Abby Knight is the proud owner of her hometown flower shop, but a new low-cost competitor is killing her profits-and a black SUV just rammed her vintage Corvette in a hit-and-run. She's determined to track down the driver, but when the trail turns deadly, the next flower arrangement might be for her own funeral.
Chapter One
Most people hate Mondays. Not me. I see them as portals to untold prospects, gateways to golden opportunities, pristine canvases awaiting bold splashes of color. And this particular Monday seemed to epitomize all that was good about them. Robins warbled merrily in the maples along Franklin Street, a warm June sun glinted off the hood of my vintage 1960 yellow Corvette convertible, and I had nabbed a prime parking space right across the street from my shop.
Slinging my bag over one shoulder, I climbed out of the car, pulled off my tortoiseshell sunglasses, and regarded the wooden sign mounted above the door of the old redbrick building.
BLOOMERS
Every time I saw it, a thrill of pride raced through me. Me, Abby Knight, an entrepreneur! Penniless, perhaps, yet soundly devoted to my new profession. Who would have guessed when I flunked out of law school a year ago that I’d be standing here today in front of my own flower shop? Certainly not my parents, who were still shell-shocked.
I locked the car door and gave the Vette an affectionate pat before pocketing the keys. This car was my baby. I loved it with a passion I normally reserved for fine dark chocolate or a bathing suit that actually fit. It was a four-on-the-floor with a black ragtop roof, black leather seats that were cracked from age and wear, and a slightly scratched chrome-and-black dashboard. Originally, beneath a thick coat of grime and bird droppings, the body color had been white. Now, with its two-week-old paint job, the car was a bright, cheery banana yellow, my favorite color.
Hovering like a proud mother, I flicked a leaf off the hood and polished away a stray fingerprint with the hem of my white blouse. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a man race from the alley between two buildings and hop into a black monster of an SUV parked in front of the Vette. I thought nothing of it until he gunned the motor. Then I looked up in surprise as he threw the vehicle into Reverse and backed into my car’s front end. Wham!
I stood in the street with mouth agape as visions of the precious dollars I had just spent on the car winged fiendishly past. The SUV took off with a squeal of tires.
“Sixty-four apple David three—damn it!” He was too fast. I didn’t have a chance to catch the whole license plate number.
“You’re leaving the scene of an accident!” I shouted, shaking my fist at him as he sped away. “Come back here, coward!” He had his windows down; I knew he heard me.
“Go get ’im, honey,” someone called from a city van. A tow truck driver honked his horn and gave me a thumbs-up.
I found a pen and scribbled the numbers on the back of my hand, then crouched in front of my car to inspect the damage. My stomach lurched at the horrible sight: shattered double headlights, dented chrome grill and hood. I stood up and glared in the direction he had gone. There was no way I would let an irresponsible moron get away with a hit-and-run on my car. No way. I hadn’t grown up as the daughter of a cop for nothing, not to mention that if my insurance payments went up, I’d go broke.
As I dug in my purse for my cell phone, one of the warbling robins flew over and deposited a big white blob of bird poop on the trunk. With a shudder, I turned my back on the scene of the crime and called the police dispatcher, who promised to send someone out as soon as possible. My assistant, Lottie Dombowski, was watching me through Bloomers’s window, a look of horror on her face. I signaled back to let her know I had everything under control.
This was not the colorful start I’d had in mind earlier that morning.
Lottie had to unlock the door for me since I was too rattled to find my keys and the shop didn’t open for another hour. She was dressed in her usual summer getup—bright pink loafers, white denims that fit her size-fourteen body a little too snugly, a pink blouse that gaped where it stretched across her ample bosom, and a pink satin bow snuggled into the brassy curls above her left ear Shirley Temple style. Not exactly a trendy hairdo for the mother of seventeen-year-old quadruplets, but try to tell her that and she would hand you a hair dryer and tell you to knock yourself out. After raising those four boys, nothing fazed Lottie.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” she asked, looking me over from my shoulder-length bob to my open-toed black mules. “I saw that pond scum ram you.”
“I’m fine, just angry is all.”
“He was in some hurry, wasn’t he? Come on back. I’m making breakfast.”
Cooking was just one of Lottie’s abilities. Besides being a true genius at floral design, she was also the one who put me on to my Corvette. And she knew just about everyone on the New Chapel town square—a boon to any business person, especially a novice like me.
I had met Lottie during the period of my fateful engagement to Pryce Osborne II, when Lottie owned Bloomers and I made deliveries for her—in between clerking for a lawyer. Holding two jobs was the only way I could afford law school. My grandfather’s trust had covered my undergraduate expenses at Indiana University, a state college, but had not been enough to pay for three years of law school, even a local one that allowed me to live at home.
