LITMIR.BIZ

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a kidney to get up here, and I’m police.”

      “That stops the invader at the gate, maybe.” I kept my voice low. “But it doesn’t do much for someone who badges their way up here and then sits in one of those zoo-cage offices, waiting for a chance to go to town on her with a stapler or a letter opener.”

      Ben slid me a look, shook his head. “Zoo-cage offices? Stapler?”

      “Yeah, I said it. You were thinking it, don’t lie, and yeah, a stapler, or something worse. What kind of flowers, anyway? Roses?”

      “You’d think, but nah. Last ones, the way Chandler described them, sounded like marigolds. Lovesick fan, likely.”

      I pulled a face. “Dear Bitch? Nuh-uh.” But it got me thinking about the flowers. Marigolds. Who sends a rich, prominent woman used to the finer things a bunch of marigolds? Go big or go home, right?

      We’d both had cases in which flowers and words of love had given way to bruises, fat lips, and shots fired. Frustration levels escalated when someone thought they hadn’t gotten the response they felt they deserved. I love you. Why don’t you love me? If I can’t have you, nobody can. She made me kill her! I told her I loved her! A lot of pain and agony had been meted out in the name of love, or whatever.

      “Letters, flowers, calls. That’s a campaign,” I said. “An assault.”

      “Just protection,” Ben said. “If she wants more, she knows where to go to get it. Till then, simple, easy, low key.”

      “Dumb, shortsighted, dangerous. They could have tried tracking the flowers. Was there a florist’s name on any of the deliveries? The name of a delivery service? We’ll never know. Why? Because they tossed the flowers away. I know this is bothering you, too. We weren’t trained to just shoo people away like flies.”

      Ben inhaled deep, then let the air hiss out slow. “I’m committed to maintaining the safety bubble.”

      “Safety bubble? Jeez. You are literally killing me by degrees here.”

      “Less Wonder Woman, more statue, all right?”

      I sneered at him, but stood there quietly, waiting on the door. I peered down the now empty hall, as if the one who had sent the flowers, the one who had written the notes, would be standing there, waving his hands, waiting to be apprehended.

      “This is stupid.”

      “Breathe,” Ben said.

      “I’m breathing, but you knew who I was when you asked me to do this. And Wonder Woman, my ass.”

      He smiled. “I figured you could rein it in.”

      “Oh, I can rein it in, but it’s still stupid.” I pulled in a calm breath. Statue. Safety bubble. Fine. “You’re familiar with marigolds, are you?”

      He cleared his throat. “I took up gardening. Wanna make something of it?”

      “It’s just you never mentioned it.”

      He fiddled nervously with his tie. “Didn’t think it needed a news flash . . . It’s a legit hobby.”

      I kept my eyes straight ahead, on the glossy wood door with Vonda Allen’s name written on it in gold letters. “I know.”

      Ben checked his watch, getting antsy. “Guys garden.”

      “They certainly do.”

      “A lot of cops, too.”

      “And why wouldn’t they? I do a little bit of it myself.”

      Ben turned to face me. “You’re going to give me shit about this, aren’t you?”

      I grinned back. “Oh, yeah.”

      Just then Allen’s door swung open, and an angry black man elbowed past us, his eyes wild with an outrage he’d obviously been forced to choke down.

      “Psychopathic witch,” he spat out as he barreled past. Ben and I turned to watch as he stomped down the hall and disappeared into one of the offices, then slammed the door behind him, rattling the glass. Whoever he was, he certainly looked angry enough to have written a threatening note.

      I looked at Ben.

      “Maintain the bubble,” he muttered. “And breathe.”

      “Enter!” the voice inside the office bellowed. “Shut the door behind you.”

      Chandler swung in from behind us and elbowed through. Where’d she come from?

      Ben stepped forward, whispered, “Keep an open mind.”

      “Open mind about . . .”

      And that was when I got my first glimpse of Allen’s inner sanctum and nearly gagged on astonishment. Everything—chairs, sofas, chaise lounge—was covered in butterscotch leather. Bold art hung in gilded frames from walls papered in artisan fabric the color of tomato bisque, and the carpet was so deep, the heels of my shoes nearly disappeared in the pile. I glanced around, looking for the other twenty people the space could easily accommodate, but Allen was all by her lonesome. There were plants everywhere: lush, green palm-looking things sprouting from terra-cotta urns the size of Humvee tires. I felt like I’d just walked into a desert oasis. This was opulence on steroids.

      Allen’s desk was a grand slab of tawny marble, but there was little on it, just a phone, an iPhone in a gold case, and one half stack of pink paper. Pink, from all reports, was her signature color. Framed photographs of Allen posing with important people—celebrities, the mayor, sports figures—sat on a credenza along the wall. Included in the array, one of a very well connected, very married senator, Robert Devin, with whom Allen was rumored to have had a relationship prior to his untimely death. I had got that tidbit from one of the gossip rags on display near the register at the CVS near my apartment at the time. In short, Allen was a woman with a lot of pull and a lot of juice, and she wasn’t a bit shy about letting everybody know it.

      She sat poised in a throne-like chair that swiveled without squeaking, her arms regally placed on the armrests. The woman’s picture had been taken easily a million times, and as we stood in front of her now, she looked the same as if she’d primped all day for a Vogue photo shoot. She was slender but not overly so for a woman in her early fifties, her eyebrows were expertly arched, and her lipstick was flawless. The professional makeup job enhanced an average attractiveness, but the swish of auburn highlights in her dark hair added a little bit more. Allen literally looked like a million bucks.

      She didn’t bother to stand up. “Detective Mickerson. Come in. Have a seat.”

      Her smile revealed a mouthful of high-end dental work, but the smile felt oily, reptilian, as though it was something she tossed out there just because she was expected to, not because she felt it. She wore a lavender linen dress with three-quarter sleeves, and a double strand of flawless pearls hung from her neck. Her nail polish matched the dress, each long, tapered finger manicured within an inch of its life.

      “Kaye, I won’t need you for this. Touch base with Suzette about the hospital gala, and then print out my updated schedule and send it to my phone. I’ll take a cappuccino.”

      Chandler’s face fell, and she held herself there at the door for a moment, the sting of the rude dismissal, the orders, showing on her face. She and Allen exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher.

      “That’s all, Kaye.”

      Chandler quietly eased out of the room.

      Allen leaned forward to read from a piece of paper in front of her. “So, this is the private detective you have for me? Cassandra Raines.” She didn’t bother coming in for a welcoming handshake. I guessed queens didn’t do that sort of thing. “And you’re on time. Good. If you’d been late, even a minute, you wouldn’t be standing there now.” She glanced at her platinum watch—two thousand dollars, easy. Bling squared.

      Ben and I took seats in chairs angled in front of Allen’s desk.

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