Allison Brennan - The Prey

Michael looked from Annette to the blonde emerging from the den, arms crossed, holding a Glock casually in one hand, pointed down. Her body rippled with tension, belying her casual posture. While too skinny, he noted well-toned muscles under the short sleeves of her shirt. Pale, but still a beautiful woman. Her face was as blank as when she’d pointed that damn gun at him. But her stormy eyes stopped him from walking out the door. He finally understood the phrase “eyes are windows to the soul.” Rowan Smith’s eyes told him she was scared but strong, troubled but defiant. A captivating combination.

“I’ll give you ten minutes to explain,” Michael said through clenched teeth.

It took him days to find the perfect flower shop. It would have been so much easier had she named it.

His gloved hands opened the book to the page he’d marked.

The front of the simple flower shop reminded him of the neighborhood where he’d grown up. A large picture window framed by a green-and-white awning, metal carts spilling over with an array of colorful carnations, red roses the color of fresh spilled blood, ferns newly misted, dripping dew like tears.

Perfect, down to the red roses and misted ferns.

He opened the glass door, a bell ringing overhead. The fragrant aroma of flowers, soil, and plants greeted him, along with a cheerful, “Hello, may I help you?”

He breathed in the earthy scent, looking at a display of bright spring arrangements just inside the door while he waited for two chatty women at the counter to finish their order and leave.

One arrangement in particular caught his attention: a brilliantly designed triangular piece with majestic pink and purple larkspurs framed by bright yellow daffodils, white and pink mums, and purple lilies, quivering in the air-conditioned store.

It would have been perfect for her on any other occasion, but not for a funeral. Too bad.

He turned to another worn page in the book. Though he had the passage memorized, he liked to look at the words. They gave him an almost giddy sense of pleasure, as if he were leaning over her shoulder as she typed them into her computer.

Casa Blanca lilies, carnations, roses, moluccella, snapdragons and gypsophila, all in pure white, framed the funeral wreath, soft trailing plumosus lending a green backdrop, making the white even brighter. The fragrant flowers, so alive, should never have hung next to the closed casket, a casket that held the dead, dismembered body of a life taken too soon.

“May I help you?”

He turned, smiling at the young clerk who leaned forward to wait on him. Under thirty and blonde. Thankfully, there was no other description of her in the book. Even though there were hundreds of florist shops in Los Angeles, it might have been difficult to get both the setting and the victim just right had there been more detail. It had taken him six months to track down a waitress named Doreen Rodriguez in Denver.

And he had a flight to Portland in less than two hours.

“Yes, I’d like to purchase a funeral wreath.” He watched as the other customers left the store, chatting, ignorant. They had no idea they’d brushed shoulders with a god. Energized by his duplicity, he smiled at the pretty clerk.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” the pretty young woman said. Her name badge read Christine.

Doreen hadn’t been much of a loss. In fact, she hadn’t put up much of a fight, but he wasn’t about to tell his next victim that small tidbit.

Closing the book, he described the flowers he wanted in the wreath. Christine attempted to make suggestions, showing him other exquisite arrangements, flowing greenery, and explaining that wreaths had become passé. He politely demurred. “This is what she would want,” he explained.

“I understand.” The florist smiled warmly, with just the right hint of sympathy in her pretty blue eyes.

A shame he would have to kill her.

“Have you been threatened?”

They sat at the dining room table, Annette providing most of the details, but Michael still had many unanswered questions. He glanced at Rowan, but couldn’t get a fix on her. She’d put on small wire-rim glasses with a gray coating so he couldn’t see her eyes. They weren’t sunglasses, but had the same shielding effect. She sat at the far end of the table, looking out the window.

“Not directly,” Rowan said in time. Summarizing what the police had told her yesterday, she was careful to leave out the detail about her book being left at the scene. “I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself,” she said, glancing at him. “What exactly would you do to protect me?” Her condescending tone irritated him.

Of course, she had been a Fed. All Feds thought they knew best, Michael thought with derision. Still, she needed protection. Some lunatic had used her book as a blueprint for murder. The killer might have his own agenda, or he might be coming for her. Increasing security around this place was a good start.

It didn’t hurt that a high-profile case could really help his business take off, either.

“I was a cop for nearly fifteen years and have been in private security for two. I’m more than capable of watching your back,” he told her. It was quite a nice back to watch, he thought. The whole package was attractive.

“You didn’t answer my question,” Rowan said, her posture rigid. “What can you do for me that I can’t do for myself?”

Was she being deliberately obtuse? She had to know what a bodyguard was for. “You’ve worked for the FBI. You know damn well what I’d be doing. Answering your door. Escorting you when you leave the house. Locking down at night and if the guy shows, getting you to a safe place. What more do you want to know?”

Rowan arched an eyebrow and seemed about to say something when the doorbell rang. She stood, and Michael glared at her.

“I would imagine answering the door falls under my job description,” he said.

She nodded, taking the Glock out of the shoulder holster she wore over her white T-shirt.

Annette looked almost excited, and Tess took out her own little snub-nosed.38.

Rowan couldn’t help but smile at Tess Flynn’s firearm. “Cute gun,” she said before she could stop herself from being bitchy.

Michael disappeared down the hall to the foyer. He’d been a cop for fifteen years, probably joined the academy right out of high school. He had that beat-cop bravado, a slight arrogant swagger, the rigid stance. His body crackled with suppressed energy, but he had laugh lines around his green eyes and his hair was too long to be a regulation cut. He almost had a rebel appearance. She couldn’t help but wonder why he’d left the force so young. He wouldn’t get full retirement benefits, something very important to most people in law enforcement.

That was something she intended to look into.

But he seemed to know what he was doing regarding personal security. It was either him or Roger would send out a pair of agents. Rowan didn’t feel comfortable taking so many resources away from the Bureau. Not before they had any solid information about the killer.

She just didn’t like being under someone else’s thumb. The whole idea of a bodyguard irritated her. She was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, as she had told both Roger and this new guy, Michael Flynn.

She sighed, rubbed her eyes under the small glasses, resigned to the fact that it was either Michael or a former colleague. She didn’t need the lenses for seeing, but she found wearing them was a good way to observe people.

A few moments later, Michael came back into the dining room carrying a huge white and green funeral wreath.

The blood drained from her face. She’d seen the wreath before. In her mind.