Slay it with Flowers (3 page)

I leaned across the table to whisper, “If Pryce is carrying a torch it’s so he can tie me to a stake and set fire to my feet. His parents will provide the kindling.” They were still trying to live down the ignominy of my having been booted out of law school while engaged to their son.

“Silly! All you’d have to do is crook your little finger and Pryce would take you back just like that.” She snapped her fingers and all three women gave a start. “Besides, you love to help people. So help
me.
” She grasped my hand. “Pu-
leez,
Abby. I’m desperate!”

“Fine. I’ll talk to Pryce.” Anything to get her off that topic so the ladies next to us could resume their own conversation. There was nothing like a juicy bit of gossip to start tongues wagging around this town. “Can we discuss your flowers now?”

Jillian held up a hand to catch Grace’s eye. “More coffee, please,” she mouthed.

“Picture this,” I said. “You’re floating down an aisle strewn with rose petals. In your arms—”

“Am I beautiful?”

“In your arms,” I continued, giving her a scowl, “are long, luscious, creamy peach callas, their lovely dark green leaves splashed with flecks of white, all tied together with a luxurious white satin bow.”

“Calla lilies?”

“Callas. Not lilies. Callas.”

“Katharine Hepburn called them Calla lilies.”

“Katharine Hepburn was not a florist. Callas are from the
Zantedeschia
family, whereas lilies—” Noticing that Jillian’s attention was fixed on a point somewhere beyond my left shoulder, I turned to look.

Coming up the sidewalk toward my shop was Marco Salvare, moving with a sexy swagger most women—and I include myself in that group—found terribly exciting.

“Who is
that
?” Jillian said in awe, and I could almost see the drool forming on her lower lip. The three women next to us craned their necks for a look, too.

“That’s the new owner of the Down the Hatch.”

Five of us watched him pull open the door. The bell jingled to announce his arrival, and suddenly tiny bottles sprang from the purses behind us. Hair spray, perfume, and breath freshener quickly filled the air. I waved away the cloud, coughing, as Marco strode into the parlor, grabbed a chair from another table, pulled it up beside me, and straddled it.

“Hey, sunshine. How’s it going?” The mist settled and Jillian came into view. He stuck out his hand. “Hi. I’m Marco.”

She wrapped her long, graceful fingers around his. “I’m Jillian Knight.
Very
pleased to meet you, Marco.”

“Would you care for coffee?” Grace asked coolly, placing a cup and saucer in front of him. Grace was the only woman I knew who seemed impervious to Marco’s charisma. He was impervious to her imperviousness, so it didn’t really matter.

“No. Thanks anyway.” Marco looked from Jillian to me. “You’re not sisters, so you must be cousins.”

“How did you know we were related?” Jillian asked, prompting Marco to shoot me a look that said,
“Is she clueless?”

“The last name was a dead giveaway, Jill,” I said.

She nodded sagely. “That’s true.”

Our surname was the
only
thing we shared, a fact that was both a blessing and a curse. On the curse side, Jillian was a head taller, had a well-proportioned body rather than a top-heavy one, and had long, shimmery, copper-colored hair, as opposed to my shorter, fiery red, blunt-edged bob. On the blessing side, I was smart—regardless of what my law professors thought.

“Jillian is getting married July fourth,” I said, just in case Marco had any ideas about dating her. “I’m doing her flowers.”

He eased his hand from Jillian’s hot little paw. “Congratulations.”

Jillian lifted one shoulder in an effortless shrug. “
Maybe
I’m getting married.
If
Abby helps me.” She rose and put the strap of her Ferragamo purse over her shoulder. “I have to run. Let me know what Pryce says.” Her voice dropped to a sexy purr. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Marco.”

As soon as Jillian had gone, Marco turned a highly skeptical brown-eyed gaze on me and topped it off by raising one dark eyebrow. “If you help her?”

“She wants me to talk to my former fiancé to convince him to convince the groom to—well, it’s a long, complicated story that will only bore you. The bottom line is that if I want to salvage the vanload of callas I ordered for this wedding, I have to make sure there
is
a wedding.” I took my cup over to the coffee counter for a refill, where Grace was also giving me that doubtful look. “I’m not meddling,” I assured them both.

“That’s good,” Marco said when I returned to the table, “because less than forty-eight hours ago you swore off meddling.”

“Did you come to harass me, or did you have some other goal in mind?”

“Harass you.” He picked up my coffee and sniffed it, obviously trying to decide if I had poisoned it with artificial sweetener. “Did you put that dead bolt on your apartment door?”

“Oh, right. I meant to do that.”

Wrong answer. Counting on his fingers, Marco began to list why I should have a dead bolt, most of which came from the unfortunate events of the past week. I had to tune him out, though, when my ears picked up the threads of a much more interesting conversation the three ladies were having behind me.

“If it’s a massage parlor, why don’t they advertise? And why do they cover their windows with butcher paper?”

“I heard that a woman tried to get in and was told it was for men only.”

“Well, look at their sign, for goodness sake. EMPEROR’S SPA. What does that tell you?”

“It’s open twenty-four hours, seven days a week. Would a legitimate business do that?”

I grabbed Marco’s wrist. “Did you hear that?”

“Hear what? I don’t know what I’m supposed to be listening for.”

I leaned closer to whisper, “What the ladies behind me are talking about. Remember those five Oriental women in their skintight Mandarin dresses who came into your bar Saturday night? Remember we heard that they work at the Emperor’s Spa, and give a whole lot more than massages? Remember me suggesting that we investigate?
That’s
what they’re talking about.”

“Remember your promise not to meddle?”

