A Rose From the Dead
The Critics Are Throwing Bouquets for The Flower Shop Mysteries
Acts of Violets
“Abby’s sharp observations bring laughs while the intriguing, tightly plotted mystery keeps you guessing.”
—Romantic Times
“A delightful, lighthearted cozy.”
—The Best Reviews Snipped in the Bud
“Lighthearted and fast-paced, Collins’s new book is an entertaining read.”
—Romantic Times
“It sparkles.”
—Mystery Lovers Bookshop Dearly Depotted
“Abby is truly a hilarious heroine…. Don’t miss this fresh-as-a-daisy read.”
—Rendezvous
“Ms. Collins’s writing style is crisp, her characters fun…and her stories are well thought-out and engaging.”
—Fresh Fiction Slay It with Flowers
“Upbeat, jocular…an uplifting, amusing and feel-good amateur sleuth tale.”
—The Best Reviews “What a delight! Ms. Collins has a flair for engaging characters and witty dialogue.”
—Fresh Fiction “You can’t help but laugh…. An enormously entertaining read.”
—Rendezvous
Mum’s the Word
“Kate Collins plants all the right seeds to grow a fertile garden of mystery…. Abby Knight is an Indiana florist who cannot keep her nose out of other people’s business. She’s rash, brash, and audacious. Move over, Stephanie Plum. Abby Knight has come to town.”
—Denise Swanson, author of the Scumble River Mysteries “An engaging debut planted with a spirited sleuth, quirky sidekicks, and page-turning action…delightfully addictive…a charming addition to the cozy subgenre. Here’s hoping we see more of intrepid florist Abby Knight and sexy restaurateur Marco Salvare.”
—Nancy J. Cohen, author of the Bad Hair Day Mysteries “A bountiful bouquet of clues, colorful characters, and tantalizing twists…Kate Collins carefully cultivates clues, plants surprising suspects, and harvests a killer in this fresh and frolicsome new Flower Shop Mystery.”
—Ellen Byerrum, author of the Crime of Fashion Mystery series “As fresh as a daisy, with a bouquet of irresistible characters.”
—Elaine Viets, author of the Dead-End Job Mysteries “This engaging read has a list of crazy characters that step off the pages to the delight of the reader. Don’t miss this wannabe sleuth’s adventures.”
—Rendezvous
“This story was cute and funny, had a good plotline which entwined a lot of interesting threads…an enjoyable read and a fine debut for this new mystery series.”
—Dangerously Curvy Novels “A charming debut.”
—The Best Reviews
Other Flower Shop Mysteries
Mum’s the Word
Slay It with Flowers
Dearly Depotted
Snipped in the Bud
Acts of Violets
A Rose from the Dead
A Flower Shop Mystery
Kate Collins
AN OBSIDIAN MYSTERY
OBSIDIAN
Published by New American Library, a division of
Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto,
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices:
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First published by Obsidian, an imprint of New American Library,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
Copyright © Linda Tsoutsouris, 2007
All rights reserved
OBSIDIAN and logo are trademarks of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
ISBN: 978-1-1012-1126-7
Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This book is dedicated to those genuinely caring men and women of the funeral industry who provide gentle guidance and understanding to grieving families, performing a service that most of us could not do.
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A list of thank-yous can be entertaining or boring depending on how creative the author feels after laboring for months over dialogue, plots, characters, words, sentences, scenes, and chapters, not to mention the whole comma-versus-semicolon dilemma. With that said, I confess I had intended to write a clever limerick, weaving in the names of everyone who’d lent expertise, advice, wisdom, support, chocolate, et cetera. But after searching my remaining brain cells and coming up with some seriously horrendous duds (to wit: I have so many people to thank, but first I need a great big drank), I’m taking the easy route.
Thank you to Martin and Janice Moeller for their expertise on the funeral industry.
A big thanks to my sis, Nancy, for her excellent critiquing skills and for keeping my story on track.
Another big one to my hubby, Jim, for his legal proficiency, support, ability to make emergency runs for office supplies on a moment’s notice, and, of course, male viewpoint.
Yet anoth
er to my son, Jason, for designing Abby Knight’s very own MySpace site (www.myspace.com/ abbyknightflorist) and lending his musical talents to it.
Thank you, David Cergizan, for creating a virtual Bloomers that is exactly what I’d imagined. (You can see the photo on Abby’s site, above.)
