He didn’t answer that. “You said you looked in Erin’s apartment. I take it you’ve got a key.”
“Sure.”
“Her place is a rental unit? Manager on duty?”
“Till five-thirty.”
“Why don’t we meet there? I’d like to check it out for myself. I don’t have a warrant, but if your sister gave you free access, and the manager approves-”
“She will. She’s as worried as I am. Well, almost.”
“Can you get to Erin’s place in half an hour?”
“Yes. The address-”
“I already know it. I punched up her M.V.D. file. I’ll meet you there at four-fifteen.”
Click, and a dial tone buzzed in her ear.
Half an hour would be just enough time to get there. She had to hurry.
Mrs. Garcia had already left when Annie entered the front room. Just as well; Annie had no time for one of the woman’s interminable monologues on the health and well-being of her dachshund, Snoops.
Despite her haste and worry, she took a moment’s pleasure in the familiar clutter of her shop. It was a small place, what most people would refer to as a hole in the wall-but it was her hole in the wall, brought into existence out of her imagination, investment, and work, and she loved it more dearly than anything in her life, except Erin.
Hanging plants in wicker baskets dangled from ceiling hooks, trailing long leafy stems. Barrels of silk flowers and other artificial greenery flanked the counter, setting off displays of dried flowers in bunches and wreathes. In a walk-in cooler along one wall, bouquets and nosegays sprouted from glass and ceramic vases. Scattered around the room, half hidden in a jungle of green, were odd treasures-teddy bears, chocolates, dried fruits, greeting cards.
But what she cherished above all were not silk flowers, not dried flowers, not flowers tucked away in a humidified and refrigerated cabinet, but living blossoms in the open air, fragrant and alluring, inviting every customer to smell and touch. The shop was crowded almost to bursting with blue dwarf asters, sweet violets, orchids, bell-like lilies of the valley, carnations in rainbow assortments, painted daisies, towering stalks of hollyhock. The perfumes of countless blooms mingled in an aromatic medley.
Breathing in those scents, Annie remembered an evening, five years ago, when she had stood outside the storefront in the late summer twilight, gazing up at a gaudy canopy, newly installed. SUNRISE FLOWERS, it said, a reference to the store’s location in a suburban shopping plaza on Sunrise Road and, less prosaically, to the wordless sense of hope that always seemed to rise in her with the sun.
Hope had been all she’d had at the beginning, and not very much of it either. From the start she had feared that the enterprise was doomed. Surely she was too much of a scatterbrain to run her own business.
She’d had a plan, though, a way to set her shop apart from the competition. Though she’d offered all the conventional merchandise and services provided by any florist, she had gone a step further by specializing in a variety of exotic plants, hard to find in this part of town.
From the beginning her ads in the newspapers and the Yellow Pages had featured bonsai trees, large-bloom South American roses, and a wide selection of especially beautiful blooms imported from Holland, Japan, and the tropics. None of these items came cheap, and she had worried that she wouldn’t attract a sizable clientele willing to pay a premium for quality.
Her worries had proven to be entirely unfounded. Sunrise Flowers had struggled for only a few short months-months that hadn’t seemed so short at the time-before word of mouth brought a stream of customers to her door. Though Annie would never be rich, she seemed unlikely to starve. She had made it. She was her own boss, and prospering.
Success had proved infinitely more shocking than failure would have been. Perhaps, she sometimes thought, a guardian angel-one with a firm grasp of accounting principles-was watching over her.
She hoped an angel, or somebody, was watching over Erin right now.
Her assistant, cutting roses and soaking them at a worktable behind the counter, looked up as she came in. “Any news?”
“I’ve got to go back to her apartment. A police detective is meeting me there.”
“A detective…”
“Yeah, well, I thought it was time to get the professionals involved. Look, I’m sorry you had to handle Mrs. Garcia on your own.”
“She’s not so bad. Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s already three forty-five. I’ll be involved with this for the rest of the day. Why don’t we close up now, and you can deliver the centerpiece to Antonio’s?”
“Antonio’s doesn’t need it till seven. I’ll close the shop at six-thirty, as usual, and drop it off on my way home.”
She was touched. “You don’t have to do all that. I mean, it’s beyond the call of duty and everything.”
“Just leave me the keys and get going. You’ve got more important things to do than talk to me.”
“Well… okay.” She dropped the key ring on the counter. “Look, if any other local deliveries come up, use the messenger service. It’s better than leaving the place unattended.”
“I know, I know.”
“And if Euro-Flora calls again, tell them I double-checked the invoice, and I did order tulips.”
“Right.”
She hesitated. “You’re sure it’s no problem, running the store by yourself?”
“It’s a flower shop, Annie. Not a nuclear reactor. Now go.”
“I appreciate this. Really.”
As she was turning to leave, he said softly, “She’ll be okay. You’ll see.”
Caring words. She smiled at him.
“Thank you, Harold. Really. Thank you so much.”
He nodded, but he did not smile in answer.
That was the funny thing about her assistant.
Harold Gund never smiled.
18
Michael Walker hated cases like this.
He glanced at Annie Reilly, standing stiffly at his side in the elevator of the Pantano Fountains, watching the numbers change. He had a good idea of what he would be required to tell her before long.
In his thirteen years with the Tucson P.D., first as a young uniformed cop fresh from college, then as a detective working robbery-homicide, Walker had fielded countless missing-person reports. He knew every step of the dance he and Annie were in the midst of performing… and how that dance would end.
He only hoped she would understand. The barely controlled anxiety that had frozen her in a pose of unnatural rigidity was not cause for optimism.
Unobtrusively he studied Annie’s reflection on the polished inner doors of the elevator. She was slender and petite, her skin glowing with a light suntan. A pale green dress accented her eyes and made a pleasing contrast with her loose red hair.
Standing beside her in the reflected image was a man in a brown, slightly rumpled suit jacket and a crooked gray tie, a man with close-cropped sandy hair the color of desert soil.
People told Michael Walker he looked like a native Arizonan, a true desert rat. He was long-boned and lean, and he moved with unhurried ease. His face was carved into the flat planes and sharp angles of a movie cowboy’s classic features, the skin stretched drum-head-tight over the bones. His unconscious tendency to squint produced a cluster of faint creases at the corners of his eyes.
Though he shaved every morning, by midday a shadow of beard stubble invariably would emerge, becoming obvious by late afternoon. Once aware of this, he had bought a cordless shaver, which he stowed in his desk or car, but on busy days like today, he found no opportunity to use it.
A cowhand, folks thought when they took note of his lanky form and narrowed eyes. One of the originals. Last of a dying breed.
Untrue. He was no great outdoorsman. Didn’t even like the desert’s summer heat and dryness, tolerated those conditions purely for the sake of the comfortable winters. Born and raised in Chicago, he had suffered through his share of ice storms and blizzards. His intention was never to shovel snow again.