Page 25 of Viper

She was scheduled to make a delivery to Porter Grant’s house in a couple of hours, so at least I’d see her then. And the longer I didn’t hear from her, the higher her number of spankings became. She wouldn’t be able to sit tomorrow.

Even with my focus split, I managed to close the deal. We shook on it, then I hopped in my truck and broke every speed record on the way to Grant’s house.

Rhiannon was due with my delivery fifteen minutes after I arrived. She was never late, so as the minutes ticked by, worry began to squeeze my chest. When one of Harvey’s regular delivery guys pulled up, the feeling that something was very wrong intensified.

Finally, I called Harvey.

“In Bloom,” he answered.

“It’s Viper. Rhiannon isn’t answering her phone, can I talk to her?”

Harvey was silent for a few beats, then he took a long breath. “She’s…she's not here. I assumed she was with you. She mentioned you’d be getting in late, so I told her to take the day off. As usual, she said no, but when she didn’t come in, I figured you’d convinced her to stay home.”

The pressure was cutting off my air supply, so my voice sounded choked, when I asked, “When was the last time you saw her?”

“Yesterday afternoon. After she got your flowers, she left to do two small deliveries before going home.”

“The flowers…” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. “I didn’t send them. She didn’t tell you?”

“She assumed they were from you, but I wasn’t sure when I noticed the card hadn’t been signed. I didn’t want to worry Rhiannon if there wasn’t a reason for it, so I looked through the video feed. They were delivered from a shop in the next town, who took the order over the phone. I figured they had to be from you.”

“No.” I opened my eyes and stalked toward my truck. “Think, Harvey,” I growled. “Think back over the past few months. Was there anything, no matter how small, that was different or stood out to you? Even for just a moment.”

“No, I can’t think…wait.”

I hopped into the cab of my truck and slammed the door shut. “What?” I snapped. I was vaguely aware that I was being unnecessarily harsh, but the fear clouding my mind had taken over, and I didn’t give a fuck.

I started the truck and headed away from the house while he answered. “It didn’t seem significant at the time, but…well, over the past several months, some of our orders from a distributor were incorrect.”

“Incorrect how?”

“Extra flowers mostly. They never wanted them back, so we sold them at a discounted price. Most of them weren’t worth selling because of the time of year.”

Those panolas she’d mentioned to me must’ve been one of those mistakes. “Did they give you an idea of why it kept happening?”

“They blamed it on an incompetent employee, but it did seem odd to me that they would keep letting them make the same mistake without taking them off my account.”

I pulled onto the compound and headed straight for the clubhouse, driving like a bat outta hell. “Was there anything,anything, that these extra plants had in common?”

After parking, I sat in the truck while I finished my call.

“Now that I think about it, they were all purple in some way. And several of them were flowers that Rhiannon had ordered herself.”

“Thanks, Harvey. Send me the footage you have,” I demanded. I didn’t bother asking for his paperwork since I knew Deviant would easily access it. “Let me know if you hear from her.”

“I will. Oh, Viper?”

“Yeah?” I climbed out of the truck and Harvey’s next words had me frozen on her feet.

“Her friend called this morning looking for her.”

Son of a bitch.

After ending my call with Harvey, the weight on my chest made it nearly impossible to breathe. My instincts were screaming that Rhiannon had been taken.

I stalked into the lounge, shouting for Deviant.

“Deviant!”

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