Thank you, Sandi Kuntzmann, for helping with the Brit bits.
Thanks to my Spark* team: Karla, Kiersten, Annie, Val, and Britta, and their adviser, Dr. Bonita Dostal Neff, associate professor, Valparaiso University, for their creative input and hard work, even with finals looming.
As always, thank you to Barb for being my unofficial PR lady; to my daughters, Julia and Natasha, for their enthusiastic support and twentysomething vantage point, and to Bonnie, the dearest stepmom anyone could ask for.
Now, off to get that great big drank.
CHAPTER ONE
“Okay, guys, great joke. Phone booth in a coffin. Ha-ha.
Now, let me out. The door is stuck.”
I waited a moment, then pressed my ear against the smooth pine finish, listening for snickers coming from the other side, but all I heard was silence. I pushed against the wood, but it didn’t budge. “Ross? Jess? Are you leaning against the door? Come on. It isn’t funny anymore. I’m claustrophobic.”
When the booth still didn’t open, I pounded on it. “Let me out of here!”
More silence. I pictured them pinching their lips shut so they wouldn’t guffaw.
And the reason you trusted a pair of twenty-three-year-old males in the first place was…?
I ignored that smug little voice of rationality. Right now, my only concern was breathing, because the air in the two feet of space I occupied had suddenly become unbearably stuffy.
Sweat beads gathered at my temples, plastering my hair to my skin. Why wasn’t this phone booth air-conditioned? Was a little vent in the ceiling too much to ask for? I gave the door one last smack with the heel of my hand, then rested my forehead against it. “You guys are in major trouble now because I’m phoning the police.”
The silence roared in my ears. Or was that my shallow breathing?
I ignored the ebony receiver behind me, a replica of the old coin-operated phone of my mother’s generation. I didn’t have any money with me, anyway.
Luckily, I never went anywhere without my cell phone. I pulled out the sleek stainless-steel case, flipped it open, and thumbed in 911. “Hello, yes, I’d like to report being locked in a coffin. Wait. Don’t hang up. This isn’t a joke. My name is Abby Knight. I own Bloomers Flower Shop, and I’m at the morticians’ convention in—yes, my father is Sgt. Jeffrey Knight, formerly of the New Chapel PD. Anyway, could you send someone over to—yes, he is doing well, considering his injury. Sure, I’d be happy to pass along your best wishes—if you’d send someone over to get me out of here!”
At once the door to my jail opened, flooding the space with bright light. I blinked several times, holding up a hand to shade my eyes until the blurry male shape before me came into focus. To my relief, it wasn’t either of the two pranksters who had imprisoned me. It was Marco Salvare, the Hunk of the Midwest, the man who could make me breathe shallowly—and like it—just by sauntering into a room.
“Never mind,” I said to the dispatcher. I slipped my mobile phone back into my pocket. “Marco, thank God you came. I was starting to hyperventilate.”
“What were you doing in there?” he asked as I emerged fanning my face.
What, indeed?
There I was, a bright young florist of some note—okay, maybe half a note (I had owned Bloomers for a mere six months), and maybe only bright because of my red hair. But there I was, nevertheless, in the middle of a morticians’ convention, trying to drum up business, only to find myself wedged in a phone booth as if I were some ditzy female who couldn’t find her way out of a—well, phone booth.
That it resembled an antique coffin straight out of a vampire movie only made my humiliation worse. What person of even average intelligence would be gullible enough to walk into an upended coffin? Talk about the height of embarrassment.
On the plus side, Marco had proven once again to be my go-to guy. He was not only an ex-cop and new bar owner but also a former Army Ranger, a tough, savvy, modern-day warrior whose group motto said it all: “Rangers lead the way.” And if anyone had found a way into my heart, it was Marco.
He was all man—hard jawed, firm mouthed, straight backed, and taut bellied—with nut brown eyes that knew how to cut through pretense and a strong, masculine nose that was slightly askew. His wavy dark mop drooped casually onto the left side of his forehead and ruffled onto the nape of his neck but never reached farther than his collar. He was sexy, sincere, and thoughtful, the kind of guy girls like me dream of snagging. Yet he remained something of a mystery.
