Page 100 of Grim Tidings

“Please. Let me explain. I—”

“Get. Out.”

I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to make him understand. That I didn’t want to take his family away from him. That I hated leaving. That watching that little girl sob and ask for her daddy shattered pieces of me that I’ve never been able to get back.

That it was the first moment I started to wish for something different. That it woke up the part of me that yearned for the light instead of the shadows.

But Frank has turned his back to me, his shoulders hiked to his ears. He doesn’t owe me a thing, least of all his patience or time. The very least I can do is honor is wishes.

So I grab my bag, and I do exactly as he says.

I leave.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Gabriel

I start to worry once the sun sinks toward the horizon.

Darcy tends to lose track of time when she’s working on her flowers with Frank, but not like this. She’s usually back after lunch, a new arrangement held in her arms like a newborn, a smile on her face and dirt on her cheeks.

But she’s not here, and I don’t know where she could be.

Tater Tot whines and paces through my kitchen, his ears low. We make a fine pair, the both of us. Wandering around my apartment like two useless assholes, waiting for Darcy to come back.

“You miss her, too, huh?”

Tater Tot gives me an unamused look, snorting once through his nose.

“Fine. You miss her more.” I glance at the clock above the stove, then the window. “We could go over to Frank’s. See if she needs help carting her flowers home. She probably got caught up making too many.”

Tater Tot prowls closer, nudging my hand with his wet nose, eager. I laugh and pet him roughly between the ears.

“Yeah, all right. Let’s go.”

I grab the leash and my jacket, and we set off for the flower shop, the sun melting quickly beneath the tree line. The front window of Frank’s Flowers glows from the other end of the street. I expect to see her there, laughing with those damned lilies in her hands, but that’s not what I find.

Tater Tot goes still as soon as the bell above the door jingles. He whines, low and troubled. It echoes in the near-empty space.

All of the flowers that were sitting on the counter are gone. There’s nothing in the massive buckets that hang along the back wall, either. The small walk-in fridge is empty, and Frank is—

Frank is wiping down the counter, his chin tucked to his chest. He didn’t look up when the door opened, and he doesn’t look up when it snicks quietly shut behind us.

I unclip Tater Tot from his leash, and he immediately starts inspecting the floor by the worktable, his tail in a straight line.

“Frank?” His silence is making me uneasy. So is the state of the shop. I’ve never seen it so empty. So void of color. “What’s going on?”

He doesn’t answer my question. Instead, he asks one of his own. “Did you know?”

Tater Tot is whining in earnest now, his paw nudging at the bottom corner of the door. It rattles in the frame, and he gives me a baleful look, but I drag my attention back to Frank with a frown.

Something’s wrong. The flowers and the—

There are tiny pinpricks of magic floating through the air, like dust motes in a sunbeam. Everything feels electric. Tense.

Wrong.

“Did I know, what?” I reply, distracted.