Page 11 of Smoke and Roses

He hangs up and I stare at the phone. That was so strange. I mean, I like dinner. And dinner staring at Travis will not be a hardship by any means. But he was… weird.

Then I remember he had a stressful day. Travis is a new firefighter. Maybe he just needs to decompress over food.

Maybe he likes me a little too. I close my eyes, fanning my face. Heavens, what the man does to me is bad.

I’m singing “Islands in the Stream” when a fire department truck with Chief Strong driving and the sheriff’s car park in front of my store.

If Travis hadn’t called me to tell me he was safe, I would have thought they came to tell me something terrible had happened to him.

That thought makes my stomach twist.

Easy, Lindsey, I tell myself. Maybe they need flowers for the chili fundraiser.

Only Caleb and Gabe look more serious than I’ve ever seen them when they come through the front door.

“Lindsey. Can we sit down?” Gabe, the sheriff, asks.

I’ve known Gabe Harris since I was five. He played tight end three grades ahead of me, badly. He stood in the back of my grandmother’s funeral in his uniform. Never once asked me if we could sit down.

I don’t know what’s happening here, but I can’t sit down. My body is stiff with fear.

“No,” I blurt, “Just tell me.”

He and Caleb look at each other. Caleb takes off his ball cap. His eyes are red. Holding my gaze he clears his throat. But it’s Gabe who speaks first.

“The crew found a car in the ravine on the Hollister place,” Gabe says. “Been there a long time, covered in brush. The fire burned the brush off.”

I hold on to the edge of the counter, legs feeling unstable.

“It’s Danielle’s car,” he says.

I knew this was why they came when Caleb took his hat off. But hearing it makes every bit of strength go out of me. A second later, Caleb’s by my side. “Let’s sit down, Lindsey.”

He guides me to the table where I take wedding orders. A happy place normally. Not today. Probably never again.

Gabe places a small plastic bag on the glass tabletop. Inside is half a gold heart on a chain, charred. The letters on the front are BE FRI.

I touch my throat. My half is right where it always is. My letters are ST ENDS. I’ve worn it for years. Showered in it, slept in it, buried my grandmother in it.

“Was she—” I can’t finish it.

“Car was empty,” Gabe says. “State crime lab’s coming tomorrow to go over it top to bottom. But there was nobody in that car.”

I nod because I can’t talk.

“I’m going to talk to Carol tonight.” He puts the bag back in his jacket. “I’m sorry, Lindsey. I wish I had more for you.”

Caleb reaches across the table and squeezes my hand once, hard. Then they go, and the bell rings behind them. It’s straight and even, because somebody fixed it this morning.

I sit for a long time. The shop feels off. Like it’s holding its breath.

I flip the sign on the window to CLOSED and lock the door. On feet that barely remember how to walk, I move through the shop and the workroom and into the walk-in cooler.

When I shut the door, the sounds of the world disappear. It’s thirty-six degrees inside, and it smells like roses. It’s the only place in Eden nobody can hear me.

I sit down on the concrete between two buckets of sunflowers and say every bad word I know. Then I shout them between angry sobs.

After a while, I can’t feel my legs on the cold floor and I can’t stop thinking about her laugh. Or the way she stole my fries and the worst thing she ever said to me, in this exact shop, three weeks before she was gone.