CHAPTER 2
Theo Park looked as if he wanted to swallow the sentence back.
Too late.
Every head in the shop turned toward him.
He was twenty-two, thin, and usually invisible behind the register except when older customers needed help tapping cards on the reader. His black reopening polo had Kendra’s new logo on it: HOLLOWAY HERITAGE FLORALS, a brand name Beth had never approved and Celia would have hated.
Kendra turned slowly.
“What did you say?”
Theo’s face flushed dark.
“Nothing.”
Beth saw his hands.
They were shaking.
Kendra smiled at the customers, but not at Theo. “Theo has been helping with digital transition. He is not familiar with old licensing language.”
Lana Price opened her tablet.
“I am familiar with licensing language.”
The shop’s front door was still open. People from the sidewalk had begun leaning in. Reopening balloons bounced gently against the glass. Outside, a banner read: SAME ROOTS, NEW BLOOM.
Beth thought of Celia laughing herself breathless at that slogan.
Kendra pointed to the permit. “My attorney filed the transfer.”
Lana tapped her tablet. “A building transfer is not a floral operating license transfer. The active city record for Holloway & Thorn lists a qualifying operator.”
Kendra’s smile thinned. “Celia Holloway passed away.”
“Yes. And before she passed, she filed an operator continuation.”
Beth felt the order book under her palm like a pulse.
Kendra said nothing.
Lana looked at Beth.
“Do you have your operator card?”
Beth reached into the apron pocket.
She carried it out of habit, not pride. A laminated card with a bent corner.
BETH MERCER
QUALIFYING FLORAL OPERATOR
HOLLOWAY & THORN
LICENSE H-2043
The funeral directors near the orchids both looked at it.
Diane McCallister made a small sound.
Kendra laughed once. “That card is ceremonial.”
Lana took it carefully. “This card allows her to supervise arrangements sold under the Holloway & Thorn license.”
Kendra stepped closer. “She was an employee.”
“She was the licensed operator.”
“Celia was old and sentimental.”
Beth’s breath caught.
Celia had been old.
She had also been sharp enough to reject three buyers, four franchise calls, and one nephew who wanted to turn the cooler into a smoothie counter.
Beth said, “Do not use her age to erase her judgment.”
Kendra’s eyes cut toward her.
“There is the grief performance.”
The words did their work. Several people shifted, embarrassed for Beth. Small-town people loved loyalty until it became inconvenient in a room with money.
Then Diane McCallister placed her coupon on the counter.
“I want my three hundred dollars back.”
Kendra turned. “Mrs. McCallister, as I said, your account—”
“My husband’s flowers were paid for.”
Beth opened the order book wider.
Diane leaned over the page and touched the line with her name.
Paid: B.M.
“What does B.M. mean?” she asked.
Kendra answered first. “Balance missing.”
Beth said, “Beth Mercer.”
The two phrases hung together.
One cold.
One plain.
Diane looked from the book to Kendra. “You charged me for free flowers.”
“The fund was depleted,” Kendra said.
Beth’s head snapped up. “What?”
Kendra’s eyes flashed again. Fear, fast and small.
“The fund was depleted,” she repeated, this time slower. “That is why irregularities needed review.”
Beth looked at the order book.
The Grief Basket Fund had never been large, but it had not been empty. Beth knew because she balanced it every Friday in Celia’s old adding machine and wrote the figures in the back pages.
She flipped toward the ledger section.
Kendra grabbed the page edge.
Lana Price’s voice cut in.
“Do not touch the book.”
Kendra froze.
The city inspector was not loud. She did not need to be. Authority sounded different when it was not performing for cameras.
Beth turned to the back.
The ledger page for March was missing.
Not torn cleanly. Removed in a hurry. A ragged strip remained near the binding.
A murmur moved through the shop.
Beth stared at the torn edge.
Her body knew before her mind organized it.
That was the page with the spring fundraiser deposits.
That was the page with Celia’s final note.
Keep the baskets under Beth. No family vote.
Kendra’s voice softened. “That is exactly what I mean. Pages missing under Beth’s control.”
Beth looked up.
“You tore it out.”
“Prove it.”
Theo made a small sound behind the register.
Kendra turned toward him.
“Theo,” Beth said, “what did you see?”
He looked at Kendra, then at Beth, then at the customers.
His fear was not abstract. People with rent and student loans feared differently. Their courage had bills attached.
Kendra said, “Think carefully before accusing your employer.”
Lana looked at Theo. “You are not required to answer in front of customers.”
Theo swallowed.
“I scanned the old pages last night.”
Kendra went pale.
Beth whispered, “Why?”
Theo’s voice shook.
“Because Kendra told me to shred the book after reopening.”
The shop erupted.
Kendra snapped, “That is a lie.”
Theo stepped back from the register and lifted his phone.
“I didn’t know what mattered, so I scanned all of it.”
Beth felt her knees weaken.
Lana held out her hand. “Show me March.”
Theo opened a file.
The missing ledger page appeared on his screen.
At the bottom, in Celia Holloway’s uneven final handwriting:
Grief Basket Fund belongs to the operator, not the building. Beth decides.
Kendra grabbed for the phone.
Reece, her own cousin, stepped in front of Theo.
“No,” he said.
Kendra stared at him.
He looked miserable but stayed there.
Then the receipt printer at the register clicked.
Once.
Twice.
A strip of paper curled out.
Theo frowned.
“I didn’t print anything.”
Lana tore the receipt free.
It showed a refund request created that morning.
MCCALLISTER, DIANE — $300
REASON: Duplicate sympathy charge
AUTHORIZATION: K. HOLLOWAY
Diane looked at Kendra.
“You knew before I walked in.”
Kendra’s face lost its careful light.
And from the sidewalk, an older man’s voice said, “She knew in January too.”
Everyone turned.
May you like
A retired funeral director named Simon Vale stood in the doorway holding a folded delivery slip.
“I brought the first duplicate invoice,” he said. “And I’m not leaving until the old accounts are read.”
