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“Sorry about your date,” she apologized.
“You should be. It looked like tonight was going to be the night,” Chu grumbled.
“Sorry,” Pro sympathized. “Now I really do feel bad.”
“Well, we want to try for an actual relationship, so there will be other chances. Good night, Pro.”
“‘Night, Tom,” she said and shut the door after him.
She moved to her tiny kitchen and opened the door of the refrigerator. It wasn’t close to being as tall as her, coming only up to her chest. She extracted a large bottle of white wine, grabbed a jelly jar from the dish rack, and filled it full of wine. She drank half the glass in one shot. She refilled the jar, put the cork back into the wine, and returned the bottle to the fridge.
She walked to the other room, took off her jacket, and hung it in her small closet. She moved the seat cushions and pulled the frame to unfold the bed.
When she opened it, sitting atop the neatly folded sheets was revealed a red sponge of some kind. Pro reached down and touched it. It was a little smaller than her hand, and the shape was an outline of a rabbit.
Her father had done this when she was little, hidden sponge rabbits in her things. Sometimes in her bed, sometimes in her shoe—all different places. When she was little, she asked why he did it.
“Because I love you, pumpkin, and when you see the rabbit, it reminds you that I do.”
She couldn’t help but smile, then shook her head in amazement that he was still trying to influence her after what he’d just pulled.
She removed her service weapon and took off her harness, which she hung from the closet rod. She picked up the locking metal box and set the three small dials to the correct numbers. She opened the box and placed it on the bed, then quickly made sure the pistol’s chamber was empty, then pulled the magazine. She went to place the magazine in the box when she saw a piece of paper.
Frowning, she pulled the paper out. Scrawled on it was this:
Sorry for the trouble.
I really do love you.
MAX
She shook her head and grabbed the glass of wine to take another sip. “How the hell did he get into this box?”
11. Botania
The next morning, Pro was walking with coffee up West End Avenue toward her mother’s apartment. She’d decided when she woke up that if Max was still going to be in touch with anyone, it would be his ex-wife.
And despite Elisha telling her that they had a fight, she might be covering for him. She wanted to make sure to lay down the law, so that if Max did show up at her mother’s door, Elisha would call the police.
She went up the elevator and considered her arguments. They needed to be strong, to let her mother know in no uncertain terms that aiding or abetting her ex-husband could mean that charges would come down upon her head. Not to mention the fact that her NYPD detective daughter could lose her job.
She unlocked the door and picked up the cups of coffee and walked in with a yell of “MOMMA?”
To a garden.
At least that is how it appeared at first glance. It seemed like every spot was covered in flowers. Each piece of furniture was lost in a sea of different blooms held in vases of various sizes. The table she had sat at the previous day seemed to bend from the assorted greenery placed on it.
The only way to move about the apartment was through a narrow path in the middle of the room that allowed her access to the bedroom.
She placed the cups in a tiny space open on the table that barely fit the pair, and knocked carefully on the bedroom door. “Momma? Are you alone?”
“Oh come on in, sweetie, it’s all right.”
She opened the door and was relieved that the flora did not continue to this section of the living quarters. Her mother was in a robe and was standing up next to the bed.
She indicated the flowers. “What is all this? Who did this?”
Elisha smiled. “It was your father.” She stepped to a nearby desk and grabbed a large cardboard heart and offered it to Pro to read.
