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“I said everything, Diana,” I say. “Write down the address. I need them delivered at six in the morning.”
When I finish the call with the florist, I place the phone on the keyboard in front of me and stare at it. I’ve never bought flowers for anyone. So where the fuck has this insane need to do so now come from?
“Shit,” I mumble, fumbling with the deadbolt lock.
I forgot to turn on my alarm and almost slept in. The knob turns finally, and I open my front door, intending to dash down the hallway but stop at the threshold. There won’t be any running down the corridor, that’s for sure. I’ll be lucky if I manage to reach the stairway because it looks like some delivery company fucked up. Big time.
Both sides of the entire length of the hallway passage—which is around eighty feet long—are filled with huge bowls and vases, all overflowing with flowers. Each arrangement consists of a different type of flower—white roses, yellow roses, peach roses, daisies, lilies, tulips, and a bunch of others I don’t recognize. Every bouquet has a big satin bow tied around the vase in a color that matches the flowers.
“Jesus,” I mumble, staring at the sea of flowers, wonderinghow I’m going to reach the stairway without knocking any of them over.
“Milene!” a raspy female voice yells.
I turn my head and find my landlady standing at the top of the stairwell with her hands on her hips.
“I need you to get these out of the hallway. People need to go to work,” she continues.
“They’re not mine,” I say, looking over the explosion of colors.
“The note says they are.”
My head snaps back to the right. “The note?”
She lifts a hand holding a pink envelope. “The delivery guys said to give this to you.”
“It must be a mistake.”
“It has your name on it.”
I step into the corridor, trying my best not to knock anything over, and head toward her. I have to walk in a zigzag pattern around what must be at least a hundred vases.
“Let me see,” I say and lean over a large arrangement of white roses to grab the envelope. She’s right. It has my name on it. I glance over my shoulder, gaping at all the flowers, then slide the note from the envelope.
Pick what you like.
Give away those you don’t.
I blink. Read it again. Turn it over. There is no signature. Who the fuck buys thousands of dollars’ worth of flowers and tells the recipient to give away what they don’t like? Was it Randy? I don’t think so. Besides, the note doesn’t have a cheesy one-liner, and he always writes one. I look down the hallway again and do a quick calculation. Each of those vases must have cost a hundred bucks. Probably more. So, the totalwould be . . .. My head snaps back to the landlady, my eyes wide. Holy. Fuck.
“I need those out of the hallway,” she grumbles and turns to leave. “You have thirty minutes.”
What the hell am I going to do with all this? And who’s the maniac who bought what looks like an entire flower shop? This is a special level of crazy.
I take my phone out and call Pippa, my friend from work.
“Can you get me the phone number from one of the guys working in the hospital laundry service?” I ask.
“Laundry service?”
“Yup. I need a favor. And a truck,” I say, looking at the flowers. “A big one.”
Chapter 3
I close my laptop and regard the man kneeling in the opposite corner of my office. Nino is holding him by the hair, yelling into his face.
“I asked, who do you work for, Octavio?” he shouts and punches the man in the face. “You ratted on us? To the DEA?”
“It wasn’t me, Nino. I swear it wasn’t me!”
