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“Didn’t the finance guy send her flowers, too?” Nix questions. “Or was it the kayak guy. Whichever one it was, Abby said it was a massive arrangement, cost a bunch, and the order was placed over the phone.”
“Hannah isn’t one for big displays of commitment,” I murmur, leaning forward again and scribbling Dustin’s name on the list. “Loud makes her uncomfortable. So sending flowers to her work even once, let alone a dozen times, would have been a hard turn-off for her.”
“So she picks the openly romantic guys after being withyou,” Pres grumbles. “Sending flowers isn’t a crime.”
“No, but it’s annoying to a woman who doesn’t like them. Hannah doesn’t often mince words, Pres. So she’d have told the dude to stop sending them after the first time. Maybe the second, if she was feeling a little shy. And no normal, functioning member of society who wants to impress a woman would go out of his way to do the very thing she asked him to stop, if he hopes to score.”
“Which he didn’t,” Pres concludes, “because he annoyed her.”
“Who came before that?” I reach across the desk and snatch up Nix’s cellphone, only to turn it in my hand and toss it back to him when he lifts his brows in question.
“Call Abby, find out who sent all those flowers. What’s the bet she has no actual proof of who sent them?”
“She can pull up credit card numbers,” Preston inserts. “I can do it from here. But that would be an illegal act, so…”
Nixon rolls his eyes and unlocks his screen. “I’ll make the call and skip the illegal shit.”
“Preston?” I bring my attention back down. “Who came before flower guy?”
“Jenson,” he sighs. “The one who works for Nicole. Asked Hannah out, caught her off-guard. She accepted his offer—which I only know because she came straight to Nic’s place and regurgitated every awkward second of the conversation.”
“And?” I write Jenson’s name down. “What happened? Did they date?”
“Nope. He called her the next morning, apologized for making things awkward, rescinded his offer, and practically begged her to not let things be weird at work. Which…” I hear the rustle of his shirt as he shrugs. “She didn’t wanna go out anyway. So she was relieved.”
“Did he genuinely have a change of mind?” I glance up and half-listen as Nix talks to his sister. “Or was he spooked away by someone else?”
“Who is this someone else?” Frustration finally eking into his tone, Preston sits taller in his squeaky chair. “You’re implying someone is sabotaging her dating life.”
“Yeah,” I scoff. “Someone. Fucking Raul, the perfect example of anice guy. Hovers in the wings, gets off on acting like her protector. He wants to save her from big bad Axel Feeney, since that bastard hurt her feelings. And now she’s single, he wants her all for himself.”
“You’re reaching. And you have no way of running all this by her without sounding like a jealous ex. Besides,” he adds almost gleefully. “He has a girlfriend.”
“Does he?” I challenge. “Have you met her? Because I sure as fuck haven’t. He claims she was at your party the other night and stormed off in a huff. But I didn’t see her. Did you?”
“Well, no. But—”
“And last night, he was apparently catching dinner with the girlfriend or some shit.” I wrack my brain and try to piece together Hannah’s half of the conversation I heard. “But he turns up at Sully’s place with food and a bad attitude about me.”
“Listen, Axe…” He exhales and taps at his computer keyboard again. “I’m no cop, and fuck knows I never wanted to be one. But I feel like they would say that all you’ve got is opinion and a possessive streak a mile wide.”
“Pres—”
“I support you,” he cuts in. “And I’d be asking the same questions. I put Noah in the fucking hospital with a smile on my face and giddiness in my belly, knowing it meant I no longer had to share the girls with his abusive ass. I’m not saying I wouldn’t feel the same way you do right now—and if we’re being honest, you’re ahead of me by a long shot, because you’re asking questions and working to gather evidence, whereas I’d have jumped first and dealt with the rest later. Which…” he chuckles softly in the back of his throat. “Is what I did. But just because I support you, doesn’t mean that she will. Or that the cops will. Or that—”
“Every single flower arrangement that was sent to Juniper’s Bakery over the last six months was paid for with the same credit card.” Nixon sets his phone down and meets my gaze with panic written in his. Swallowing, he glances to his now dark screen, then back up. “Abby doesn’t keep a catalog of credit cards on file. She just asks the sender while they’re on the phone, and types it in as they go. She doesn’t memorize the numbers, and sometimes, Roy or Arlo take the call instead, so that’s more dilution. If she were to hear the same digits more than once, chances are, she wouldn’t remember. But she checked her receipts while on the phone now. Same.”
I straighten in my seat and let my lips peel back into a sneer. It’s about time to go hunting. “Flowers supposedly coming fromdifferentdudes, but paid for with the same credit card number?” I shake my head side to side. “No way, Lew. No chance.”
“You’re making some serious allegations,” he rumbles. “Even if we set aside the potential hit-and-run, you’re saying he’s doing things he’d know, as her friend, she wouldn’t like… all to annoy her enough to break it off with a guy?”
“And if she went back to Preston’s place and bitched about Jenson asking her out, what’s the bet she had the same conversation with Raul?”
“And those who graduated the flower stage and moved into the dinner portion of dating?” Pres asks. “How’d they pass go and collect two hundred dollars?”
“Perseverance?” I shrug. “Luck? Maybe she was more tolerant those times. Or maybe those dudes were slick enough to make her more tolerant. Maybe their green flags outweighed the red.”
“And those are the guys who ended up with torched trucks,” Nix murmurs. “Dead mothers.”
