Sleeping with Anemone (15 page)

“I knew we’d find a connection!” I said.

“It was a big factor in the decision to bring Raand in,” Reilly said.

Marco frowned in thought. “I’m surprised Raand would hire someone to kidnap Abby who had such an obvious connection to Uniworld.”

“Maybe he wasn’t as smart as he thought,” Lottie said.

“What other item came to light?” I asked Reilly.

“It’s evidence,” he said. “I can’t say anything about it.”

“But it’s my case,” I argued. “Why shouldn’t I be privy to the evidence?”

“Because it relates to the crime committed last night,” Reilly said, “and that’s not your case. It’s Tara’s.”

“Does that mean they’ll share it with my brother and sister-in-law?”

“When the time comes,” he said cryptically.

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“It means forget it,” Dad said. “I know how the prosecutor’s office works.”

“Look,” Reilly said to me, “all I can tell you is that if and when the evidence affects the investigation on your matter, they’ll share it with you.”

What if
if and when
was never? Didn’t I have the right to know who was trying to kidnap me? Gearing up for further argument, I opened my mouth, but the look on Reilly’s face said,
Don’t even think about it.

I glanced at Marco for support, but he gave a quick shake of his head, as though to say,
Don’t press the issue
.

Fine. I knew someone who could clue me in—Deputy Prosecutor Gregory Morgan, aka Nikki’s boyfriend. I glanced at my watch. Morgan would be in his office. Maybe I could slip into the workroom and give him a call to catch him before any hearings dragged him away.

I stuffed the last bite of scone in my mouth and wiped my fingers on my napkin, my mind busily turning over various ways to get Morgan to give up the info. He’d grown more reluctant to share with me of late, fearing the constant information leak would be traced back to him. Morgan wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but he did catch on eventually, so I had to keep my tactics fresh.

“Abigail,” Mom said, snapping me out of my thoughts, “I think you should stay with us until the police have the culprits in custody.”

I nearly choked on a cranberry. Had she really just suggested I live in the same house with her? Had she forgotten my law school days, when we fought over whether a plate had to be rinsed before being placed in the dishwasher? How to wrap the hair dryer cord? How many times a pair of jeans could be worn before they absolutely had to be laundered? And those were just a few of our thousands of points of disagreement.

Before I said something rash, such as,
You’d have to shoot me first
, Dad said, “Maureen, she has a bodyguard.”

“A bodyguard?” Mom glanced at me in surprise. “I didn’t see anyone guarding you.”

Marco raised his hand. “That would be me.”

Mom regarded Marco with some uncertainty; Lottie and Grace looked pleased; and Reilly sipped his coffee, trying to stay above the fray. Dad, however, was watching me. At his wink, I gave him a thumbs-up.

“Our daughter is in good hands, Maureen,” he said.

“We’d better get ready to open,” Lottie announced, standing. “It’s almost nine.”

That ended the discussion. Reilly thanked us for the goodies and left. Mom cautioned Marco to take very good care of me, after which Dad told Marco he had every confidence that he would, and they left. Then Marco departed, too, but not before extracting promises from Grace and Lottie that they wouldn’t leave me alone in the shop.

“And you,” he said to me, tapping the end of my nose with his fingertip, “have to promise not to leave Bloomers without an escort.”

“No problem,” I said. “I’m not in any hurry to make myself a target.”

“Good girl.” He gave me a kiss and left.

I shut the door and glanced around at my lovely little flower shop. It had been more than a week since the break-in, and I doubted whether anyone could tell it had ever happened. Now I just had to make sure it never did again.

Grace was in the parlor preparing for our usual batch of morning customers, and Lottie was taking inventory of the glass-fronted display case against the back wall of the shop, so I went through the purple curtain and settled at my desk to dial the prosecutor’s office. But just as I was about to punch in the courthouse number, the phone rang.

I answered with my usual, “Bloomers Flower Shop. How may I help you?”

An overly chipper male voice said, “Well, good morning there, honey. Is the owner of your business handy?”

I got that a lot. Trying to make myself sound older, I said, “How may I help you?”

