Kate Collins - Sleeping with Anemone

“The first step is to take detailed photos of the brooch and e-mail them to Mr. Oke so he can verify its authenticity. I wouldn’t be surprised if the FBI showed up asking to see it, either.”

“My mom still has the brooch. We’ll have to stop by there after work.”

Marco wiped his hands. “Okay, let’s do this. I need to go down to the bar and finish some bookkeeping and cut checks for the crew. After that, I’ll run out to Tom’s Green Thumb and see what else Robin can tell me-like how Charlotte might have gotten anemone petals stuck in her shoe. Then I’ll head over to my apartment to wait for my mom. In the meantime, you call your mom and let her know we’ll be by after five o’clock.”

“That’s my part? Make a phone call?”

“Your part is to stay here where it’s safe.” Marco glanced around to see if the other customers were watching, then leaned down to give me a lingering kiss. “Tonight we’ll go out for a nice meal at Adagio’s and finally have that discussion. How does that sound?”

Better than dining at the country club with the wedding hunters. “It sounds perfect, except for one thing. Your mother will be here. Are you going to leave her at your apartment alone on her first night in town?”

“Oh. Right. Well, we’ll just have to find time to be alone together after dinner.”

“What about your PI case?”

Marco thought about it for a moment, then shrugged. “We’ll make it work somehow.”

Unless Marco was a magician, I didn’t see how.

S itting on a bench on the courthouse lawn, the driver pressed the button on his earpiece to phone his boss. “The boyfriend is on the move. He’s entering the Down the Hatch bar. I can see him walking toward the rear, up a hallway, into a room… and now he shut the door.”

“And what is happening inside the flower shop?”

The driver refocused his small, high-powered binoculars. “Looks like a full house in the coffee shop, a handful of customers in the flower shop.”

“Good. Keep watching the boyfriend and be ready to act. Do whatever it takes to keep him from her. We must make our move today. The risk of discovery is too great to delay any longer.”

“Forgive me for saying so, boss, but how is that gonna happen? You took all the brooches she had, and none of them were the genuine article. You’ve searched the obvious places. She’s gotta have it stashed somewhere safe.”

“I don’t think so. Someone has been making copies for her, and since the original can’t be located, my guess is that it’s being used as the model. Thus, it is a matter of learning the location of the copier.”

“How are you gonna make that happen?”

“My plan is already in action.”

My frustration level rose another notch as I watched Marco head out of the parlor. There had to be something I could do besides make one phone call. Musing, I packed up the leftover pizza and stowed it in the refrigerator, then stopped to check on Tara’s progress.

“How’s it going?”

She sighed and tossed the magazine onto her discard pile. “It’d be going a lot better if you weren’t so picky. Can I take the rest home with me and look later? I’m bored.”

“No.” I picked up the stack and stuck them in my desk drawer. “That’s how rumors get started.”

“Fine. So when do I get my reward?”

“Tomorrow.” I’d have to come up with something quick.

Tara gave me an obligatory hug, took a fresh daisy from the cooler for her hair, and left.

I saw a few orders on the spindle, but knew I could whip them out in no time, so I sat down at the desk to call my mom while she was on her lunch break at school. To reach her, I had to go through the school’s secretary, Midge, and have her paged.

Although I told Midge it wasn’t an emergency, Mom still answered with a breathless, “Abigail, did something happen? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, Mom. I just need to let you know I’ll be stopping by the house later. I have to pick up the anthurium brooch.”

“Today? But I haven’t finished with it yet.”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but it’s possible the brooch might be a valuable piece of jewelry stolen from a Hawaiian museum.”

“And I’m making copies of it?” she whispered into the phone. “Am I going to get into trouble?”

Her copies weren’t that good. “No, Mom. You won’t get into trouble. But I do need to find out if it is the stolen brooch. So will you have it out for me, say, shortly after five o’clock?”

“I might not be home, so I’ll tell your dad where it is so he can have it waiting. I’m meeting with my dissension team after school.”

“Your what?”

“Dissension team. You know, dissenters. Protesters. I told the other teachers about Uniworld’s plans to open a dairy farm and use bovine hormones on the cows, and all of them volunteered to help. Isn’t that exciting?”

“Help you do what exactly?”

“You’ll see. I’ve got to phone your father before the bell rings. Keep me posted on the brooch, honey. And try to make it to dinner tonight. Bye.”

Mom had a dissension team? At least there was safety in numbers.

Lottie came through the curtain and headed toward the kitchen. “Joe’s here for a UPS delivery. I’ll let him in.”

“Wait. I’ll do that, Lottie. I want to talk him.”

I hurried through the kitchen to the back door and threw my shoulder against it to push it open. Joe, a lanky guy with bushy brown hair, came striding up to the door carrying a huge box.

“Got some flowers for you.” He put the box on the landing, then handed me a pen and a clipboard. “Sign here, if you would.”

“I’ve got a question,” I said, scribbling my name on the paper. “Is it possible you delivered a package to Tom’s Green Thumb on January twenty-eighth that should have come here?”

Joe’s cheeks reddened. “Someone had to sign for it, right? Wouldn’t they have noticed if someone else’s name was on the packing slip?”

“You’d think so.” Except that I’d just signed for an order of flowers without checking first. Obviously we needed to pay attention when we accepted deliveries. “Have there been any reports in the last month of anyone posing as a UPS driver?”

“No,” he said with a wary glance. “Why?”

I wasn’t about to go into the whole long story. “I thought I’d heard something about it.”

Joe hesitated, then said, “Look, you didn’t hear this from me, but someone at Tom’s Green Thumb did complain about a missing order round about that same date. That’s not my route, but guys talk, you know? So the driver tells them he doesn’t know anything about a missing order and maybe they should check to see if another flower shop got it. That didn’t make them very happy. So the driver got canned. You see why I like to keep my mouth shut?”

“I sure do. I don’t suppose the driver mentioned Bloomers Flower Shop to the person at Tom’s, did he?”

“That, I couldn’t tell you. Well, have a nice day.”

I pulled the heavy back door shut, thinking about what Marco had suggested-that Mr. Mikala, the supplier, might be involved in the theft. Yet when I last spoke with the man, he sounded as baffled about the brooch being in the shipment as I was. Had he lied to me?

I decided to pick up the phone and ask him.

I explained to Mr. Mikala what the antiques dealer had said about the real brooch, then asked again if he knew how the piece I’d found got into the box. He apologized profusely for my trouble and said he’d read about the theft in the papers. He also said he might have an idea how the brooch could have ended up in that shipment.