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No. “She was escorted home. I’d suggest leaving her be. Of course, if you go anywhere near the victim, you’ll be hauled in faster than I chased your sorry ass down.”
I know dark. I know violence. I know the desire to hurt—and to have. For fuck’s sake, any time I peer in the mirror, I see it staring back at me. So when the prick’s eyes narrow, a shadow glancing over his long face… I’m not sure who he wants to pay more: me or my angel.
He’s pissed. I don’t buy the sorry, nervous act. He’s pissed he got caught. He got arrested.
Fucker meant to get her with the knife, didn’t he?
And that completely seals it. He’s a threat to Angela. Maybe not tonight. Maybe not tomorrow. Sooner or later, though, he’ll go after her if only because he can, and because he recognizes that I chased him once. I’ll do it again, too.
And, that night, when he slinks out of his place against my warning, and he has no idea that I’m off duty—or that I grabbed his address from the paperwork I took from Kelly and followed his home—I prove it to him.
2
ANGELA
It’s my first day back at work.
There are only two of us who work at Louise’s: me and, well, Louise. Before I moved to Springfield last summer, she ran the shop by herself. It was her baby. Seven days a week, as she watered the flowers, pruning them, dealing with the distributors, growing some of her own, then selling them at such a discount, it’s a wonder she can afford to stay open. She only does because her late husband left her with enough cash to run it as a passion project.
That’s how I got the job. Flowers… they’re my passion, too. In fact, being a botanist has always been my dream job. Then life got in the way, and I thought I’d never get the chance to work with flowers again.
Until I stumbled upon Louise’s shop nestled in my new neighborhood. My apartment is kinda crappy, but even the slums cost money. I’ve been hopping from retail job to retail job since I dropped out of college, moving cities whenever I felt suffocated by the memory of what happened in Fairview five years ago. I can learn a register anywhere, and good customer service skills are worth a lot.
I’m amazing at being who someone else needs me to be.
Louise didn’t need an assistant. However, when I asked if she was hiring, we got to talking about flowers. She didn’t need an assistant—but she was more than happy to throw a bone to a young woman who was desperately in need of workandloved flowers.
She was beside herself when she found out that a local punk tried to rob me for the store’s meager deposit two weeks ago. She insisted on giving me two weeks off—with pay—even though I tried to tell her I was fine. I’ve been scared enough in my life. I didn’t want to go back to looking over my shoulder again, especially since I finally feel like I found somewhere to settle down for good.
I might have gotten away with it if Louise didn’t see the bandage on my neck. The cut wasn’t too deep. I didn’t need stitches or anything. A bandage was enough, but the fact that I got cut at all was too much for Louise. She put her tiny foot down, telling me to go home right away.
So I did. And in between filling out my journal and streaming way too much TV on my tablet, I counted down the days until she told me I could come back to work. She also changed the hours so that neither one of us would have to walk to the deposit box alone in the dark.
I tried to tell her that I made it months before anything like that happened. And when it did? One of the local cops was right there, saving the day before Brick could even get the deposit off of me.
Dean, too.
I’d seen Dean in passing before. Most of us who work in specialty shops in downtown Springfield are at least friendly with each other. Louise introduced us about a month ago, when Dean came in to buy his mother flowers for her birthday. He seemed pretty decent. Friendly enough, and a good son.
The night I was almost robbed, he happened to appear right after the cop chased Brick off. Since then, we exchanged numbers at his request. He texted me every day while I was on Louise’s imposed vacation, checking in on me. Because of that, he knew exactly when I was returning back to work to give Louise a bit of a well-earned break.
Around lunchtime, he came to visit. I wasn’t so surprised. Honestly, I expected it. He’s made one or two mentions of getting to know each other better. He seems to think that it was fate that had us bumping into each other that night. I almost pointed out that it was more Brick shoving me at the police officer who then tucked me against Dean, but… I don’t know. That didn’t seem fair.
He brought me cookies. Placing them on the counter between us, we steadily make our way through the plate. As the owner of his hobby shop, he can close down for a half an hour to flirt with me. I haven’t had a customer all morning and, honestly, maybe I’m more rattled than I thought about being back at work. I think the two weeks off did me more harm than good. I keep seeing Brick lurking outside, only he’s not really there when I pay attention.
Almost like he’s a ghost haunting me.
Ridiculous, right? It is, but it helps to have a little bit of company.
The cookies are good. Some oatmeal and some chocolate chip. Homemade, he brags, and he should. They taste store-bought.
I kinda think they are.
I don’t call him out on his fib. If anything, it’s a harmless white lie. Besides, most people aren’t completely honest all the time.
I learned that the hard way.
Dean notices that I favor the chocolate chip. I give him points for choosing to snack on the oatmeal from then on. He sprays a few crumbs on the counter as he talks about… trains? It’s probably trains. With Dean, that’s a safe bet.