“I have a shipment of exotic lilies coming in next month, with the best prices you’ll find anywhere. You won’t want to miss out on this opportunity—”

Another salesman. I hung up on him. I hated cold calls. I dialed the courthouse before anyone else tried to get through on my line. “Mr. Morgan, please,” I said to the secretary. “This is Abby Knight.”

“Abby, how are you?” Morgan asked a few moments later. “I just got a full report on what happened last night. Is your niece doing okay?”

“She’s still traumatized, and I’m a little shook up myself, which is why I’m calling. I’ll feel so much better when they find that other kidnapper and lock him up, along with whoever else was involved. So what do you know about the evidence the cops recovered last night?”

There was a pause, and then he answered in his best imitation of a prosecutor’s voice, “As much as I need to know.”

So he wanted to play it coy. Fine. I loved a challenge.

First rule of coyness: State your question as a known fact. “Then I’m sure you’re not surprised that the evidence ties Nils Raand to the kidnappers.”

“Which evidence are you talking about—the flowers or the note?”

Flowers? Note? They’d collected
two
pieces of incriminating evidence?

“Wait a minute,” Morgan said. “How did you hear about the evidence? Okay. Never mind. I suspect I know, but I don’t want it confirmed. Better for all of us.”

Rule two: Pave the way with flattery. “You’re a wise man, Greg Morgan. I can see why Nikki thinks so highly of you.”

“She does?”

Rule three: Be authoritative. “Would I say so if it weren’t true? Now, about the flowers, are we talking bouquets, baskets, something sent to him by one of the kidnappers . . . ?”

“I thought you knew about the evidence.”

Rule four: Don’t admit ignorance. “Actually, I knew about the
other
evidence—the, um, note to Raand—”

“Don’t you mean
from
Raand?”

“That’s what I meant. The note from Raand.”

Morgan was silent for a moment. “You didn’t know about either one, did you?”

Rule five: Punt. “With what the cops recovered from the scene, plus the threats against me, and the break-in at my shop, the prosecution has to be building a case against Raand, right?”

“You can stop fishing, Abby. You know I can’t discuss the case with you.”

Rule six: Make it easy for him. “I’m not asking for a discussion, Greg, just a yes or no.”

“Same thing.”

“Not.”

“Yes.”

Wait. He’d lost me. “Yes, it’s the same thing, or yes, they have a case?”

He sighed sharply, clearly growing exasperated with me. “Yes.”

“To both?”

“Yes!”

Finally! Rule seven: Leave him with a glow. “Okay, Greg, I’ll stop pestering you. I can tell you’ve got way more important things to do than talk to me, but thanks for giving me a few moments. Nikki’s a lucky girl to be . . .” What? Dating Morgan?

I decided to leave it at that.

I hung up the phone just as Lottie brought in a message for me. As she handed me the slip of paper, I said, “I just confirmed with Greg Morgan that the other item of evidence Reilly told us about this morning is actually two items, and they do tie Raand to the kidnappers. The prosecution is building a case against him even as we speak.”

“That’s good news.”

“Yes, it is. I’m positive Raand was behind all the threats I received, so why wouldn’t he be behind the kidnappings?”

“Sweetie, the fact that you’re asking me makes me think you’re having a few doubts.”

I sighed. “I hate to admit it, but you’re right. Marco brought up something earlier that I keep pondering, and that’s why Raand would hire someone who’d worked for him.”

“That’s not so hard to believe. She wasn’t working for him when she died.”

“Okay, but even so, I’ve seen Nils Raand in operation, and both times he struck me as a calculating, meticulous, no-nonsense type. So why would he hire two obviously inexperienced people to do any type of work for him, especially kidnappings?”

“Then how do you explain the evidence?”

“I can’t—unless it’s purely circumstantial. That’s why I want to find out more about it. Unfortunately, I have a feeling Morgan isn’t going to be of any more help there.”

“But, sweetie, if it wasn’t Raand behind the kidnappings, who would it be?”

“Don’t I wish I had an answer to that. I’d prefer to think the kidnappers cooked up the scheme themselves, since one of them is out of the picture now, and the other soon will be. The only problem is, what would they kidnap me for? My mortgage? Flowers?”

I was still holding Lottie’s message, so I stopped to read it. “Another sales call? How many does that make this week? Seven?”

