Nightshade on Elm Street: A Flower Shop Mystery (3 page)

Through the wide doorway on the right is our coffee and tea parlor, which also has a bay window. A coffee counter runs across the back, and white wrought iron ice-cream tables and chairs fill the room. This is where customers sip tea or coffee served in china teacups and saucers in a lovely rose pattern, nibble on scones slathered with clotted cream, and watch the activity on the square.

I picked up a fresh cup of coffee from the back counter, where Grace was preparing her machines for the day, walked to the front door, and turned the sign to
OPEN
. Then I stood at the bay window sipping coffee and
watching our regulars cut across the courthouse lawn to get their morning java jolt.

I glanced to the right and saw Marco Salvare, my groom-to-be, striding up the sidewalk, drawing admiring looks from every female who saw him, not that I could blame them. Marco has that sexy Mediterranean look—dark hair and eyes, five-o’clock shadow, and a lean body sculpted from the rigorous training of the Army Rangers. He exudes confidence from every pore, which in itself is extremely appealing. When he adds a smile to the mix—that slight upturn of his mouth—I hang on to the nearest solid object to keep from throwing myself at him.

Today Marco was wearing black boots, slim-fitting dark blue jeans, and a khaki-colored
Down the Hatch
T-shirt. His wavy dark hair looked glossy and thick, with a single lock falling over one eyebrow, giving him a devilishly dangerous look. Just outside the shop, women pulled out their compacts to check their appearances, then stood at the door until he opened it for them, giggling like schoolgirls and fanning their faces when he flashed his enigmatic grin.

The women were still giggling as they trooped into the parlor, not even noticing me standing next to the window. Marco, however, spotted me immediately. Whenever he entered a room, he always scanned it, a habit he’d picked up during his military years. If there was danger around, he’d find it.

Marco had gone into the army upon graduating from college, later moving into the Rangers Special Forces division. After serving with them for two years, he’d joined the New Chapel police force. Unlike my dad, who was a career cop, Marco stayed on only a year. Too many rules and much too political for my man.

Now he owns Down the Hatch Bar and Grill, two
doors north of Bloomers. He’d taken over the bar shortly before I’d assumed the mortgage for Bloomers, and we’d met when my refurbished 1960 yellow Corvette was the victim of a hit-and-run right in front of my shop. He’d volunteered to help me find the driver of the big black SUV, not knowing it would suck both of us into a murder case—and a romance.

“Who’s this gorgeous little redhead hiding behind the door?” he asked in a low growl, pulling me close.

Marco was the only person who could call me little and get away with it. I slipped my arms around his waist and lifted my mouth for a kiss, then noticed that several women seated in the parlor were craning their necks to watch. I took Marco’s hand and led him into the workroom.

“Still want to marry me?” I asked, leaning back in his arms to gaze into his soulful brown eyes.

“More each minute.”

“Despite everything?”

“Despite everything.”

He kissed me again, long and luxuriously, until I thought about his answer. “Despite what?”

Marco shrugged, his mind still fogged over from the steamy kiss. “I don’t know. What you said. Everything.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“Now?”

“Yes. What kinds of things do you love me despite?”

“Okay, I should have said anything, not everything. No, make that nothing. I love you despite nothing.” He glanced at his watch. “Do you want to waste any more time on this subject?”

“Not really.” I wound my arms around his neck. “I love you despite everything, too.”

“Good. So before—”

“You don’t want a list of things?”

“I know the list, Sunshine. It starts with my mom and ends with my youngest brother. So before anyone interrupts us…”

And then Marco was kissing me the way every woman should be kissed—deeply, passionately, lovingly, and, yes, quite stirringly. Had we been alone—well, never mind going there, because it came to an abrupt stop.

“Pryce called you?” he asked.

I blinked up at Marco, trying to get my brain cells to fire up and my hormones to power down. “How did you know that?”

He reached around me and plucked the message off my desk. “This.”

“How did you see that if your eyes were closed?”

“They were closed…at first.”

