Nightshade on Elm Street: A Flower Shop Mystery (4 page)

I
toppled backward, landing on my derriere. “You are
not
pregnant! You’re just saying that to get your way.”

“Sh-h-h!” She glanced around again, then whispered, “It’s true, Abs. I saw my doctor last week.”

“How far along are you?”

“Six weeks. Do you understand now why I need you to clear the family name?”

“Wait a minute. No one else knows? Not even Claymore?”

She nodded. “Please, Abs, you won’t let an innocent child be hurt by a scandal, will you?”

I gazed into those wide green eyes and saw, not my gorgeous, twenty-six-year-old spoiled cousin, but the shy, withdrawn child whose back was so crooked from scoliosis, she had to be put in a body cast, and whose cheerless gaze had reflected her misery. Jillian had always looked up to me. How could I turn her away now?

I already had my next journal entry written in my head:
Bad luck supposedly comes in threes. So let’s see. First Pryce called and tried to ruin my Monday. Then Jillian twisted my arm and did ruin my Monday. It’s anyone’s guess what the third misfortune will be.

She put her finger against her lips to warn me to silence.

“Here’s your water,” Marco said, striding into the room.

“Thank you, Marco.” Jillian smiled sweetly at him. Then when he turned away, she mouthed,
You swore!
And then mimed sticking a needle in her eye.

I gave her a quick nod. In my state of shock, it was all I could manage.

“What’s up?” Marco asked, looking from me to my cousin, who was calmly sipping the water.

“Marco, I think”—
Take a deep breath, Abby
—“we should take Pryce’s case.”

There, I’d said it. And I had the knot in my stomach to prove it.

His eyebrows drew together. “Are you sure?”

“She’s sure,” Jillian said.

Marco kept his gaze on me, as though trying to peer inside my head. “What changed your mind?”

“I did,” Jillian said. “I reminded her how upset Claymore gets when anyone in his family is in trouble. He has such delicate nerves that a situation like this can put him in a tailspin for months. He stops eating, and he doesn’t need to lose weight.”

Although Jillian hadn’t lied about her husband’s nervous condition, Marco still wasn’t buying that as my reason. He studied me, his eyes narrowed. “Are you one hundred percent certain you want us to take the case?”

I made myself nod. I could almost hear my neck vertebrae screaming.

“Okay,” Marco said.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Jillian said, placing her hands over her heart. “I’m so relieved. Can you come out to the cottage with me right now?”

“I can’t leave the shop during the morning rush,” I said.

“And I’ve got some business to take care of,” Marco
said. “I can make it at noon, Abby, if you’re sure you want to go with me.”

“I’ll arrange it,” I said.

Jillian set her glass on the desk and took a shaky breath, looking pale now. “Then I suppose I’d better get back before someone notices I’m gone.”

“Good idea,” I said, trying to appear calm, although the thought of seeing the beach house—and Pryce—made me want to puke.

Jillian grabbed my waste can and did.

After Jillian’s stomach had settled and she felt strong enough to leave, Marco escorted her to her car, while I took the waste can out to the alley and rinsed it with a hose. When I returned to the workroom, Marco had swiveled my desk chair around and was straddling it. For some reason he viewed sitting in a chair the right way an anathema.

“So Jillian is expecting a baby, huh?” he asked.

I paused in cleaning stray leaves off the worktable. “What would make you think that? She explained about getting sick on undercooked eggs.”

“Her voice carries into the kitchen. I heard you two talking.”

I brushed off my hands so I could give him a hug. “I’m so glad you know. Jillian made me swear I wouldn’t tell anyone, and I really dislike keeping anything from you.”

“I feel the same way, Abby.” He chuckled. “Somehow I can’t picture Claymore as a daddy. Messy diapers…middle-of-the-night feedings…colic. If you thought he was high-strung before, imagine what he’ll be like with a newborn in the house.”

“But you
can
picture Jillian handling it?”

“Nah. She’ll have a nanny.”

“Two nannies,” I corrected. “One for Claymore, who’ll probably be colicky, too.”

We both laughed at that.

“Why would Claymore be colicky?” Grace asked, slipping through the curtain as quietly as a sailboat gliding into port.

“Um,” I said, while I tried to come up with a plausible reason. My sixty-something British assistant was capable, efficient, and an inveterate eavesdropper, so I hoped that last bit was all she’d heard. I glanced at Marco for help, but he merely shrugged.

