Page 19 of Blood and Buttercups

“We’ll do everything we can to find the person who did this,” he says reassuringly. “I promise.”

I nod, not sure what else there is to say.

About twenty minutes later, he pulls into my drive. As I’m getting out, he hands me a contact card. “Call me if you think of anything that might help with the investigation.”

“Okay.”

He flashes me a smile. “You can call me even if you don’t think of something that will help.”

I should probably take it as a major compliment that he’s flirting with me when I look like this, especially when I’m a person of interest in my ex’s suicide case, but I’m still feeling sick, so I’m just trying not to embarrass myself.

“Thanks,” I murmur.

He pulls out of my drive with a friendly wave, and I stumble to the house. After I flop onto the couch, I check my phone andfind about fifty texts and twenty missed calls—all from Olivia and Max.

I call Olivia first. “Hey,” I say as soon as she answers. “I have a delivery scheduled for Bluebird Floral today at three. Can you take care of it for me?”

“Seriously?” she huffs. “That’s what you have to say to me after you sent that text?”

“I’m fine. They got my alibi and let me go. I’m supposed to call them if I think of something that might help the investigation.”

“What are they investigating?”

I lean my head against the back of the couch, letting myself feel something for the first time since the officer ended up at my door. Tears sting my eyes, and I don’t try to hold them back this time. “Kevin’s dead. They think someone murdered him.”

5

ONE MONTH LATER

I’m prettysure I’m dying.

I’ve lost about ten pounds, I can’t keep anything down, and if I forget to slather myself in SPF eight billion, I burn up in ten minutes.

I stumble out of the bathroom, gratefully accepting the water Olivia hands me. My nausea has progressively gotten worse in the last few days, and I finally called her to admit something is wrong. I’ve barely made it through the last month. If my grandpa hadn’t installed an automatic drip system into my flower garden for me, I doubt anything would be alive to sell.

And forget the landscape plants. Weeds have taken over. All the flowers in the containers out front are dead, and the ones in the ground desperately need tending.

Grandma would have heart failure if she saw it.

Olivia flashes me a sympathetic look and holds up a pregnancy test. “I think it’s time you take this.”

I give her an incredulous look. “I can’t be pregnant.”

“I get it, you’re careful. But accidents happen.”

“No,” I mutter. “I mean, Ican’t be pregnant. Kevin and I never…”

Her mouth drops open. “Are you serious?”

“I can’t believe you have to ask. Do you know me at all?”

After one awkward near-mistake in college, I decided I’m waiting. I know it’s not really the thing to do these days, but what can I say? I’ve always been a bit of a rebel.

“Besides, I’ve never heard of pregnant women having intense reactions to the sun,” I point out.

“If you’re not pregnant, you need to call your doctor.” Olivia tosses the test on the couch. “Something is wrong.”

She’s right, and there’s no way I can put it off any longer. I curl up on the couch, pulling my legs up as I slump next to the armrest, and make the call.

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