She was right, of course. It didn’t matter that Josie was convinced they’d come up empty. They’d developed the bed and breakfast lead, and this was the result. They’d be negligent not to look into the James Smiths in the area. Josie went through the addresses again until she found the one closest to where they were stuck in traffic. She punched it into Gretchen’s GPS.
While they waited for an opportunity to pull off onto a side street so they could question the first James Smith on their list, Josie went to the Camellia Society websites and searched their registries for the Crimson Bride. Nothing. Perhaps the creator of the flower hadn’t ever registered it. Registration wasn’t mandatory. It wasn’t like anyone kept track of the camellias or camellia hybrids that weren’t registered.
“Are we going to talk about the whole Crimson Bride thing?” Gretchen said.
“That it’s kind of a creepy name in the context of a double homicide? Or in the context of this guy trying to create the perfect family, which would start with the perfect wife?”
“Exactly that.”
Josie used her phone to scroll through her emails. “But before that, he was giving them to Maxine during their trysts. It’s less creepy in the context of a man giving them to the woman he’s dating over dinner.”
“Because he wanted her to be his bride.”
Josie shuddered. While Gretchen weaved her way out of the heaviest of the traffic, Josie located her contact at the International Camellia Society. Knowing she likely wouldn’treach the woman this late in the evening, Josie called and left a detailed voicemail anyway. Then she sent a follow-up email as well with the name of the camellia they were trying to track down, asking if there was a way to get copies of pending or rejected registrations, promising to send over a warrant before morning. It was a long shot, but if the James Smith marathon didn’t pan out, she wasn’t sure where else to go with the investigation and she couldn’t get Turner’s broken eyes out of her mind.
“Let’s go wake up some James Smiths,” Gretchen said.
Three hours later, they’d visited all five James Smiths and ruled each one of them out. The killer had clearly given the Greathouse Bed and Breakfast a fake name.
They returned to the stationhouse to complete some paperwork. Noah came in so both of them could go home to get a few hours of sleep. Josie managed to get four solid hours in before Noah called her.
“I’ve got something,” he said when she answered, not bothering with pleasantries or small talk. That was how she knew whatever they had was big.
“Tell me,” she said, stumbling out of bed and yanking a work shirt from her closet.
“Your contact from the Camellia Society called to let us know she’d be sending over the information you requested. I had her email it to me. The Crimson Bride was hybridized by a woman named Reina Torres. The application was submitted two years ago but hasn’t yet been approved. According to the information she provided, she’s associated with the Liora Blossom Nursery and Garden Center. It’s ten miles east of Alden.”
THIRTY-EIGHT
Josie stepped out of Noah’s SUV and into the July heat. Immediately, her skin felt sticky from the thick moisture in the air. It was the worst kind of heat. Every breeze felt like a gust from an oven door opening. It was probably excellent for the plants and flowers grown by Liora Blossom Nursery and Garden Center. Despite the humidity, the sky was clear with only a handful of puffy clouds floating lazily overhead. Pulling a hair tie from the pocket of her khakis, Josie twisted her black hair into a messy bun and used a hand to fan the back of her neck. It was just past tena.m. on a Saturday, and the center was busy. The parking lot was almost full. People dragged carts filled with flowers, plants, or other gardening supplies to their cars.
“This was on the list,” Noah said as they approached the sprawling one-story building that was clearly the hub of the enterprise. It was cedar-paneled with a green gambrel roof made of pleated metal. Extending from each side of it were rows upon rows of greenhouses. As they got closer, Josie could see that three of them had been cordoned off. From the look of the sagging metal frames, and the few glass panels that were still intact covered in soot, there must have been a fire. The nursery had been lucky it had been contained to just three structures.
“Brennan checked this place out yesterday,” Josie said. “He talked to the kid working the checkout counter, but he didn’t recognize the flower.”
Noah gave a frustrated huff. She knew what he was thinking. If Brennan had asked more workers or demanded to speak to the owner or manager, they could have arrived here sooner. The entire department had been running on fumes for days now. They’d had dozens of nurseries and garden centers to check out in and around Denton after the Barnes murders, and then Alden after Dani and Cassidy were taken, not to mention in between the two, and they’d had to do it as quickly as possible.
The exterior of the nursery’s main building was filled with shelves of colorful flowers of all kinds. A section that extended into the parking lot was cordoned off and filled with large plants, shrubs, and some small trees. At least a half-dozen patrons idled, many discussing what would look best and where at their homes. How they could stand to have those arguments out in the heat was beyond Josie. She would have put the first shrub she saw onto her cart and called it a day.
Inside the building it was only marginally cooler. She wiped sweat from her forehead as Noah flagged down the nearest employee and asked to speak with Reina Torres. Her heart did an excited little flutter when the man said he’d go find her. They might just get somewhere today. He pointed out a sign hanging from the ceiling several yards away that read “Tranquil Garden” and told them to go wait there.
Fifteen minutes later, Josie and Noah stood next to a koi pond that was fed by a small waterfall. All around them were exotic-looking trees and plants that Josie had never seen before. There was a stone tunnel with vines creeping along its entrance. They’d gone through it when they first arrived and followed a meandering trail through what resembled a tropical rainforest, only to arrive right back at the pond.
A rosy-faced pregnant woman appeared under the Tranquil Garden sign, slowly making her way toward them. She wore a dirt-stained white tank top, jeans, and knee-high rubber boots. Her blonde hair lay in a heavy braid over one shoulder. With long, elegant fingers, she plucked a twig out of it and chucked it into a nearby trash bin. Her other hand lay protectively over her belly, which was barely contained by her shirt. If Josie had to guess, she’d say Reina Torres was only a month or two away from giving birth.
For a moment, Josie was transfixed. A quick glance at her husband told her that he was, too. Was he wondering what she would have looked like with a pregnant belly if she’d been able to carry one to term? Josie had no regrets about the decisions they’d made once they realized her fertility problems would make it extremely difficult and potentially very costly for her to conceive and carry a baby to term. Having their approval to adopt an infant revoked after Noah’s abduction had been devastating, but now they had Wren, and despite how hard it was to care for a twice-bereaved teenager, Josie was happy.
Was Noah? He said he was, but was that really true?
She felt his hand firm and gentle against her lower back. When she looked at him again, his eyes were locked on her, not Reina’s belly. His small, secretive smile told her everything she needed to know in an instant.
Noah didn’t need to reassure her but she was still relieved when he did, dipping his head down slightly to murmur in her ear before Reina was within earshot. “You and Wren are more than enough. Focus on the case.”
A hot flush of embarrassment rose to her cheeks even as she nodded. This was not her. She didn’t get distracted at work. She didn’t think about fertility and babies and children and whether her husband was happy while she was on the job. She was aworkaholic. Obsessive about cases, never able to leave them at the stationhouse where they belonged during her time off.
Noah’s hand left her back and she took a deep breath. She filed the last thirty seconds of insanity away to reluctantly discuss with her therapist, and zeroed in on the pregnant woman again.
When Reina reached them, Josie saw that the features of her face were frozen in a stiff smile. Her big brown eyes flicked wary glances at the firearms on their waists.
