A Root Awakening (Flower Shop Mystery, Band 16) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

New York Times bestselling author Kate Collins grew up in a suburb of Hammond, Indiana, one block from the family home of author Jean Shepherd, whose humorous stories inspired Kate at an early age. After a stint as an elementary school teacher, Kate wrote children’s short stories and historical romance novels before turning to her true passion, mystery. The author of the popular Flower Shop Mystery series (Throw in the Trowel, Seed No Evil, Nightshade on Elm Street), she lives in northwest Indiana and Key West, Florida.

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PRAISE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING FLOWER SHOP MYSTERIES

Other Flower Shop Mysteries

OBSIDIAN

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

CHAPTER ONE

Monday

“Are my newlyweds ready to go inside for a look?”

Our Realtor pressed her hands together as though praying, her smile as desperate as her enthusiastic nods, as if to say, Of course you’re ready! At that price, you’d be fools not to be. Please, please, please?

I glanced at Marco, who was studying the dilapidated Victorian home with a shrewd and, yes, disdainful eye. Good. We were on the same page.

“No,” I said, just as Marco said, “Sure.”

I turned to my handsome hubby in surprise. “Sure?”

“No harm in looking.”

“I am looking, Marco. The question is, what are you seeing?”

It was peculiar for us to be at odds because our tastes ran in remarkably similar veins. Hand us a menu and we’d pick the same entrée every time. But clearly he wasn’t seeing what I was seeing today, because directly in front of us stood a narrow, wood-sided two-story with peeling paint, a porch that tilted dangerously to the right, a sharply peaked roof whose tiles had curled, dingy gray gingerbread trim, and a detached shed-turned-garage that might have held a Volkswagen Beetle—with no door handles.

The old house, built sometime in the early 1900s, swarmed with roofers and painters who’d been hired to get it ready to be put on the market. Lorelei Hays, our overly eager Realtor, had heard that the Victorian was going up for sale and wanted us to see it before the crowds beat a path to the warped brown door. As far as I was concerned, a path would have been an improvement over the cracked cement sidewalk on which we stood.

I loosened the emerald-and-navy-plaid scarf around my neck and took off my green gloves. The March sun was making a rare appearance in a week that had been rainy and cold. My little dog, Seedy, kept tugging at her leash, so I turned to see what she wanted and saw her wagging her shaggy tail, gazing up toward the roof where a painter was giving the decorative trim along the roofline above an attic window a coat of white paint. I doubted it was the worker who’d intrigued her. Seedy was a rescue dog who’d had an abusive owner, and she was still wary around most men. But I didn’t see anything else that could have attracted her attention.

Studying the Victorian’s shabby facade, I could only imagine what the inside was like. No, I didn’t want to imagine it, because I was definitely not interested. The only positives were that it would be available in a month and it was located five blocks off the town square in my hometown of New Chapel, Indiana. And because my flower shop, Bloomers, and Marco’s business, Down the Hatch Bar and Grill, were located on the square, we could have walked to work.

Lorelei bounced on the toes of her black patent pumps. “So? Are we ready to see the interior?” She was wearing a marine blue two-piece suit trimmed in black braid, with shiny black button earrings and a black tote bag, all nicely accenting her short platinum hair.

Marco had wanted to go with a well-seasoned Realtor, but I had opted to give a newbie our business because it hadn’t been that long since I’d opened Bloomers and I remembered how it felt to be the new kid on the block. In her late forties and just starting out in real estate, Lorelei fit the bill. But so far, she hadn’t shown us a single house we’d liked, and we’d been looking since October.

Our landlady had been patient thus far—she didn’t normally allow pets—but she’d been dropping enough hints lately that we knew we had to find something soon.

Marco was still analyzing as the roofers nimbly navigated the steep pitch. Two painters in blue coveralls stood on scaffolding on the right side of the house applying tan paint to the second story, while the third painter, the apparent object of Seedy’s attention, balanced at the top of a tall extension ladder. All of the workmen wore navy baseball caps and light blue coveralls with the logo HHI—Handy Home Improvements—on them.

“Judging by the condition of the outside,” I said to Marco, “this house is going to need a lot of time and money pumped into it.”

“You look like do-it-yourselfers,” Lorelei said. “It could be the perfect little project for you to work on together, a real bonding experience.”

Or grounds for divorce.

Deep in contemplation, Marco rubbed his jaw. “I can see us working on it.”

“Clearly, Marco, you’ve forgotten about our experience painting the bathroom at Down the Hatch over Christmas.”

“That wasn’t so bad,” he said.

“For you.”

“Sunshine, you’re the one who wanted to put seven coats of paint on it.”

“One application of sugar maple does not cover glossy navy blue, Marco. I can still see blue showing through—and that was three coats, by the way, not seven.”

He put his arm around me. “I think the bathroom looks great. Come on, sweetheart. We should at least have a look at the inside.”

I moved us off the walkway. “Between your long hours at the bar and your private investigations, when would we have time?”

“You’ve been looking for something to do in the evenings,” he said.

“Not renovating a home—alone!”

“You wouldn’t have to do it alone. I’d be there as much as possible, and I’ll bet your niece and your cousin would love to lend a hand.”

That, in itself, was reason to say no. Tara, my fourteen-year-old niece, would need to take a Twitter break every five minutes, while my cousin, Jillian—a spoiled pregnant diva precariously near her due date—wouldn’t even paint her own fingernails, let alone someone else’s walls. Besides, between running her personal shopping service and doing dry runs to the hospital, she was too busy.

“Just take one walk-through,” the Realtor urged. “If you don’t like its charming layout or don’t see any potential, we’ll cross it off your list.”

We had a list? “Sorry,” I said to both of them. “I really don’t like it.”

A cry from the roof made me turn in alarm just in time to see the extension ladder fall in an arc away from the house, the painter still clinging to the rungs. Everyone, including me, stood frozen in horror as the ladder carried the painter backward until the poor man hit the ground with a loud thunk, his head smacking the cement sidewalk with an audible crack. Then he lay still, the aluminum ladder on top of him.

As though someone had pressed a button, all of us sprang into action. I scooped up Seedy and ran toward the man along with Marco and Lorelei, while workmen scrambled to get to the ground. Marco was on the phone calling for an ambulance before we’d even reached the man’s side.

The Realtor lifted the ladder aside as I put Seedy down and crouched beside the painter, whose coveralls read Sergio on the pocket. “Sergio,” I called, feeling for a pulse in his neck. “Can you hear me? Can you squeeze my hand?”

His eyes were closed and he made no response, but his pulse beat steadily beneath my fingertips.

Another man in coveralls, the name Sam on his pocket, dropped to his knees on the other side, grabbed Sergio’s face, and gave it a shake. “Sergio, buddy. Talk to...