I wished I could go back ten years and redo Grandma’s last days. I’d been too eager to please. I should have said no. I should have had standards, morals, ethics, something that would have prompted me to do the right thing instead of the easy thing. I should have had compassion. I should have had a backbone. I should have known better. I should have been more patient. I should have had more faith.

I dipped the brush in the paint and tackled another section of wall. But why stop with Grandma? I carried an equal load of guilt for Martin Dietz’s murder. I should have seen it coming. I should have tried to stop it. I should have known arguing with Dietz was a waste of time. I should have gone along with him and not made him mad. I should have installed a security system so people couldn’t sneak around in my basement when I wasn’t home.

I could bury myself in should-haves. Or I could figure out what made this small town tick like a bomb about to explode, and try to stop it.

I yawned. It had to be almost 1:00 a.m. My body ached, my brain ached, my heart ached. I wrapped my brush in cellophane. I’d come back up tomorrow to finish the job.

The baseboard pipes clunked as the furnace kicked on. I glanced out at the hallway. Blackness. I stretched plastic wrap over the paint, half-expecting to see Jacob Marley standing in the doorway of the room. With my favorite tappy hammer, I sealed the lid on the paint can. I wiped a glob of ivory on my pass-me-around pants.

The neighborhood seemed eerily quiet tonight. No midnight train, no cars bouncing over the tracks. Even the wind had died. It was as if the hot water pipes and I were the only two noisy elements in the universe.

I cupped hands around my eyes and peeked outside. A foggy halo circled the streetlight in front of my house. Without the snow, the town had gone back to looking like Halloween. Spooky, and silent as the grave. And I was the main caretaker of the graveyard.

The skin on the back of neck my prickled. Beneath me, two flights of steps down, lay a body. I was almost sure of it.

I jolted down the steps, shaking the walls around me as I beelined to my bedroom and slammed the door.

My sleeping bag became a sanctuary. In its warm safety, I finally drifted to sleep, ghosts and guilts and guys flitting through my mind.

Becoming a hermit for the week definitely lowered my stress level about the Dietz/Grandma accusations. I pretended that nobody really paid attention to gossip and rumors anyway. I gave everyone in the Village of Rawlings the benefit of the doubt when it came to holding a grudge against a truly harmless, albeit too-daffy-for-her-own-good Renovator Chick.

But today, the cans of nuts, the dried fruit, the cereal, and the slightly moldy bread had run out. I was Old Mother Hubbard. And I was hungry.

Deucey gulped twice, then fired up after the long vacation. I backed her out of the garage and turned on to Main Street.

The second block past the tracks, a sign caught my eye: Parker Floral Designs. I hit the brakes, earning a blast of the horn from the driver behind me. Traffic cleared and I maneuvered Deucey into a parking spot made for the compact cars of a new generation. There was barely room to squeeze my knees past the bumpers as I made my way to the sidewalk and into the quaint flower shop.

Eucalyptus seemed to be the mainstay of every arrangement in the shop. Its mellow odor greeted me at the door and stuck with me to the back counter.

“May I help you?” a middle-aged woman asked. Short brown curls bounced with her animated walk. She rounded the end of the counter and nearly tackled me with her perkiness.

I stepped back. “I got a flower arrangement a couple weeks ago from a secret admirer. I was hoping you could help me figure out who it is.”

The woman gave a look of disapproval. “We value the privacy of our clients. If the individual wanted you to know his identity, he would certainly have revealed himself to you on the card.”

I had no idea floral arrangements were protected by the Privacy Act. Take two. “Actually, it’s more complicated than that. I’m dating a guy who got me some flowers. But I think they were really flowers that he got from somebody else. I just wanted to make sure he really got the flowers for me.” I took a big breath. “I absolutely hate hand-me-down roses.”

Her eyelids peeled back in a look of horror. “That would be understandable. How do you know they came from Parker’s?”

I fished in my jeans pocket, relieved the woman couldn’t know they hadn’t been washed since the night I’d snuck over to David’s. I pulled out the card and envelope and handed it to her.

She studied the chunky black lettering.

twenty-five years. remember that.

“Not very romantic. From the letter formation, I’d say a woman wrote this. Did this come with your bouquet?”

“Not exactly. I found it later. I’m sure it wasn’t meant for me. I guess that’s why I’m a little upset. Can you find out who originally purchased them?”

“I’ll see what I can do. You said you got the arrangement a couple weeks ago?”

“Yes. There were twenty-five red roses. I counted.”

“Hmm. Twenty-five. Just like on the note. Sounds like somebody was sending a definite message. That’s what flowers are for, you know. Let’s take a look.”

She tapped at the computer on the counter, entering data faster than I could think.

“Were they delivered to you?”

“No. Picked up by David Ramsey.”

The woman’s fingers came to a dead stop. She looked at me through curly bangs, never lifting her head.

“I see. You must be Patricia Amble, just down the street.”

I held my head up. “Yep.” The word may have come out a little snotty, but I had my pride.