At this moment, however, there was nothing mystifying about what he was thinking. His most captivating feature, aside from his penetrating gaze and that hint of five o’clock shadow, was his expressive mouth—straight, firm lips that curved up at the corners when he was amused and slanted down when he was bemused. Judging by what I saw now, he was perplexed.
“How did you get locked in?”
“That’s what I’d like to know. Just wait till I get my hands on those two idiots.” Huffing angrily, I started to charge past him, but he caught my arm.
“What two idiots?”
“Ross and Jess Urban—or, as I now prefer to think of them, Thing One and Thing Two. We met them early this morning while we were setting up our display, remember? Dark blond hair with light blond tips, large teeth, big dimples in their chins, very tan? One of them looked like a model for GQ—he had on Ferragamo loafers and a Tag Heuer watch—and the other one looked like a homeless skateboarder. They manage a chain of funeral parlors for their father.”
“You still haven’t told me how you got locked in.”
“After you left earlier, they came to our exhibit and said I had a phone call and brought me here. So I stepped inside, and the door—lid, whatever—latched behind me.”
Marco examined the latch in question. “Abby, this slide bolt isn’t automatic. They locked you in.”
“I had a feeling they might be trouble, but I ignored it because they’re funeral directors. What if I had passed out from a lack of oxygen—or even worse, died in this coffin? I don’t even want to think about the irony.”
“Take a look back here,” Marco called. “This isn’t even a working phone.”
I went around to the back of the tall booth. There on the ground lay a disconnected phone cord—and not a phone jack in sight. Obviously the coffin–phone booth was just for display, but how was I to know? I’d never been to a funeral directors’ convention before.
Displaying my floral wares at the Midwestern Funeral Directors’ Association’s regional convention was actually the brainchild of my friends Max and Delilah Dove, owners of the Happy Dreams Funeral Home, located around the corner from Bloomers and just off the town square in New Chapel, Indiana. Max and Delilah had suggested I rent a booth alongside the other businesses that supplied products and services to morticians, as a way to generate more income for my shop, a small business struggling to hold its own against the giant chain competitors. The convention was being held at the Woodland Hotel and Conference Center, on Lake Michigan, about twenty-five miles north of New Chapel.
Since the $1,500 rental fee was a little too steep for my budget, Max and Delilah had generously offered to split the cost and share booth space. Even at the bargain rate of $750 I’d still hesitated to commit the money, until I learned that I’d get to attend the Saturday night banquet with a guest of my choice. The banquet, Delilah had promised, was an event not to be missed, with food provided by an excellent caterer and entertainment afterward.
I’d signed up immediately. I was all about free food. But I was not about looking like an ignoramus.
“Boy, are those two Urban jokers in trouble. How dare they lock me in a phone booth and put my life in jeopardy. And
for what? A laugh? Well, I’m going to have the last laugh because…Marco, are you listening?”
He was staring up the long, brightly lit corridor toward the exhibition hall at the end, his jaw hard and his eyes narrowed to slits of steel-edged fury.
Uh-oh. I knew that look. My twin tormentors were toast.
CHAPTER TWO
“Marco, wait,” I said, and dashed after him, catching up just as he stepped into the big warehouselike room where hundreds of people were browsing the wide, carpeted aisles of display booths. “Ross and Jess did this to me. If anyone is going to teach them a lesson, it should be me.”
Both corners of Marco’s mouth curved down, a clear sign that he strongly disagreed, but since that had never deterred me before, I paid no attention. I pulled the convention brochure from my purse and turned to the index. “Where would two young guys hang out? The extreme-marketing seminar?”
That snapped him out of his funk. “Whoa. Hold it. Before you put on your brass knuckles, Sunshine, you’d better think this through.”
“You’re right. They’re probably at the computer software booth.”
“That’s not what I mean. You’re here on business. You don’t want to cause a scene that might jeopardize your chances of picking up new clients for Bloomers.”
I blinked as his words sank in. Rats. He was right again. How professional would I look if I walked around punching out morticians, even young ones who thought they were crafty stud muffins?
“Fine. I’ll let them go for now, but if they pull anything else, they’re going to find out Abby Knight is a force to be reckoned with. I may be small, but I’m mighty.” I flexed a bicep, which, I might add, was looking pretty hot. Chalk that up to toting heavy bags of potting soil from the depths of Bloomers’s basement to the first-floor workroom.