The space was tidy in that understated, masculine way, polished timber desk, leather notebook, faint trace of cedar and printer ink.
Within twenty-four hours, I’d taken it over completely: folders, fabric swatches, place cards in various stages of alphabetisation, and a seating chart that had already become a living organism.
The late afternoon sunlight slanted through the blinds, striping the wall with colour. The kitchen clattered in the distance, resetting and getting ready for the big welcome party.
Cleo was perched at a smaller desk, deep in the kind of paperwork that could make or break a centrepiece order. She’d tied her hair up into a messy bun, and had a highlighter poised like a scalpel.
Then she stopped. Frowned. Leaned closer to the bin beside her.
“Hey, Hol?” she said, uncertainty affecting her usually perky tone. “Was there a second order I missed?”
I glanced up from my laptop. “Not unless someone’s decided to gift-wrap the mother of the groom.”
She didn’t laugh. Her brows stayed knitted as she reached into the bin and tugged at something caught in the corner of a flattened flower box. “Because this doesn’t look like the florist’s invoice.”
I crossed the room. The box in question was one of the big cardboard ones the roses came in, still faintly damp from the cool room, the bottom corners freckled with petals and tape residue.
She worked the paper loose carefully and smoothed it flat against the desk. “See? This.”
It wasn’t one of ours. It was a receipt, cream paper, thin and textured, the kind that belongs to fountain pens and linen stationery, not spreadsheets. The ink had bled a little, soft around the edges.
“Where did you find it exactly?” I asked.
“Snagged inside the corner of the box,” she said, pointing. “I only noticed it when I went to flatten the cardboard. Thought it was a sticker at first.”
I took it from her, the way you take something fragile. The paper had that faint scent of lavender polish and dust, a scent that didn’t belong to the kitchen, the florists, or any of us.
On the back, in looping handwriting: Evelyn’s Boutique.
Something about it unsettled me.
Cleo watched me read. “The shop is in Margaret River,” she said, nodding to the small, printed line at the top.
“Maybe the florist reused an old box,” I said automatically. “They do that sometimes.”
“Sure,” she said, though her tone suggested she wasn’t sure at all. “Still strange. The paper’s not old. It hasn’t yellowed or anything.”
There was no phone number, or amount, just a faint unreadable scribble and a date stamp from Sunday, which was yesterday.
Before I could reply, Noah appeared in the doorway, his sunglasses hooked in his shirt pocket, and a familiar raised eyebrow that questioned what we were talking about.
“You both look like you’ve discovered buried treasure,” he said.
“More like lost paperwork,” I replied, handing him the slip. “It was wedged in a flower box. Maybe the florist reused packaging?”
He turned the slip over in his hand, studying it with the mild curiosity of a man who notices details for sport. “Evelyn’s Boutique?” he read, brow lifting. “I know that place, antique jewellery shop, over next to Jack’s Surf Shack in town.”
My eyes snapped to his. “Jewellery?”
The word landed like a dropped pin. For a heartbeat, none of us spoke. The hum of the overhead fan filled the silence, underscoring the same thought circling between us.
Noah’s expression shifted, not surprise, exactly, but recognition. “Could it be connected to the missing piece?”
Cleo met my eyes over the desk, her highlighter still in hand. “That’s what I was wondering too.”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I said quickly. “Could be nothing. But… it is odd, isn’t it? Of all the things to find in a box of flowers.”
Cleo nodded. “If it were packing paper, I’d say fine. But it was stuck to the bottom, like it was picked up accidentally.”