Her chest rose and fell in quick little gasps. She was nervous. Scared to death, even. Here she was, stuck alone with a woman on a possible killing spree.

“Here it is,” she stammered. “Twenty-five red roses. Tea roses, to be exact, which appropriately stand for remembrance. Wired through central ordering. No information on the sender. To be picked up by David Ramsey, 306 South Main.”

She pushed away from the counter, putting distance between us. “There you go. Hope that helped.”

“Thanks.” I watched her squirm a minute. Then I left and climbed in my car.

I pulled into traffic and drove to the supermarket. The flower lady’s attitude was no big deal. Reputation wise, I’d gone from being the twin of Dietz’s reject to being a slayer of old people and maybe even the zoning lord. Definitely a lateral move.

I shopped at full speed, dumping items into my cart without checking prices or expiration dates. Never once did I look into a pair of eyes. Even the checkout girl got the brush-off.

I bolted out the door, positive I could sense haughty looks and vicious whispers on my tail.

I wanted to climb up the nearest lamppost and scream down at those arrogant people, “Don’t you know how hard it was? You would have done the same thing if you had been me!”

But what was the point in defending myself? Everyone sat in judgment over me. I could scream ’til I was blue in the face, and nobody would ever understand why I’d done what I had. If only they’d been there. If only they’d been me. Then they would know how hard a decision it was. Then they’d quit condemning me for what I’d done. Because they would have done the same thing.

31

I parked in the garage and pulled the door down. I never wanted to go out again. Starting right now, I would be a hermit for the rest of my life. I didn’t want to deal with people, look at people, get mad at people, or fall in love with people. I just wanted them all to go away. Leave me alone. Disappear.

I rounded the back of the house and jerked to a stop.

Brad. Standing on my back porch.

He stared. I stared. Apparently, neither wanted to be first to break the silence.

My foot tapped.

I caved. “Are you here to arrest me?”

I knew from his winter coat and blue jeans that he wasn’t on duty, but the brat in me wouldn’t be polite.

From where I stood, Brad’s eyes looked all shiny or watery or something.

“I stopped by a couple of times this week. Why don’t you answer the door?” His breath made white puffs in the frosty mid-morning air. One hand rested on his hip, one leg stretched in front of the other.

I clenched my jaw. I wasn’t obligated to answer. I could simply brush past him and lock the door behind me.

I started for the porch, intent on doing just that. The sidewalk had a crackly white design from the frost. The porch steps felt slick under my tennies from the same sparkling layer.

Brad’s brown leather boots entered my circle of vision and I steered to the left. The boots cut me off. I stopped.

Against my better judgment, I ratcheted my neck up a few notches and met his eyes. “Move.”

He stood his ground.

“Move, please.”

He reached for my arm. “Are you okay? I just want to know.”

I pulled away. “Of course I’m okay. I’m always okay. Now let me in.”

“Here, I’ll hold that for you.”

I handed him my groceries.

He stepped aside and I unlocked the door.

“I can take that now,” I said, reaching for the sack of food.

He swooped it out of my reach. “Let someone help you once in a while.”

My hands landed on my hips. “You’ve gone over and above the call of duty in that department. Thank you for all the unasked-for assistance. I think I can handle my own groceries.”

He made no move to relinquish them.

“I’m sure you can. Listen, Tish. You’re a beautiful young woman. I hate to see you shut up in this house day after day. You should be out having fun. Living life.”

My nose squeaked as I drew in several seething breaths. “My life is none of your business. I happen to renovate houses for a living. That means I’m shut up at home day after day. Occupational hazard.”

“I think you take it to the extreme. Especially after the whole Dietz thing.”

I cocked a loaded finger at him. “You have no idea what the ‘Dietz thing’ has done to my life. I can’t go grocery shopping without people staring and whispering about my past mistakes. Why would I give them more opportunities to point fingers?”

I looked at my weapon and tucked it in my pocket.

“People might talk about you for a while, but pretty soon you’ll be old news. Don’t let them get to you. You’re entitled to a life, you know.”

“Am I? I think most people would disagree. Eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth. A life for a life.”

“You did your time. You paid the price. Now grab hold of your second chance and make it count.”

“You make it sound as if I’m some kind of loser, like I’m not doing anything worthwhile with my life. I disagree. Entire neighborhoods benefit from my efforts. Historic homes are saved from utter ruin. What I do is important to communities.”

“Don’t you ever want to get married? Have a couple of kids? I have a hard time seeing how that’s going to happen with you hiding out in there.”

My head felt like it would explode. My heart skipped a couple beats. I forgot to breathe. Then everything rushed out at once. Loud.

“Give me my groceries and get out of here. There is nothing wrong with my life. How dare you come over here and imply that there is! You better focus on fixing your own flaws before you start nitpicking mine.”

I may have come off a bit demon-possessed. I didn’t care. I was right and he was dead wrong.

I wrenched the bag of groceries out of his grip, ran inside, and slammed the door. Tears started to flow. By the time I unloaded the perishables, my sleeve was a gooey mess.