiping my fingers
on a napkin. “It’s going to preserve my sanity. You know how Mom and Francesca are. They want to run everything. Believe me, I know, because they’ve already tried.” I got up and gave each woman a hug. “I appreciate your concern, but don’t worry about me. I’ll substitute something for the pinwheels, find another juggler, and everything will be fine.”

“Will you promise one thing?” Lottie asked. “Will you ask us for help if you feel like you’re treading water?”

“Yes.” But only if I was about to drown. Otherwise, Mom and Francesca would find out that Lottie and Grace were helping, and then there’d be hell to pay.

Lottie gave me a big hug, then turned to eye the stack of orders on the spindle. “You and I have our work cut out for us today, sweetie. But before I dig in to these orders, I’m gonna dig in to this sweet-smelling scone.” She bit into the pastry and chewed for a moment, then sighed with delight. “Oh, my word, Gracie, these are the best you’ve ever made. What’s your secret?”

“My grandmother’s recipe,” Grace replied cryptically.

“Come on, Gracie,” Lottie said. “I know you used vanilla in it, but what makes it so creamy?”

Grace motioned for Lottie and me to come closer; then, in a team huddle, she said quietly, “Are we agreed that this goes no further than the workroom?”

At our nods, she said, “Very well. The secret ingredient is”—she dropped her voice to a whisper—“sour cream.” Then she put her finger to her lips.

“I never would have guessed,” Lottie whispered.

“Ladies,” I said, “we’re the only ones in the shop. Why are you whispering?”

The curtain parted and Jillian’s head popped through. “What are you guys doing back here? You’ve got customers up front.”

Grace stepped away with a knowing look.

“H
ow did you get inside?” I asked Jillian, as she came through the curtain. “The door is still locked.”

She dangled a key in front of me, the same key I’d given her in a weak moment when I was desperate for help and she’d volunteered. “Not anymore.”

Grace headed for the curtain. “I don’t understand why the bell over the door didn’t jingle.”

“Shoot,” Lottie said, hurrying after Grace. “I forgot to fix it. I saw it was stuck when I came in this morning.”

“Thanks for opening the shop half an hour early, Jillian.” I held out my hand. “Give me the key.”

“How will I get in?” Jillian asked, pouting.

“The way everyone else does. You’ll wait until the shop is open.”

“Well, I’m
not
everyone else.” Jillian leaned over my shoulder to sniff my half-eaten scone. “I smell vanilla.”

She started to break off a piece, but I grabbed her wrist. “Give me the key first.”

She dropped it on the desk and snatched the plate. Sitting on a stool at the worktable, she gobbled the rest of my scone, finishing within sixty seconds. “M-m-m. That was yummy. I was literally starving to death.”

“You were not
literally
starving to death, Jillian. If you were, you wouldn’t have had the strength to drag yourself out of bed.”

She pointed to my cup. “Are you going to drink that?”

I picked it up and drank it down. “Coffee is bad for you. Why are you here?”

“Two reasons. A, I found the perfect name for
you know who
, and B, I found the perfect dress for you to wear to your shower.”

“Tell me the name.”

She clapped her hands together, smiling excitedly. “Okay, you know how cool it is that everyone calls Jennifer Lopez
J-Lo
? Well, if I name the
you-know-what
Jillian Ophelia, then I can call her Jill-O.”

“You’re going to give your child your name?”

“Yes, but as I just said, I’ll call her Jill-O.”

“Think about it.”

She gave me a blank look. “What?”

“What do you always make for the family Thanksgiving dinner?”

“Rolls.”

“No, you
buy
the rolls. What do you
make
? You know how to make only one thing.”

“Strawberry cream Jell-O.”

I smiled.

She blinked a few times, then let out a wail, laid her head on her arms, and sobbed.

I rubbed her back. “Don’t worry. You have plenty of time to think of a better name. Want a cup of tea?”

She shook her head.

“Want another scone?”

As though suddenly inspired, Jillian raised her head, grabbed her shoulder bag, and slid off the stool. “I know just where to find the perfect name.”

“Where?”

“You’ll find out,” she said, and slipped through the curtain.

At least I didn’t have to hear about the perfect dress.

“Maybe I can still use my pinwheel idea,” I told Lottie later that afternoon, as we put together funeral orders. “I just won’t use the flower type.”

“Whatever you use, you’d better get them ordered right now and have them overnighted. And call that juggler out of Chicago, too.”