steps sounded on the other side of the door before Rio opened it and strode into the room. A smarter woman wouldn’t have looked at him, but Kayla allowed herself a good long glance at the man she’d been unable to shake from her memory. She told herself it was the shock, not desire.
Rio.
It would be so much simpler if she hadn’t slept with him. If she didn’t know the passion beneath that rock-solid cop exterior. And he might be her only chance at proving she had nothing to do with this murder.
Rio was the one man she’d even considered starting a serious relationship with in years, until she realized how dangerous his occupation was. She’d dated a cop before, but with no intention of making it anything more than casual. Cops weren’t available to her. Too risky. They could be killed. She’d had enough loss in her life. Being involved with someone she couldn’t count on around-the-clock didn’t appeal to her.
He lied to you.
He hadn’t lied, really. Just left out one little fact about himself until it was too late for it to be an innocent oversight. If he didn’t trust her with his real life from the get-go, she wanted no part of it.
“Here.” He set a take-out latte in front of her. The sweet almond smell made her groan. He grinned.
“I thought you’d appreciate it about now. I’m sorry you’ve had to wait for so long.” He took the chair opposite her.
“Sure you are.” She wasn’t going to refuse the drink, however, and enjoyed several sips before she spoke again. “Thank you for the coffee. Let me guess, you need me to go over everything I’ve already told Officers Ogden and Miller?”
“No, you’ve given your official statement. I need you to dig a little deeper and think about your clientele. How many new customers have you had in the past few weeks?”
“You mean since the new mayor was installed?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of her tone. Rio’s lips twitched. It would be so easy to reach over and make him smile.
Would have been, if they were still seeing each other. She really needed to get a grip. They’d barely dated. It had been more like a mutual lust-satisfaction gig. An arrangement Rio appeared to have forgotten.
“Since whenever. Anyone stick out, anyone seem strange, out of place in Silver Valley?”
She shook her head. “It’s one of my busiest times of year, between Passover, Easter and springtime in general. Not as busy as Christmas, but it gets close to the same volume over the month. I can’t always tell which new customers will stay and which ones are simply buying their bouquets for the season. But no one struck me as odd.”
“What about your regular and special event contracts? You mentioned the current mayor is a regular customer?”
“The previous mayor is no longer on my regular list, of course, but yes, the new mayor picked up where she left off. Actually, his wife, Gloria, is the one who does the ordering.” Ex-mayor Amelia Donner had started the tradition of keeping fresh flowers in the office while she was mayor and had extended it to her home. But these days Amelia Donner had no money for anything but her legal defense. “I do occasionally drop off some fresh flowers to Amelia.”
“That’s nice of you.”
Kayla blushed. The latte warmed her fingers and she clung to the paper cup, wanting to drink more but not wanting to lose the source of comfort, afraid that her hands might still shake.
She risked a look at Rio, who remained his usual gorgeous self-contained “I am a detective, damn it” self. There was that flicker of light in his deep brown eyes, the flicker she missed. A lot.
He waited for her to think some more, remember something he could use. This was how Rio operated. As if he had all the time in the world. As if she was the only person he cared about.
“Gloria Charbonneau orders flowers fairly regularly for the same types of affairs as Mayor Donner did. But...” She took a large gulp of her drink.
“Go on.”
“She isn’t the friendliest person. She has very expensive taste and never wants the stems I have on hand. I have to go to the Port of Baltimore or Philadelphia for her requests and get the flowers fresh. I even had to go into New York once. I was surprised when she called about flowers for this wedding only because she’s a careful planner, from my brief association with her. She doesn’t do anything short-notice if she can help it.”
“The wedding is a surprise from what you’ve said. And that corroborates the statements we’ve taken from the owner of the Weddings and More Barn.”
“Yes, definitely short-notice. And I’ve never met her daughter, Cynthia. If she’s anything like Gloria, the next week is going to be a rough one. Gloria is a perfectionist, to say the least. You should be interviewing her, though, not me. I’m only the florist.”
Rio’s eyes lit up and his dimples, surprising in his masculine face, made Kayla smile.
“For being ‘only the florist’ you seem to get yourself in the middle of a lot of activity, Kayla.”
“Spare me the official mumbo jumbo, Rio. You know me. You know it’s all coincidence. It’s a small town, and even if there are twenty thousand citizens of Silver Valley, there are only three other florists besides me, along with several more in the Harrisburg area. We each offer a different type of service.” She shrugged, ready to be done. “You’ve taken my statements, and you know where I live. I’m not a flight risk. It’s after midnight and my day starts in four hours with delivery preps for the local churches. May I go?”
He held her gaze long enough for her to see her emotions echoed in his expression. Feelings she had no desire to address, not at half-past midnight on a work night. On a night she’d witnessed a murder. On any night since they’d last been together as a couple.
“Yes, you can go. First let me make something very clear. While I’m confident we’ll clear you of any suspicious activities, that doesn’t mean this is over. We have a murderer out there, someone who probably knew the victim. That means a local, and that means you could be on his radar. Your van was in full view. We’re going to keep a close eye on you. Extra patrols past your shop at opening and closing, and by your home in the evenings. Don’t be alarmed, we’re just doing our job. But I would like you to stay quiet about what you saw last night. Don’t volunteer to anyone that you were there—we told the owner of the Weddings and More Barn that it was a local who called in the report but we didn’t say you were there. For all he knows, you drove up after the SVPD units arrived and went home.”
“Sure, no problem.” It wasn’t something she wanted to discuss with anyone. “I’m telling you, the criminal never saw me or my van. Even if he made out the van down the drive, it was too dark and too far away to see the logo. I’m not concerned.”
“It’s not your decision whether or not we’re concerned about your safety, Kayla. That’s up to SVPD and we keep the people of Silver Valley safe.”
“Tell that to Meredith Houseman.”
His nostrils flared and in another place or situation she might have giggled. Instead immediate remorse made her angry at herself.
“I’m sorry, Rio. That was horrible of me to say. I know you would have done anything to save her.” She knew that was true.
Rio said nothing as he yanked open the door.
“Officer Ogden, show Ms. Paruso out.” His order was sharp and she didn’t expect him to say another word to her.
But he turned back to her and nodded.
“We’re not done, Kayla. Expect to see more of me.”
Kayla opened the shop