But the trust had been enough for a minimal down payment on a quaint flower shop in a small Midwestern college town.
The inhabitants of New Chapel, Indiana, were typical in that regard, tolerating the students that flocked to the cheap eateries, coffeehouses, and dollar stores during the school year, and bemoaning their absence during the summer months. The town square had the regulation limestone courthouse set amid a huge expanse of lawn, with a tall spire and huge clock face that proclaimed it ten minutes after four regardless of the real time, along with the standard compliment of family-owned restaurants, shops, and businesses flanking the courthouse square on all sides.
The town was unique only in its location—thirty minutes by car from the famed Indiana Dunes lakeshore on the southern tip of Lake Michigan, and an hour by train from Chicago, barring unforeseen weather conditions, such as, say, clouds. New Chapel was close enough to take advantage of the big-city highlights yet far enough away to escape the madness.
The population was eclectic—ranging from blue-collar workers employed by a nearby steel mill, to farmers in the outlying county, to businesspeople who commuted to the Loop, to the professors and students at New Chapel University. The neighborhoods varied from sprawling areas of tract housing on former swampland, to square, flat blocks of identical ranch homes or bungalows on what had been grazing pastures, to fancy gated communities set in hilly, wooded areas, to dilapidated farm-houses that dotted the miles of rural roads connecting New Chapel to neighboring towns.
I had always loved the charm of Bloomers—with its two multipaned bay windows displaying a colorful array of flowers and its old-fashioned yellow-framed door with beveled glass center—but I never thought I would one day own it. After my disastrous year at law school and my breakup with Pryce, I had considered moving to Chicago to find work, but the thought of all that noise and traffic congestion made me queasy. Actually, I’m slightly claustrophobic.
My parents had urged me to stay in town. My mother was adamant about it being the best place to raise a family—like that was going to happen anytime soon—but I hadn’t seen much in the way of career opportunities for someone with a creative bent and little money.
Then in stepped Lottie with an offer I couldn’t refuse. She’d had a modestly successful floral business going, but her husband’s enormous medical bills had wiped out her cash reserves. Since she was desperate to pay off her debts, and I was equally desperate to find something I could do well, I took a long hard look at my abilities and came to the conclusion that the only things I’d ever had any luck with were plants, so why not make a living from them?
“You can’t be serious,” my mother had said after I’d announced my intentions. “Why not resume your law studies? Take the dean a plate of brownies. He’ll let you back in.”
“Mother, endowing the dean with an entire brownie company would not make that happen. Besides, I don’t want to be a lawyer.”
“You can’t keep changing your mind, Abigail, not at your age. Not if you want to make me a grandmother. How many times did you switch majors in college? Three, four?”
“Two. And it put me only a year behind.”
“Why didn’t you go for a medical degree? You always wanted to be a dermatologist.”
“You always wanted me to be a dermatologist. I wanted to be a translator at the UN—until I found out I had to learn more than conversational French.”
“But a florist, Abigail? A florist?”
It wasn’t like I was the first person in the family to make a living from plants. My grandmother had raised a big family solely on the produce from her garden, along with a few turkeys here and there. From her I had learned how to cultivate flowers, grow vegetables, and sneak raspberries into my mouth without leaving behind telltale red stains.
But it was while working for Lottie that I actually began to dream about arranging flowers for a living. I’d loved the fragrance of fresh blossoms, the exhilaration of helping Lottie create beautiful bouquets, and the smiles on the faces of the people who received them. So I’d closed my eyes, made the leap, and became the proud owner of a huge mortgage. And Lottie, relieved of her financial burden, was able to do what she loved without the headaches. She swore she would be eternally in my debt, as I was in the bank’s. The difference was that the bank wanted their debt paid back monthly.
The fly in the ointment was a big new floral and hobby shop that had opened on the main highway, where fresh flowers were sold in premade bouquets for rock-bottom prices and silk flowers were to be had in every color of the rainbow. For those on a budget it was a dream come true. For a small shop like Bloomers it was a disaster.
To curb the drain of customers, I had been trying various inexpensive promotional devices, including running a contest—What’s My Vine?—handing out free flowers at grocery stores—A Mum for Your Mum!—and adding a coffee and tea parlor. So far, the coffee and tea parlor held the most promise.
“How many orders came in over the wires last night?” I asked Lottie, as I followed her through the shop into the workroom behind it.
“Three.”
Three wasn’t good. Seven was good. Seventeen was better. Twenty-seven would have me doing handsprings over the worktable.
We went through a doorway into the tiny, crowded kitchen at the rear of the building, where Lottie had already started preparing her traditional Monday-morning breakfast. Bloomers occupied the entire first floor of the deep, three-story, redbrick structure, from Franklin Street in front to the alley in back. Three apartments made up the second floor, accessible through a door and stairway to the left of our shop. The third floor was unfinished—full of dusty, discarded furniture and enough spiders to fuel my nightmares well into the next century, should I still be alive and kicking.
