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I should try.
“Rob,” I say. “I’ve got something to tell you.”
He smiles, his fingertips tilting my chin up. “Go on, tell me.”
My lips quaver. “Look, Rob, I—”
He grumbles when his cell buzzes. “Sorry, it’s Clay, I have to take this.” He steps away from me and answers the call. “Yeah?” He paces the room. “Oh God… I’ll be right there.”
“Is everything okay?”
Gloom paints his face. “Sorry, I’ve gotta go back to LA. It’s Matty.”
“What happened?”
“He saw footage of a car accident on the news, and it’s triggered his anxiety.”
“Oh, poor baby. Go.”
My pacing heart falls flat.
He kisses me repeatedly. “I’m sorry. I’ll call you, okay? You can tell me everything that you wanted to tell me.”
I nod, trying to keep my emotions to myself. It’s taken a lot out of me just to decide I was going to tell him. But maybe it’s not time yet. All I can do is watch him disappear through the shop door.
Then, as if I’ve stepped into a time machine, the door flings open again.
“Delivery for Amber-Rose Can… Ca-ni-zorro?”
I gape at the bouquet of flowers and the gift box in the courier’s hands.
“That’s me,” I say. “Who are they from?”
“I don’t know, ma’am. I’m just the delivery guy. The card should say something.”
The courier leaves.
The card attached to the bouquet simply says, ‘To Amber-Rose.’ Then I look at the package. It’s a box, about soup-bowl size, wrapped in glossy black paper. I unwrap it, and a whiff of rotten odor reaches my nose. My fingers shake as I flick the box lid open.
I scream and drop the package.
A severed doll’s head rolls out. Her blond hair is soaked in red goo, and one eye is missing. I poke at the head, looking for any message or sign. Nothing. And there’s nothing else in the box aside from a plastic lining. The doll is probably from Toys R Us or Target, but I get sick thinking about whose blood it might be.
A jumbled mess of emotions swirl around me. Fear, anger, and confusion send blows, one after the other. His trail might’ve gone cold for the police, but he’s here. Aidan is here.
I fish my cell out of my pocket and place a call.
“Sergeant Laura Garcia, my name is Amalia.”
* * *
Within half an hour,Amber The Mender has turned from a cute shop to a crime scene. While the police couldn’t find anything on the roses, they’re still inspecting the rest of the shop space and examining the bloody doll head—swabbing the blood and looking inside its hollow skull. Eventually they put it in an evidence bag. Sergeant Laura Garcia is still in LA, but her counterpart in Santa Maria is here.
“More of our men are canvassing the streets. The doll, it’s fake blood. The smell is likely rotten fruit.”
“Who sent it, and the flowers?” I ask as I ignore yet another of Rob’s calls.
The sergeant continues, “The guy who delivered it had nothing to do with this. We’ve questioned him. He’s just a courier. The package and flowers apparently came from a shop in Long Beach. Have you seen anyone suspicious around, Miss Cannizzaro?”