“Marco, you don’t need to open your eyes while we’re kissing. There’s nothing dangerous lurking in my workroom.”

“Sorry, Sunshine. It’s a habit.”

I backed up a step. “Please tell me you don’t always keep your eyes open or I’ll be too self-conscious to ever kiss you again.”

“Really?”

“Well, no.”

His mouth curved up at one corner. “I’ll try to suppress the urge anyway. What did Pryce want?”

“He wants us to find his fiancée. She was among a group of people staying at the Osborne beach house this past weekend and now she’s missing. He’s been checking her apartment and shop, but hasn’t had any luck. I don’t have the particulars, but I’m thinking she came to her senses about marrying Pryce and ran as far away as she could.”

“You’re still angry with him, aren’t you?”

I uttered a carefree laugh. A titter, actually. “
Pffft.
No.”

Marco said nothing, which usually meant he didn’t agree but felt it wasn’t worth arguing about. Smart man.

“Oh, and get this, Marco. Pryce says he’ll pay half again as much as your normal fee because he needs to keep this matter quiet.” I faked a cough. “The Osbornes won’t tolerate embarrassment, you know.”

“Oh, yeah, you’re still angry.”

“Am not.”

“You don’t have to deny it, Sunshine, but you do need to put it behind you.”

“It’s way behind me, Marco. I’m grateful that things worked out the way they did. Sure, getting the boot from New Chapel law school left a few scars. And then, after just being dealt the worst blow of my life, Pryce and his parents came in with their machetes and finished the job. Do you know how it feels to find out you mean nothing to the person you were ready to spend the rest of your life with?”

“No, and I hope I never do. But let me ask you this. Were you in love with Pryce back then?”

“No.”

“That was a quick response.”

“I’ve had a lot of time to think about it. It took me a few months, but I realized finally that I was in love with the idea of marriage to Pryce. The reality of being his wife would have sucked air.” I put my hands on Marco’s chest. “You’re the one for me, Salvare, and I would love you whether we ever got married or not.”

He smiled into my eyes. “Know what I think?”

“What?”

“We should take the case.”

That was
not
what I expected him to say.
I love you so much I have to marry you in order to live my life fully
was along the lines of what I expected. “Are you serious? You want me to
work
for Pryce?”

He tugged my chin. “You’re talking through clenched teeth.”

“Am not,” I managed to squeeze out.

“Abby, I want our honeymoon to be something special, and this fee will help pay for it. So if you’re bothered that much, I’ll work the case alone. You don’t need to see Pryce ever again.”

“I appreciate the offer—it’s just that I didn’t think you’d want to work for him either. He
hurt
me, Marco!”

“I get that, sweetheart, but what happened is in the past. This is the present, and the case means another paycheck. We don’t need to make it personal.”

I knew what he was saying—and he was right—but letting go of that old pain was tough. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to let it go. It was a reminder to judge a person for who he was inside. With that said, I had to admit Marco’s outside was just as attractive as his inside.

Marco searched my eyes. “Do you want me to say no?”

“Kind of.”

“Then you’ve got it, babe. We won’t take the case. It’s not like another job won’t come up.”

I heaved a sigh of relief and wrapped my arms around his waist, resting my head against his solid chest. “Thank you for understanding. I love you so much.”

He rested his chin on the top of my head and folded his arms around me. “I want you to be happy, Abby.”

I heard voices near the curtain, and a moment later the velvet parted and my cousin Jillian stepped into the workroom, followed by Lottie, who mouthed,
I tried to stop her.

“Still nothing dangerous in your workroom?” Marco muttered in my ear.

“Thank God you’re both here!” my tall, willowy cousin exclaimed, sweeping back her long, silky, copper-colored hair. In a bright blue and green sundress, with a
green patent leather belt and matching ballet flats, and carrying a white straw hat and bright blue tote, Jillian looked like she’d just stepped out of a Nordstrom catalog. But that was nothing new.

Jillian studied fashion design after college and now ran a wardrobe consulting business, Chez Jillian, out of her apartment, combining two of her favorite hobbies—shopping and spending money.