“Ah, so it’s to be silence, is it?” She cleared her throat, placed her sensible beige pumps together, straightened her spine, and clasped the edges of her coral cardigan as though she were about to deliver the Gettysburg Address. It was the posture she assumed whenever she recited one of her myriad quotes.

“As that great American writer, historian, and philosopher Will Durant wrote, ‘One of the lessons of history is that nothing is often a good thing to do and always a clever thing to say.’ So brava, love, for your silence.”

Whew. I was off the hook. “Thanks, Grace,” I said, as Marco and I clapped. “Great quote.”

She nodded regally. It was part of her performance.

The summer I clerked for attorney Dave Hammond, Grace had been his legal secretary, and we’d gotten along famously. Before that, she’d been, among other things, a surgical nurse, a school librarian, a tattoo artist, and a horse walker. She had decided to retire around the time I took over Bloomers, but two weeks of inactivity had her eager to become
She Who Rules the Parlor
. I credited Grace for the coffee shop’s success.

Lottie pulled back the curtain and looked into the room. “Am I the only one working today?”

“Sorry, dear,” Grace said, then turned to me. “Your mum phoned, Abby. She’ll be stopping by after lunch to drop off her latest artwork.”

There was a moment of silence followed by three heavy sighs.

“Okay,” I said. “I’ll prepare myself. By the way, I’m going to take my lunch break at noon unless one of you has a commitment. Marco and I have to go interview people.”

“So you’re going to take Pryce’s case, then?” Grace asked. Not much got past her.

“Yep,” Marco said.

“I suppose it was inevitable,” Grace said with a heavy sigh. “Jillian
is
involved, after all.”

“Speaking of inevitable, did Jillian tell you her news?” Lottie asked.

My heart gave a gallop, but then I looked at Marco and he signaled with a quick shake of his head that Lottie couldn’t possibly have overheard from the front counter. So there must be other news.

“About her being with child, do you mean?” Grace asked.

Nope. Same news.

I exchanged stunned glances with Marco. “Who told you, Lottie?”

“Sweetie, anyone who’s had a baby knows the signs, and that girl was about as green around the gills as I’ve ever seen.”

“But how did you know, Grace?”

Grace, who had never had children, said, “Well, you know Jillian’s voice is rather clamoursome, love.”

Grace had the best words that none of us had ever heard of.

“But Jillian
whispered
,” I said.

“Her whispers can split one’s eardrums,” Grace said. “Very high-pitched for what amounts to a hiss.”

“You can’t say a word to anyone,” I told my assistants. “Jillian swore me to secrecy.”

“It won’t be a problem, love,” Grace said. “None of
my friends would even care.” Then she glided out as silently as she had arrived.

“Same here,” Lottie said, and followed her.

Marco glanced at his watch. “Time for me to go. Pick you up at noon. And yes, I’ll have a cooler packed with sandwiches.”

The turkey BLTs were delicious, and I ate mine with gusto—until I thought about seeing Pryce and the beach house again, the scene of his marriage proposal. Then my mouth went dry and the food didn’t go down so well. I took a swallow of bottled water, but that only made me cough.

“You okay?” Marco asked, turning east onto State Road 12, which wound around the southern tip of Lake Michigan. We were heading toward the exclusive village of Dune Haven, which had been built around tranquil Haven Lake.

“Food went down the wrong pipe,” I rasped, pointing to my throat.

“According to my GPS, we’re getting close to Elm Street.”

According to the growing knot in my stomach, too. I rewrapped the uneaten portion of my sandwich and stowed it in the cooler in the backseat of Marco’s green Prius. “I’ll finish that later.” Like maybe next week, when my tummy untangled.

After another ten minutes, we turned onto Elm, a private road that wound through a forest of cottonwood, maple, beech, pine, black walnut, and the ubiquitous elm trees. The tall deciduous trees formed such a heavy canopy that the hot August sun was nearly blotted out. The big two- and three-story vacation homes, set on acre lots, could be seen only in brief glimpses between the thick trunks.

“The houses look completely traditional from the front, but from the back, they’re almost all glass,” I explained. “Each one has its own sandy beach, pier, and boat dock.”

“So you’ve been here before.” Marco said it as a statement rather than a question, as though another fact to tuck away in his memory bank.

“Once—briefly—while I was in law school. I was still acceptable to the Osbornes then.”