“You weren’t around last winter, but they usually start flocking in around this time of the year for the all-important pre-Easter sales. This fella had some awfully good prices, though, so I told him you’d be in this afternoon, if he wanted to call back. If you don’t want to talk to him, I’ll just have him drop off his catalog.”

I pinned her message to the bulletin board. There weren’t enough hours in my day to accomplish all I needed to do. The phone rang, and I answered with my standard greeting.

“Hey, Buttercup,” Marco said. “Turn on the news.”

I turned to whisper to Lottie, “Would you turn on the radio?” While she hurried to the back counter to switch on her radio/CD player, I said to Marco, “What’s up?”

“The cops found Dwayne Hudge hiding in his uncle’s basement in South Bend. He was just booked into the county jail. It’s on now. I’ll wait.”

Lottie and I listened to the news reporter tell us the exact same thing Marco just had. “Well, that’s a relief,” I said. “Maybe now we’ll find out if Raand was behind the kidnappings.”

“I’m sure he was smart enough to lawyer up. I’ll let you know if I hear anything more. Everything cool there?”

“Everything’s fine. Well, except that I’ve been thinking about the kidnapping attempts.”

“Go on.”

“You saw how Raand behaved at that meeting. He was so icy cold, I wondered if he had a pulse. His warehouse operation was efficient, as was his secretary, and his office was neat to the point of being sterile. Which is why it seems unlikely that Raand would hire two bumbling people to do anything for him.”

“That thought occurred to me, too.”

“So we’re on the same page with this.”

“You bet. Raand’s shrewd. He wouldn’t have hired them himself. He probably had a go-between to put a layer of protection between him and the kidnappers. All the more reason not to take any chances until we know for sure who was at the helm.”

“True.”

“Good. I’ll be down at noon with sandwiches. Should I bring some for Lottie and Grace?”

I had him hold while I checked; then I said, “Lottie is going out for lunch, and Grace is on a tuna salad diet. Would you make mine a turkey sandwich, please?” I gave him a phone kiss and hung up.

Lottie was just about to turn off the radio when we heard, “In other news, Assistant City Attorney Peter Chinn was hospitalized early this morning after apparently suffering a concussion from a fall on ice. No word at this moment as to his condition.”

“Peter must be hurt pretty bad to be hospitalized,” Lottie said, switching the radio off. “He has diabetes, you know. That certainly can’t have helped his condition any.”

“How do you know these things?” I asked in amazement.

“You’d be shocked at what I pick up from other parents at my boys’ school functions. It’s a real gossip fest. Did you know Peter is from Portland, Oregon? And that he’s single?”

Didn’t know. Didn’t care. Peter wasn’t on my list of favorite people. “Maybe I should take a bouquet of flowers to him at the hospital as a gesture of goodwill,” I said, “and as a reminder that we’re still waiting for that permit.”

“Sweetie, I like the way you think.”

I made a mental note to work on that later. For now, however, I had to concentrate on business. So while Grace worked in the coffee-and-tea parlor and Lottie took care of customers in the shop, I pulled the top order from the spindle and began to ready my supplies, humming happily as I worked.

A floral arrangement for the Walshivers’ dinner party. Cool. Gloria Walshiver, one of our loyal customers, wanted the arrangement made with both traditional and nontraditional elements, so I opened one of the big walk-in coolers and surveyed my stock. For the traditional elements, I pulled pale pink peony stems, then added red saucer magnolias, white spider mums, and aspidistra leaves. Nontraditional elements? Glossy red anthuriums fit the bill. Also, I’d been dying to use herbs in an arrangement, especially dill, which was so feathery and fragrant. What else was I itching to use?

Anemones. That was it. Anemones just felt romantic to me, perfect for Valentine’s Day. I searched among the bucket of flowers only to discover we had run out. I wrote a note to Lottie asking her to put them on our next flower order, then looked for a substitute.

Twenty minutes later, I had a wonderfully aromatic dinner table display for the Walshivers’ party. I wrapped the arrangement, tagged it, put it in the second cooler, and started on the next order. By the time Marco came down at noon, I had finished seven more orders and was almost done with the bouquet for Peter.