I should never make promises for something I’m inherently unable to do. “Come on, Marco. New Chapel is a very conservative, very clean college town. We don’t want prostitution going on here. As concerned citizens, it would behoove us to expose it.”

“As a former law school student, it would behoove you not to jump to a conclusion without having all the facts.”

“But it all adds up. They don’t advertise. Female customers aren’t allowed in. The windows are covered with paper. . . . I know there’s something fishy going on. I have a sixth sense about these things.”

One corner of Marco’s mouth quirked, like he had a secret.

“You found out something about that spa, didn’t you?” I said.

“I figured you’d try to snoop, so I did a preemptive investigation.”

My eyes got very wide, then narrowed suspiciously. “You went in that place?”

“Yes, Miss Marple, I did, and I got a very thorough
back
massage.”

“By one of the Oriental women?” I fairly seethed.

“By a large European woman with hairy arms and a mustache. I didn’t see any women from the Far East.”

“That’s because they smelled cop.”

He gave me a look that said,
Yeah, right.
Marco had left the force because he didn’t fit the police mold. It had been a mutually acceptable decision. “I think you should know,” he said loud enough for the eavesdroppers to hear, “a new restaurant called the China Cabinet had their grand opening this past weekend. The waitresses wore Chinese costumes for it. I’m guessing they were the ones who came into the bar Saturday night.”

At that, the three ladies behind us gathered their purses and shopping bags and left, obviously in a rush to broadcast the new bit of gossip. I watched them through the bay window as they met briefly on the sidewalk outside, then headed off in three separate directions like a trio of female Paul Reveres.
The China Cabinet has opened! The China Cabinet has opened!

“Let’s see if I have this right,” I said, turning my attention back to Marco. “Those five women at your bar Saturday night are waitresses, not masseuses, and the Emperor’s Spa is a legitimate business?”

Marco sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, ready to declare a victory. “That’s what I’m saying.”

“Then what do you call
that
?”

He followed my pointing index finger to a police van that had pulled up across the street, where, at that moment, two cops were dislodging five hissing, spitting, handcuffed Asian women wearing ankle-length, formfitting, brightly hued Mandarin dresses and four-inch spike heels.

Must have been tough serving food in that getup.

I
n the two minutes it took us to exit the shop and cross the street, a crowd had formed on the courthouse lawn, gesturing, whispering, and making rude comments as the five women were herded to the rear of the building. Marco told me to stay put and went to find someone he knew to ask what was going on. I glanced around, spotted Deputy Prosecutor Greg Morgan near the front entrance, and made a beeline for him. Morgan prided himself on having a finger on the throbbing pulse of New Chapel.

I’d known Morgan since high school, when we’d both had a crush on the same person—him. One thing he was not known for was his modesty. He was a handsome man, though a little lacking in intelligence. He’d made it through law school by the skin of his capped teeth and was now the courthouse staff’s golden boy, always radiating an angelic charm that was hard to resist.

Even the defendants liked Morgan. And Lottie absolutely adored him. She had made it her goal to see us hitched, even though I’d told her that being hitched was for donkeys and wagons, and if I were to marry Morgan I’d be the ass on that team.

Sadly, now that I no longer had a crush on him, he had suddenly discovered me, a little fact I’d used shamelessly to my advantage. Like now, for instance. “Hey, Morgan!” I called.

He looked around, saw me, and smiled, and I could almost hear a chorus of angels singing a capella from the clouds above him. “Abby! Wow. I heard about what happened to you last Saturday night. You look pretty good for someone who was drubbed two days ago.”

“I’m resilient.” I nodded my head toward the circus act. “What’s that about?”

He looked over at the five women. “They’re being brought in for an arraignment.”

“What are the charges?”

“Intimidation and resisting arrest.”

“I
knew
they weren’t waitresses. And that Emperor’s Spa isn’t a massage parlor, is it?”

Morgan’s wide, smooth forehead crinkled in bafflement. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about the so-called massage parlor where those women work.”

“Massage parlor?”

“Weren’t they arrested at the Emperor’s Spa?”

“No, at that new restaurant, the China Cabinet. The girls had a beef with the owner and decided to stage a protest in costume to draw attention to themselves. There was an altercation and someone called the police.”

“Those women
are
waitresses?”

“I haven’t seen the report yet, but supposedly they attend New Chapel U.”

Had my sixth sense failed me? “You aren’t aware of any gossip about the Emperor’s Spa?”

“Never heard of the place.”

So much for Morgan’s pulse on the town. He glanced at his watch, grimaced, and started walking backward. “I’m late for court. Why don’t you check your calendar and see when you’re free for lunch?”

“Will do.” Only because I could pump him for information. I gave him a little wave and swung around to find Marco leaning against a tree not ten feet away, watching me with that knowing male gaze that said,
Aren’t you ashamed of yourself for your coy, feminine manipulations?
Silly man. Of course I wasn’t.

He pushed away from the trunk and joined me as I headed back to Bloomers. “New boyfriend?”

“Old crush. Greg Morgan, deputy prosecutor.”

“Aha! Your secret source. Did he tell you about the women?”

“Yes.” I tried to sound unconcerned, hoping he wouldn’t rub it in.

“Satisfied now?”

I shrugged a shoulder. What a absurd question. I was never satisfied until I had all the facts. We stopped at the street and waited for two cars to pass. “See you later,” I called and dashed across.

“Hey! Remember your promise!”

Rats. My promise. Talk about a short memory.

The bell jingled as I walked into Bloomers. Grace was at the front counter waiting on a customer who was buying one of my latest wreath creations. I greeted her with a cheery hello—customers always made me cheery—and continued into the workroom where Lottie was arranging yellow and orange Gerbera daisies in a glass vase filled with yellow marble halves.