It was a wonderful old building from the turn of the century, when ceilings were a minimum of ten feet high and the brick walls inside were real. There were the added benefits of having the courthouse right across the street and the university five blocks south, another reason why I figured my coffee and tea parlor might fly.
Lottie tied on her black bib apron, took eggs from the old refrigerator, and cracked them on the side of a bowl. “How do you want ’em?”
“Scrambled.” Just like my brain at that moment. I put my head in my hands and moaned at the thought of my poor car.
“How much damage?” she asked.
“Front end. Who knows how much it’ll cost.” With a heavy sigh, I pulled off my shades, dropped them in my slouchy leather bag—a bargain I’d found at Target—and perched on a stool at the narrow eating counter. “I’ll find the maggot somehow. He had local plates.”
“Call Justin about the car. He’ll get you in right away.”
Justin was Lottie’s nephew. He ran Dunn’s Body Shop and was a true genius when it came to fixing cars, though he could barely read the back of a cereal box. He’d bought my Vette from a widow who’d stored it in a barn for decades after her farmer husband died. Other than needing bodywork, new paint, and a rear bumper, the four-speed stick shift had been in relatively good shape. Most important, it had been cheap.
“Listen, sweetie,” Lottie said, her back to me as she worked, “my cousin Pearl needs advice real bad, but she won’t go see a lawyer, so I convinced her to talk to you.”
That was the trouble with people who knew me: They assumed that since I’d attended law school, even for one year, I was practically a lawyer and therefore could advise them—for free. Combine their need for help with my intense hatred of injustice and a strong proclivity for untangling all those little quandaries people got themselves into and—well, let’s just say I often found myself in rather interesting situations.
Although I knew better, I had to ask, “What’s Pearl’s problem?”
Lottie whipped the eggs with a wire whisk, then poured the batter into a sizzling skillet. “That lousy, son-of-a-bee husband of hers is the problem. Now we find out he’s keeping a little doxy on the side, too. I told her to divorce him, but she’s afraid.”
The aroma wafting from the skillet made my stomach growl. “Afraid of a divorce or afraid of her husband?”
“Both. Tom Harding’s an ornery cuss. I’m not fearful of many people, as you know, but he sure the hell scares me. I know you’ll be able to talk some sense into Pearl.”
I didn’t want to talk a person into getting a divorce. I understood that not all lawyers shared my feelings, but maybe that was one of the reasons I’d flunked my law classes. “I think Pearl should see a marriage counselor, Lottie.”
She put down the spatula, wiped her hands, and pulled up the stool next to mine. “Listen, baby, this man is abusing her and their boy, too. She’s scared out of her wits. I’d never get her to a counselor. I’ll be lucky to pry her out of the house to get her here. You’ve got to help, Abby. You’re good at helping people.”
“What does Pearl’s husband do for a living?”
“He’s a farmer.”
Not good, financially. Most farmers barely managed to eke out a living and often worked two jobs. There wouldn’t be much in the way of assets to split between them—if Lottie’s cousin had the courage to proceed with the divorce. Something I had learned from my clerking days was that reluctant clients usually ended up dismissing their divorce actions.
“Good morning, all!” Grace Bingham called brightly in her meticulous British accent, poking her head into the kitchen. “How are we today?” Grace had left her nursing career behind ages ago, yet still spoke in first person plural.
“Other than having our car smashed by a reprobate in an SUV, we’re fine,” I said.
“Us, too,” Lottie added.
Grace gave me a thorough once-over, just to be sure. “Shall I call Dunn’s Body Shop and make an appointment for your car, dear?”
“Would you, please?”
Before coming to Bloomers, Grace had been a top-notch legal secretary for Dave Hammond, the lawyer for whom I had clerked. Several months ago Grace had decided to retire, and after ten agonizingly boring days of staring at her walls, realized her mistake. Now, as our girl Friday, she manned the cash register, answered the phone, and ran the coffee and tea parlor. In fact, the parlor had been her creation.
Brought here from England by her GI husband, Grace had always bemoaned that New Chapel had no tea parlor. It turned out that Grace was an expert tea brewer and a fast study on gourmet coffee, as well. Plus, she loved to bake scones and the little cookies she called biscuits, so we had decorated half of the store in a Victorian theme, installed equipment, put her in charge, and voila! Now, in addition to the fragrance of the flowers, the shop was scented with coffee, tea, and baked goods. In nice weather, we opened the door and let the aroma draw people in.
