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wanted it to be dark, with the lights off in the store and gallery,
and well after the store was closed for the day so that she’d
have time to get things ready. She’d told Emily she was doing
inventory and had asked for her help at nine. Emily, who was
busy with her art and all the new requests coming in, was too
preoccupied to question how strange that seemed. She’d
helped Dani with inventory before, and they’d done it later at
night, so it was a pretty legit cover.
Dani smiled to herself to think of how surprised Emily
would be. Probably almost as surprised as she was when Dani
had sat her down and truly done a reading for her, after their
two false starts at it. She had been delighted with the whole
thing and found it more helpful than she ever could have
imagined. They’d done so many readings together now that
Dani had lost track.
By the time the rest of the candles were lit, the jars carefully
placed into a circular shape around the open space of the big
gallery, it was really hot. Dani wondered at the wisdom of the
idea, and she just hoped that the smoke from those candles
wouldn’t cause the sprinklers to come on. That would be bad.
That would be really, really bad with all of Emily’s paintings
on the walls.
Since she was having second thoughts and didn’t want to
ruin the place, Dani blew out half the candles and removed
them from the circle. It was still pretty, and the heat wasn’t so
bad. No risk of sprinklers either. She grabbed the bag of rose
petals she’d gotten from the flower shop earlier and stashed in
the staff fridge in the back. She wasn’t a flower petal person,
but she knew Emily would like it, so she happily threw them
over the floor.