I didn’t want to tell him why I’d been there. After all, how many guys could afford to have their soon-to-be fiancées serenaded by a string quartet on their private beach in the moonlight while they were proposing? And then afterward drink champagne in Waterford crystal glasses served by a butler?

However many there were, Marco wasn’t one of them. Boy, was I glad.

“I didn’t know it at the time,” I told Marco, “but if I hadn’t enrolled in law school, I would have been nixed from the get-go. Flunking out was the deal breaker.”

“The Osbornes accepted Jillian,” Marco pointed out.

“She met their criteria. Harvard degree. Father is a stockbroker. Mother golfs and lunches with the ladies at the country club. Jillian grew up in a big house, vacationed in exotic locales, and had cleaning people. Just the opposite of my upbringing.”

I checked my watch. “This trip took longer than I thought it would, Marco. I’m not going to have a lot of time to interview the guests. I have to get back to Bloomers because the Monday Afternoon Ladies’ Poetry Society meets at two, and it takes all of us to handle the shop when they’re in residence.”

“We’ll just do some basic questioning, then. Mainly, I want to get a feel for the situation and everyone involved.”

“There it is.” I pointed to a traditional gray cedar three-story with white trim. Was my hand shaking?

“Not what I’d call a cottage,” Marco said. “More like a mini-mansion.”

The so-called cottage had four chimney stacks, two second-floor balconies on its front side, and a deep verandah that spanned the front and one side of the house. A matching four-car garage was situated close to the street, so Marco turned off the lane onto the driveway and parked in front of one of the bays.

As we walked up a brick path that wound through the wooded lot, I couldn’t help but admire the cheerful verandah ahead. Pots of bright pink and white impatiens lined either side of the four wooden steps. Blue, green, and white print sofa pillows accented the bright green cushions that padded white wicker settees and chairs. And a rectangular teak table and six chairs with matching cushions filled the side verandah, with ceiling fans twirling overhead.

“Nice,” Marco said, taking it in.

“Wait till you see the inside. Light wood floors, white cotton cushions on rattan furniture, with accents of bright blue and sea green…it’s just what a beach house should look like.”

He put his arm around my shoulders as we walked toward the verandah. “Are you sorry you didn’t get to share in all this?”

“Not for a second. I’m the luckiest woman on earth for having met you. In fact, the next time I see Pryce’s parents, I’m going to thank them for doing me a favor.”

“There’s no need to carry it that far, Sunshine.”

Then why was there a pleased grin tugging at one corner of his mouth?

“Abs! Marco!”

I glanced up and saw Jillian waving from a balcony. She turned to motion to someone behind her; then moments later Claymore stepped up to the white railing.

“What are you doing here?” Jillian called down.

“Marco,” I whispered, “please do your best to keep me from choking her today.”

“Don’t I always?”

“Point taken.” I shaded my eyes to look up at her, wishing I hadn’t left my sunglasses in the car. “Pryce asked us to come.”

“Oh! I thought maybe you and Marco were just out for a ride—” Jillian paused, then clamped her hand over her mouth and fled inside.

Claymore watched her go, then said to us, “She ate something at breakfast that didn’t agree with her. Why don’t I meet you at the front door?”

“Is Clay covering for Jillian or is it possible she hasn’t told him about the baby?” Marco asked, as we climbed the steps to the front door.

“According to Jillian, no one else knows. And just a word of caution. Don’t call Claymore
Clay
in front of anyone but me. The Osbornes dislike nicknames.”

“Any other rules I should know about?”

“Probably, but I can’t think of them at the moment.”

Marco took a long look at me. “Nervous?”

“Nah.”

“Then why are you rubbing your arms?”

I shivered. “It’s chilly here, don’t you think?”

“It’s eight-four degrees, Abby.”

Okay, then it was chilly inside my stomach. Still.
Chilly!

The door opened and Pryce’s younger brother greeted me with a hug and Marco with a handshake. “Thank you both for coming. This is quite an awkward situation for us. We’re simply at a loss as to what to do.”

Like Pryce’s, Claymore Osborne’s light brown hair was always perfectly coiffed, his clothing neatly ironed—including swim trunks, from what I remembered—his
fingernails manicured, his shoes impeccably shined, and his leather sandals conditioned. He was thin, nervous, and fussy, but had the genial disposition and generous heart that Pryce lacked.