Grace was amazing. A widow for the last fifteen years, and well into her sixth decade, she climbed stairs without breaking a sweat, maintained her calm in any crisis, and bowled no less than two hundred twenty. She worked for me because she enjoyed it, not because she needed the money, which suited me just fine. She’d starve on what I could afford to pay.
Grace and Lottie worked well together—usually.Sometimes Grace’s fussiness got under Lottie’s skin. But then, Lottie’s teasing irritated Grace, so they evened each other out.
“Listen, baby, will you talk to Pearl this afternoon?” Lottie asked, resuming our conversation. “I told her I’d take her to Wal-Mart during my lunch hour, but I’ll bring her here instead. It’ll be a surprise.”
Some surprise.
“Abby, you’re not dabbling in legalities again, are you?” Grace warned. “Remember what happened last time?”
“Yes, but the judge ended up seeing the humor in it.”
“And the time before that?”
I hung my head. My aunt still hadn’t forgiven me. For that matter, neither had my high-school homeroom teacher, who’d claimed I had a problem sticking my nose where it didn’t belong. Also the middle-school principal, who had taken away my monitor’s sash, the school bus driver with the Playboy magazines under his seat, the cafeteria lady with the walnut-sized wart on her nose and the funny cigarettes in her sock—but what was the sense of looking back?
“If you choose to meddle thus,” Grace said, striking a Hamlet-esque pose, “then you must be prepared to face the consequences, whatever they are.”
“Very good!” Lottie said, giving her a brief burst of applause. We were constantly awed by Grace’s ability to find a quote to fit any situation.
She gave a regal nod of her head to acknowledge our praise. “Jimmy Sangster, British screenwriter.”
“Don’t worry, Grace,” Lottie said. “Abby is only going to offer her advice this time. Aren’t you, sweetie?”
I glanced at Grace, who was giving me a stern head shake.
“Lottie, I really think your cousin would be better off seeing a lawyer,” I said, and Grace beamed at me.
“Sweetie, if I pull up in front of a law office, Pearl will bolt from the car and take off running. You have an honest face. She’ll believe what you tell her. Then you can send her to Dave. What do you say?” Lottie slipped the steaming heap of buttery, golden eggs in front of me.
I was easily swayed by food. I took a scrumptious mouthful and muttered, “How about twelve thirty?” I could at least listen to her story. What harm would there be in that?
“I want it noted,” Grace sang out as she retreated to the sanctity of her tea parlor, “I did warn you.”
Release Date: January 17, 2016
Release Time: 83 minutes
Director: Bradley Walsh
Cast:
Brooke Shields as Abby Knight
Brennan Elliott as Marco Salvare
Beau Bridges as Jeffrey Knight
Kate Drummond as Nikki Bender
James Cade as Buzz
Ron Lea as Tom Harding
Altair Vincent as Tony Vertucci
James Thomas as Greg Morgan
Christian Lloyd as Dave King
Celeste Desjardins as Sydney Knight
Joel Gagne as Officer Brand
Dru Viergever as Officer Dunn
Fulvio Cecere as Detective Al Corbleon
James McGowan as Louis Vertucci
Michael Vincent Dagostino as Detective Blasko
Allison Hossack as Penny Harding
Josh Bainbridge as Daryl
Murray Oliver as Mr. Ryan
Lori Hallier as Mrs. Ryan
Verlyn Plowman as Ed Fainberg
Morgan I. Bedard as Officer Williams
Tammy-lynn Wilcox as Receptionist (as Tammy-Lynn Wilcox)
Michelle Jackett-Webster as Traffic Clerk
Giovanna Moore as Nursery Cashier
Lewis Hodgson as Building Inspector
Andrew Desabrais as Jonah
Lisa Boivin as News Anchor
Kate Collins is the author of the best-selling Flower Shop Mystery series. Her books have made the New York Times Bestseller list, the Barnes & Noble mass market mystery best-sellers’ lists, the Independent Booksellers’ best-seller’s lists, as well as booksellers’ lists in the U.K. and Australia. All Flower Shop Mysteries are available in paperback, hardback and large print editions. The first three books in the FSM series are now available on audiobook.
In January of 2016, Hallmark Movies & Mysteries channel aired the first Flower Shop Mystery series movie, MUM'S THE WORD, followed by SLAY IT WITH FLOWERS and DEARLY DEPOTTED later that year. The movies star Brooke Shields, Brennan Elliott, Beau Bridges and Kate Drummond.
In December of 2017, a Christmas novella featuring the whole cast from the Flower Shop Mystery series was released in e-book format. MISSING UNDER THE MISTLETOE is the first mystery to be released digitally, with plans for many more stories to come.
Kate started her career writing children's stories for magazines and eventually published historical romantic suspense novels under the pen name Linda Eberhardt and Linda O'brien.
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EMAIL: katecollinsbooks@gmail.com
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