Death looked at the girl, head tilted to one side. “Sulky, sexy, angry about something. Yeah, could easily be her.”
Casey watched Tara Yonkers as she moved from plant to plant. Perhaps the daughter was the way in, but should she risk it? Let Willie’s girl see her face?
Death began humming along with the rubber band, still playing that Christmas song, stretching the band to change its pitch. Casey tried to ignore the sound. She plugged her right ear with her finger. She held her hand up to the side of her face. She thought about how it would feel to punch Death in the solar plexus.
“Enough! All right! I’ll go in! Just…
Death regarded her with wide, innocent eyes. “Are you talking to me?”
Casey jumped out of the truck, slammed the door, and stalked toward the store.
The girl looked up as Casey approached. “Help you find something?” It wasn’t convincing. Tara Yonkers obviously didn’t want to help anybody, and her being able to find something in the immense nursery was clearly a crap shoot.
“Your dad. I’d like to talk with him.”
Tara snorted and pelted another plant with a stream of water. “Good luck. I haven’t been able to get him to listen to me for years.”
“So he’s not here?”
“Look, lady, my dad adores this place, but you’d never know it. I’m here more than he is.” She made a gagging sound.
“You don’t like flowers?”
“I like flowers. But I like them when they’re cut in a vase on the table. Not out here where it’s roasting and dirty and smells like somebody’s trash!”
The girl was right—it did smell. Nobody said flowers had to smell as pretty as they looked. Casey was glad if the stench covered up her own body odor.
“So where does your dad spend his time?”
Tara turned her hose toward another victim. “Why do you care?”
“Just figured it wasn’t fair if he was in air-conditioning and you were out here…” She gestured to the lot.
Tara’s lips puffed out, and she cocked a hip. “He hardly ever leaves home, can you believe it? Spends all day locked away in his precious office, eating popcorn and watching porn for all I know. It’s not like he ever lets me in there.”
Lovely father-daughter relationship. “So he never comes here?”
“Only at night, when he doesn’t have to deal with the customers. Says he has all that
Or he comes to load and unload trailers in his back lot without employees there to witness it.
“Your house far from here?”
Tara turned toward Casey, letting the water run onto the ground. “Who are you? Why do you want to know?”
“Just…making conversation. But I’ll go now. I have an appointment with Ruby.”
The suspicions left Tara’s eyes. “She’s inside. Works her ass off for this place. She figures if she does well enough, makes herself
Of course not. “Well, thanks. I’ll be going.”
Tara didn’t reply, but moved the hose so it was actually over a plant.
Casey glanced at the pickup as she walked toward the main greenhouse, and Death gave her a double thumbs-up.
The air that hit her was hot, humid, and smothering. Casey took a moment to get her breath as she studied the layout. Rows and rows of potted plants sat on tables that stretched from the front to the back of the building. Most were unfamiliar, but she did see some orchids, and something that resembled a rhododendron. On the floor at the front of each row a number had been painted onto the concrete, and overhead signs hung explaining the contents of each section. At the far end of the building several employees were unloading boxes of plants onto shelves. Their voices carried across the room, but Casey couldn’t understand what they were saying. Casey walked toward the front door, where a woman, probably Ruby, stood at a counter with a customer, packing plants into a flat.
Casey didn’t actually want to talk to Ruby, but she’d had to drop the name when Tara became too curious. Casey looked for another exit between her and the saleswoman—one that would take her out the front and to Tom’s truck without contact. Nothing. She looked back at Tara and waited for the girl to turn so she could slip out the side.
Someone called from the end of the room, and Casey looked up to see one of the gardeners gesturing to her.
“I’m fine,” Casey said, waving her hands.
But the gardener pointed to one of the others, who set down a box, clapped his gloves together, and started down the aisle toward Casey. Casey squinted at him. Did he look familiar? He was big, but his features—from this distance, at least—didn’t look like any she’d seen in the past few days. That didn’t mean he wasn’t one of Dixon or Westing’s guys.
Tara was still facing Casey’s way, but Casey had been in the greenhouse long enough it would be feasible she’d had time to talk to Ruby. She stepped toward the door, but stopped.
A man had walked up to Tara, checking her out as he neared. He said something, and Tara looked up, immediately morphing from sulky watering girl to seductress. But that’s not what bothered Casey the most. What bothered her was that the man was Owen Dixon.
Casey spun around. The gardener was halfway down the row now, getting close enough to see her face. She saw his, too—and she’d seen it before, at the crash site. She walked briskly toward the front counter. Ruby was just finishing up with her customer as Casey scooted past.
“Can I help you?” Ruby called after her, but Casey swung out through the front door, headed for the truck. She was thankful Tara wasn’t the kind of worker to inquire if she’d found everything she needed—in fact, she’d probably forgotten her already.
“Hello?” The guy from the greenhouse was calling her. Apparently he hadn’t recognized her, but was the kind of employee who hated seeing a customer leave without buying something.
Casey smiled and waved, trying to fend him off, but his call had alerted Dixon, and as Casey jumped into the pickup, she could see Dixon stiffen, like a dog on alert.
“Hey!” Dixon screamed. He sprinted across the lot, knocking plants aside and jumping over bushes. He was pulling something from his pants as he ran, and Casey ducked, waiting for the sound of bullets slamming into the truck. None came.
“He’s on the phone!” Death said. “Get out of here!”
Casey slammed her foot on the accelerator and swerved around a little hybrid just backing out of a spot, blaring her horn as she went.
Death knelt backward on the seat. “He’s still coming! And now the other guy, too!”
Casey swung out of the parking lot, narrowly missing a minivan, and yanked the truck into the left turn lane, where she screeched across an intersection in front of several cars.
“Yee-ha!” Death whooped.
Casey floored it, the truck screaming around two more corners, and headed away from the highway.
Death turned back around. “Where are you going?”
“They’ll look for us on the highway. We’ve got to find another way.” She reached across the seat and opened the glove compartment, dumping its contents.
“What are you doing? Watch out!”
Casey looked up in time to swerve around a slow-moving Volkswagen before resuming her hunt. “A map! I need a map!”
“There’s something in the door pocket over here.”
Casey unhooked her seat belt to give her the few extra inches she needed to pluck the folded paper from its