“You’re supposed to stay up at the beach house until an investigator gets there,” I said.

She waved it away. “Everyone thinks I’m in our room taking a nap. And let’s remember that it’s a
cottage
, Abs. The Osbornes don’t like the term beach house. It denotes ordinariality.”

Jillian’s other favorite hobby was making up words. “Ordinariness,” I said.

“That, too,” she replied.

I glanced at Marco and saw him pressing his fingers against his lips to hide a smile.

Jillian clamped her hands on my shoulders. “Please, Abs, I’m begging you and Marco to help us find Melissa.”

“Sorry, Jillian. Pryce will have to find someone else.”

“Someone else?” she cried, as though saying,
Dengue fever?

She lurched toward my desk chair and sank down in it, waving her hand in front of her face, looking suddenly flushed beneath her golden tan. “Would someone get me a glass of water, please? I’m feeling overheated.”

“I’ll get it,” Marco said, and strode off toward the kitchen in the back.

Jillian caught my hands and pulled me down so I was directly in front of her. “Abby, you and Marco
must
take this case.”

“No way, Jill. You know how I feel about Pryce.”

“So let Marco do it.”

“We work as a team.”

“Then you’ll just have to put your personal feelings aside, because we don’t trust anyone else to handle this situation.”

“Jillian, read my lips. Unless you or Claymore did away with Melissa, nothing you can say will change my mind.
Nothing.
” I thought about what I’d just said. “You didn’t do away with Melissa, did you?”

She scowled at me. “Don’t be absurd. I didn’t care for her personality, fashion sense, or decorating skills, but that’s no reason to…whatever. Anyway, we don’t know that she’s come to a bad end. After the blowup she and Pryce had, she may be lying low to torture him.”

“They had a blowup?” Now I was interested.

“Yes, but I’ll tell you about it only if you take the case.”

“Forget it. I don’t want to know about their blowup.”

“Liar.”

“If you’re not a fan of Melissa’s, Jillian, why do you care so much about finding her?”

She shrugged one shoulder, frowning down at her hands folded in her lap.

I tilted her chin up. “What’s going on?”

She searched my eyes, as though trying to decide whether to let me in on something. Then she used a long, manicured fingertip to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “I wasn’t going to say anything for a few months”—she glanced over both shoulders as though about to reveal a state secret—“and no one else knows yet, so you’ll have to swear not to tell a single person until I give you the green light.”

“I don’t have to swear. I know how to keep a secret.”

“Swear, Abby.”

Jillian had always been a drama queen, so her request
wasn’t all that unusual. Even so, I felt silly. “We’re not kids, Jill. Either you trust me or you don’t.”

“Your choice.” She studied the polish on her fingernails. She knew I’d cave eventually.

“Fine. I swear I won’t tell what you’re about to reveal.”

“And if you’re lying, you’ll stick a needle in your eye.”

“Not going to happen.”

Jillian leaned toward me. “If something bad
has
befallen Melissa, it will be a huge scandal.” She squeezed my hands, tears filling her pretty eyes. “The Osborne name will be tainted forever. We’ll be pariahs in our own city. Outcasts. I can’t let that happen, Abs.”

That made more sense. My self-absorbed cousin had become a true Osborne, more concerned with the family name than with another person’s life. “Then you’re not even remotely worried about Melissa’s well-being?”

“Of course I’m worried about her—remotely—but it’s more about someone else’s well-being.”

“Oh, right. Yours.”

“No, but I can understand why you might think so.”

“Claymore’s?”

“Keep guessing.”

“I don’t want to play anymore, Jillian. Just tell me.”

“Your niece’s.”

“Tara’s at the beach house, too?” Tara was my brother Jordan’s thirteen-year-old daughter.

“Oops. I meant to say your first cousin”—she paused to ponder—“once removed.”

I had to stop for a moment to figure out what that meant. “I don’t have a first cousin once removed.”

“In seven months you will.”