Moss Hysteria

PRAISE FOR THE
NEW YORK TIMES
BESTSELLING FLOWER SHOP MYSTERIES

“One of my favorite mystery series.”

—Kate Carlisle,
New York Times
bestselling author of the Bibliophile Mysteries

“The Flower Shop Mystery series stays fresh and keeps getting better.”

—
RT Book Reviews

“Kate Collins never fails to deliver a spectacular story.”

—Lorna Barrett,
New York Times
bestselling author of the Booktown Mysteries

“A nimble, well-crafted plot with forget-me-not characters.”

—Laura Childs,
New York Times
bestselling author of the Tea Shop Mysteries

“Kate Collins has played a major role in shaping the offshoot of the ‘cozy' mystery into a growing entity of its own, the romantic mystery. I, for one, am grateful.”

—Once Upon a Romance

“Colorful characters, a sharp and funny heroine, and a sexy hunk boyfriend.”

—Maggie Sefton, national bestselling author of the Knitting Mysteries

“Always an autobuy for me!”

—Julie Hyzy,
New York Times
bestselling author of the White House Chef Mysteries

“A clever, fast-moving plot and distinctive characters.”

—JoAnna Carl, national bestselling author of the Chocoholic Mysteries

“As fresh as a daisy, with a bouquet of irresistible characters.”

—Elaine Viets, national bestselling author of the Dead-End Job Mysteries

Other Flower Shop Mysteries

Mum's the Word

Slay It with Flowers

Dearly Depotted

Snipped in the Bud

Acts of Violets

A Rose from the Dead

Shoots to Kill

Evil in Carnations

Sleeping with Anemone

Dirty Rotten Tendrils

Night of the Living Dandelion

To Catch a Leaf

Nightshade on Elm Street

Seed No Evil

Throw in the Trowel

A Root Awakening

Florist Grump

OBSIDIAN

Published by New American Library,

an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

This book is an original publication of New American Library.

Copyright © Linda Tsoutsouris, 2016

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penguin.com
.

eBook ISBN: 978-0-698-18509-8

PUBLISHER'S NOTE

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To all of us who suffer adversity and, like Abby Knight, rise from the ashes and forge on.

To all of us dreamers who, like Abby Knight, believe in our visions and see them come to be.

To all of us romantics who, like Abby Knight, really do find our heroes.

As always, to my soul mate, Jim, whose love reaches through all eternity.

Sunday

“M
arco, would you get the door, please?”

I waited for a response, but my request was met by silence. The doorbell pealed again, so I stopped unwrapping our mismatched wineglasses to call, “Marco? Where'd you go?”

He didn't answer—he was probably taking our dog, Seedy, to the backyard—so I stepped around the pile of crumpled newspaper in the kitchen and hurried to the front hallway. It was currently the only area in our brand-new two-bedroom ranch that wasn't cluttered with boxes. My nose itched from chemical overload—new carpet fibers, wood floor stain, paint, and draperies—so I paused to give it a good rub.

I opened the door to find nine women on my porch. They were lined up like bowling pins, the ones in front bearing casserole dishes, the ones in the rear leaning out for a better look. The kingpin of this merry band was forty-five-ish, with long blond hair that swept over one eye and fell in bouncy curls past her shoulders. She wore an off-the-shoulder white pullover with a tight gold miniskirt and knee-high white boots, an outfit that would better suit my fourteen-year-old niece
,
Tara. Heavy gold hoops swung from her ears as she tossed her hair away from her eyes.

“Hi, I'm Mitzi Kole,” she said in a perky soprano. “We're the Brandywine Babes Book Club, more commonly known as the Bees. We all want to say”—she inhaled loudly and then the whole group chorused with her—“welcome to Brandywine.”

“Wow. Thank you.” I pushed back the sleeves of my paint-splattered yellow sweatshirt and stretched out my hands to accept Mitzi's dish, only then noticing the black newsprint on my fingers that was undoubtedly all over my nose.

“We also want to invite you to our book . . .” Mitzi stopped, her fake black eyelashes fluttering madly as she focused on something behind me. Her fellow ninepins leaned out farther.

I glanced around to see Marco coming toward the door wiping his perspiring face with a towel, ruffling his wavy dark hair in the process. We'd been unpacking since early morning and he hadn't shaved, a look I found sexy. Judging by the ogling going on, as nine pairs of eyes swept down his well-muscled torso, taking in his short-sleeved navy T-shirt and snug-fitting blue jeans, so did the Bees.

“As I was saying,” Mitzi said, having suddenly developed a throaty alto, “we'd like to invite you
and
your husband to our book club Wednesday evening.” She reached around me to offer a dainty hand to Marco. “Hi, I'm Mitzi Kole, the president of the club. I live two doors down.” She tossed her hair. “Our backyards nearly
touch.
”

Marco wiped his hands on the towel then gave her hand a polite shake. “Marco Salvare. Nice to meet you.” He nodded at the rest of the group. “Ladies.”

Sidestepping me, Mitzi moved in front of him and said in a sultry voice, “I
do
hope you'll come Wednesday, Marco. We'd
love
for you to try us on for size.”

More like try
her
on for size.

“That's Abby's department,” Marco said. “She's the social director.”

