“‘I have to be Jell-O,’” Angie said. For emphasis, she tossed her long, curly brown hair over her shoulder.
“My Best Friend’s Wedding,” they identified the movie quotes together and then laughed.
Since middle school, the three friends, Mel, Angie, and Tate, had shared a love of sweets and movies. Now as adults they tried to stump one another with random movie quotes, and in the case of serving Jell-O at their wedding, Angie chose it deliberately. She wanted Tate to know she was his comfort food, his Jell-O, which he had always loved, much to Mel’s cordon bleu dismay.
“Do you think we should leave and come back?” Angie asked Mel. “Maybe she’s on her coffee break and forgot to lock the door.”
“Maybe.” Mel frowned. She didn’t want to admit she was starting to get a hinky feeling in the pit of her stomach.
Annabelle Martin’s flower shop sat in the heart of Old Town Scottsdale. Despite the small size of the space, it was full to bursting with blooms, both real and silk, as Annabelle’s talent with flowers was legendary. In Scottsdale, Arizona, a wedding was just not a wedding unless Annabelle did the flowers.
“But even if Annabelle stepped out, why isn’t anyone else here? Doesn’t she have four assistants?” Mel asked.
Angie nodded and Mel saw her big brown eyes get wide and Mel knew she was thinking the same thing that Mel was. Angie swallowed and in a soft voice, she said, “Maybe something happened to her?”
They stared at each other for a moment. Over the past few years, they had suffered the misfortune of stumbling upon several dead bodies. Given that Angie was one week from saying “I do,” it would just figure if they found a body now.
“This can’t be happening,” Angie said. “Not now.”
“Don’t panic,” Mel said. She blew her blond bangs off her forehead. Being a chef, she kept her hair nice and short to keep it out of the food, because nothing said “Ew” like finding a hair in your frosting.
“Don’t panic?” Angie cried, her voice rising a decibel with each syllable. “Why would I panic? It’s only a week until my wedding, you know, the most important day of my life to date.”
“Breathe.” Mel squeezed Angie’s arm as she scooted past her and around the counter. “I’ll just check in back and make sure everything is okay.”
A curtain was hanging in the doorway to the back room. She knew from being here before that the back room housed all of Annabelle’s supplies as well as a kitchenette and her office. It was a tiny space and she had to turn sideways to maneuver through the packed shelves.
Vases of glass, steel, and copper; baskets; ribbons; glass marbles; florist wire in all sizes and colors—all of it—was stuffed onto the shelves until they looked as if they’d regurgitate the goods right onto the floor.
Mel shimmied her way past until she cleared the shelves and reached the worktable in back. A couple dozen purple irises were scattered across a sheaf of floral paper as if someone had just left them out of water and gasping for air.
Annabelle loved flowers; they were her passion. Mel couldn’t imagine that she’d have just left these here to rot. Mel felt the short-cropped hair on the back of her neck prickle with unease.
Where was Annabelle? What could have happened to her? Mel closed her eyes for a moment, trying to dredge up the courage to circle the table and see if Annabelle was there, lying on the floor, unconscious, bludgeoned, bloody, bleeding out even as Mel stood here shaking like a ’fraidy cat.
“Hello? Annabelle? Are you here?” Mel called.
There was no answer. She opened her eyes. She was just going to have to see for herself. She took a steadying breath and stepped around the worktable. She glanced at the floor. It was bare. The breath she’d been holding burst out of her lungs as the sound of a toilet flushing broke through the quiet.
Mel whipped around to face the back hallway just as Angie came barreling through the curtain into the back room.
“Any sign of her?” she asked.
“Maybe,” Mel said. She stared down the hallway, listening to the water running in the bathroom. Please, please, please, let it be . . .
“Well, doesn’t that just figure?” Annabelle asked as she strode towards them. “It’s quiet all morning and then the second you go to the bathroom someone shows up.”
“You’re okay!” Mel cried. Impulsively, she threw herself at Annabelle’s big-boned frame and hugged her tight. “You’re not dead.”
“Oh, honey.” Annabelle hugged her back. “You need to calm down, maybe take a vacation or something.”
Mel let her go with a nervous laugh. “Ha, you’re right. I must be working too hard.”
Annabelle fluffed her close-cropped curls and then turned to Angie with a hug and a smile. “And how is our bride? Seven days to go! Are you ready?”
“More than,” Angie said. “I’m excited for the wedding but I’m even more excited to have it over and be Mrs. Tate Harper.”
Annabelle clasped her hands over her heart and sighed. “Of all the events I arrange flowers for, weddings are my favorite. Yours aren’t here yet, but come on, I’ll show you what I just got in.”
Annabelle scooped up the irises and put them in water and then led them to the front of the shop. While she and Angie oohed and aahed over some of the fresh flowers, Mel took a moment to get herself together. Clearly she had some issues if her first thought when Annabelle hadn’t been available was that she was dead. Seriously, what was wrong with her?
She had been around an inordinate amount of death over the past few years. She wondered if perhaps it was her own fault. Maybe she found all of these bodies, maybe bad things happened all around her, because she went looking for them. The thought disturbed Mel on a lot of levels.
“Did that daisy do something to offend you?” Annabelle asked.
Mel looked at her in question and
