Death and a Dozen Roses

By Annie Adams

Rosie thought she'd left her dangerous life behind when she opened her flower shop. But Valentine's Day turns deadly when she finds Cupid's bow and a corpse while delivering roses. She just might have to dust ​off some of her old sleuthing skills to get out of this mess.

​And she'll have to decide what to do about the handsome detective who knows too much about her past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Annie Adams
• Release date: Nov 15, 2018
• ISBN: 9781386370109

Annie Adams

Annie Adams is the author of The Flower Shop Mystery Series and the Rosie McKay Mystery Series. She lives with her husband, two giant dogs, and two, too giant cats in Northern Utah at the foot of the Wasatch Mountains. When not writing she can be found arranging flowers or delivering them in her own Zombie Delivery Van.

Book preview

Death and a Dozen Roses

Death and a Dozen Roses

A Flower Shop Mystery Prequel

Annie Adams

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Let’s Keep In Touch!

Sneak Peek

Get The Flower Shop Mystery Starter Library

About the Author

Chapter One

Valentine’s Day, Late Afternoon

This was NOT part of the plan. Rosie McKay, owner of Rosie’s Posies flower shop couldn’t help but think such a thought, even though it was entirely inappropriate given where she stood.

The body of the dead woman at her feet bore witness to the fact that the perfectly laid out plan for the day was completely blown. Rosie also couldn’t help making another fantastically, inappropriate but accurate, observation about the ironic circumstances of the day. An arrow protruded from the woman’s back, and Rosie surmised it had traveled straight through her heart. Terribly apropos for Valentine’s Day.

Valentine’s Day, Very Early Morning

Quincy, take everything you think you know about Valentine's Day and throw it out the window. Rosie felt like she had to give that advice to her fifteen year old niece when the girl waxed romantic about working in a flower shop on the fourteenth of February. Quincy needed to know the truth about the wretched holiday.

It was after Rosie had received a call from Larry Jacobs, saying the roses he’d ordered to arrive in the morning on Valentine’s Day hadn’t yet come, and it was now two in the afternoon, that Rosie realized something was terribly wrong. Larry was one of Rosie’s original customers, and he had never been overly demanding or unreasonable. Rosie told Larry she would figure out what had happened as soon as possible and make it right.

She hung up with Larry, checked the log of orders, and found his in the drawer under the front counter. It was numbered according to the date the order was placed, marked finished and initialed by the designer who made it, then checked off the log with the delivery number clipped to the front. Everything was in place, just as it should be. Rosie had developed this system after her first disaster of a Valentine’s Day. Her system had appeared to be working so far, so why didn’t Larry’s wife have her roses?

Suddenly, Rosie noticed the one tiny little cog missing from her beautiful machine of a system. She rushed over to the CB radio to call her drivers.

Each order was supposed to be marked with the initials of the driver who took them out on the road. This order wasn’t initialed. Being understaffed at that present time—her last driver quit working when Rosie told her she couldn’t keep showing up hungover every morning—Rosie had done the best recruiting job she could with only a week left before the holiday. She’d recruited her brother, Angus only two days before.

Utah Red, this is Rosebud, comeback.

Right here, little sister.

What’s your twenty? Somehow, Rosie always slipped into a Southern accent when she spoke on the CB.

I’ve got two more here in west Hillside, then I’m headed back your way.

Was Anita Jacobs on your list?

Doesn’t ring a bell, let me just check my log. Standby. It thrilled Rosie’s older brother to use the CB radio in his truck along with the proper lingo. She figured that was half the reason he’d agreed to drive for her. Negatory, Rosie. What’s their twenty?

They’re over on Owen Street.

I think you’d have to check with LuDean or the new guy. They took the ones closer to the shop, since they weren’t as comfortable finding the addresses further out. Weren’t as comfortable was a nice way of putting it. Their cousin LuDean flat out promised she couldn’t find addresses but she was a living, breathing, human with a driver’s license. And the new guy, Jay, had walked in only two days before looking for a job.

All right, I’ll try Jay on the CB in my van.

10-4, over and out.

Another surge of customers lined up in the front of the store, so Rosie’s research on the missing order would have to wait a minute or twenty. The five other ladies helping in the shop just weren’t enough when the waves came in. That’s the way holidays work in the floral business, busy all day with intermittent giant waves that take your breath away.

After the other ladies had a handle on things, Rosie tried Jay on the CB in the delivery van once again. And once again, there was no answer. LuDean was driving her bright yellow Lincoln, which didn’t have a CB radio. She could fit an entire shift’s worth of arrangements in that boat, she just couldn’t pull into anyone’s driveway—first because it would require a twelve-point turn—and second, it was too big to share a driveway with any other cars. She had to pull up to the curb and walk all that much further to the front door. Rosie knew when she called it was not something LuDean would look forward to. But Rosie knew, that LuDean knew, Rosie wouldn’t have called unless she had been that desperate.

Both lines of the phone had been ringing off the hook all day, and the wire-service teletype had been printing orders from other parts of the country almost non-stop. But Rosie had the ominous feeling that something bigger had gone wrong when a certain kind of calls from customers started coming in. They weren’t the usual Have you delivered my order yet? calls. These were unhappy, sometimes irate, Where are my flowers? kind of calls.

Rosie’s brother returned and picked up the lion’s share of the remaining deliveries. She had to cut off any more new delivery orders for that day because two of her drivers were AWOL. Finally, LuDean showed up. She wore her usual angry expression, which didn’t tell anyone much.

Rosie McKay, I will never deliver flowers again. I’ll cut them thorns off or I’ll clean your toilets or scrub your floors, but don’t ever ask me to drive for you again.

Didn’t something go wrong? Rosie asked.

No. I just didn’t like it. Having to find those little numbers on the houses, if they were there at all. Dogs barking, women carrying on when you came to the door—and taking their sweet time doing it… She plopped her shoulder bag on the table in the back design room, which by now had been nearly cleared of vases pre-arranged with foliage. She reached in and pulled out a lighter. A long cigarette had already been placed in the corner of her pursed lips as easy and rhythmically as she breathed. She continued to rant while the cigarette bobbed up and down and the lighter remained nestled in her fist.

She knew not to light up in the store. She would eventually make her way out the back door.

Around four in the afternoon, things settled down enough to where Rosie could think about what to do. It was far past time for Jay to be back from the deliveries he’d taken. No one had heard a word from him. She had the girls make up new arrangements, which Angus volunteered