Mitzi swung around to size me up. “Well, then I'll just have to convince
her.
”

I gave her a polite smile.

“We'll let you get back to unpacking,” Mitzi said to Marco. “It's been a pleasure meeting you—both.” She did an about-face, raised her hand, and on cue the Bees deposited their dishes in my front hall and swarmed back up the sidewalk behind her, buzzing excitedly.

As I turned to go, I noticed my next-door neighbor Theda Coros clipping back the winter-dead branches on her rosebushes. She smiled at me and shook her head as though she found the Bees silly.

“Nice neighbors,” Marco said as we toted casserole dishes to the kitchen. He put his dish in the refrigerator then turned to take mine but instead used the towel he'd thrown over his shoulder to wipe the smudges off my upper lip. “Nice mustache, too, Groucho. Any interest in going to their meeting?”

“I'm thinking about it.” Actually I was thinking about how Mitzi's lascivious glances in my husband's direction would have made me furious when Marco and I were dating. But I knew without a doubt he wouldn't do anything to jeopardize the love and trust we had for each other, so I blew them off. “Where's Seedy?”

“In the backyard. She loves watching the neighbor kids play.”

We'd rescued our little dog the previous fall after I learned she was to be euthanized. No one had wanted Seedy, who aptly fit her name. She was a small, ugly mutt with brown, black, and white fur; an underbite; large butterfly wing ears with tufts on top; and only three legs, but she had the sweetest nature and most loving personality I'd ever encountered.

Before my second visit was over, I had fallen hopelessly in love with her. Seedy had proved to be a wonderful pet and had even kept me from certain death just weeks earlier when Marco and I were tracking down a killer. I couldn't imagine life without her.

We'd barely stuffed the last casserole into the fridge when the doorbell rang again. “I'll get it,” Marco said and strode off.

I opened a box marked
Kitchen
and found it filled with shoes, so I trotted off to our bedroom with it. Both bedrooms and a guest bathroom were off a hallway that ran to the back of the house, with the master at the far end. I put the box on the floor and glanced around, trying to visualize how the room would look when everything had been stowed.

On my way back to the kitchen I stopped to consider the hallway and decided the long expanse of off-white drywall would be the perfect place for our family photos.

“Abby, would you come here, please?”

At the door was a new group of women, this time bearing pies, cakes, cookies, and a bottle of wine. We'd had the Bees. Were these the Birds?

“This is Reagan,” Marco said, introducing the leader of the pack, a pleasant-looking thirty-ish woman. Her conservative navy jacket, jeans, and gym shoes were a sharp contrast to Mitzi Kole's 1980s sex kitten outfit. “Reagan, this is my wife, Abby.”

“Everyone here knows Abby,” Reagan said with a bright smile, “and you, too, Marco. You're the Brandywine celebrities.”

I liked Reagan right off the bat.

“Reagan and her group have a book club, too,” Marco told me, his eyes brimming with amusement. “Books and Bottles.”

“Bottles as in wine,” Reagan said, presenting me with a bottle of red. “I'm sure you and Marco are overwhelmed with all the unpacking, but because you've already been accosted by the Bees, we felt it important that we stop by to welcome you and invite you to
our
meeting. It's Thursday at my place. I live right around the curve in the road, the white house with the yellow shutters.”

Yellow. My favorite color. Another plus in Reagan's column.

“So here.” She took a foil-covered pie from the woman beside her and placed it in Marco's hands. “Think of us when you're having dessert tonight.” As they trooped back up our sidewalk, Reagan called, “Thursday at seven. We serve appetizers and desserts.”

•   •   •

“You should join one of the clubs,” Marco said, as I tried to make room on the crowded kitchen counter for all the sweets. “You're always looking for something to do in the evenings.”

“We'll see.”

“We got lucky deciding to build in this development, Abby.”

I grunted. I was still digesting Mitzi's outrageous come-on toward my husband.

Marco was about to bite into an oatmeal cookie but paused to give me a skeptical look. “You don't agree?”

“I think one of the
Bees
is hoping to get lucky.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Queen bee, Marco: Mitzi Kole. I was appalled by how blatantly she was hitting on you. I hope that's not a sign of things to come. I'd hate to start out life here avoiding a neighbor.”

“Come on, babe, she was just being friendly.”

“Seriously, Marco? Did you just arrive on this planet?”

He pulled me into his arms. “I'm teasing, Sunshine. I've met many Mitzis, and trust me, I know how to deal with them.
Motto.
Be polite and keep my distance. What do you say we take a break? We've been unpacking since five a.m. Let's heat up one of the casseroles and open that bottle of wine.”

I was too exhausted to argue, and it really was nice to have food already prepared. But I'd already made up my mind. If I joined a club, it would not be the Bees.

•   •   •

The weather that April day was mild, so after dinner we took our wine and went outside to sit on the front porch swing. Seedy sat on the porch's top step, one eye on us, one eye on the cars going by. I'd always dreamed of having a cozy little house with a front porch swing and Marco had surprised me by installing one that morning. Now my new husband and I sat side by side, rocking gently, enjoying the stillness of the spring evening.

The chance to be together for an entire weekend was rare, as Marco usually had duties at Down the Hatch Bar and Grill in the evenings. He also owned the Salvare Detective Agency, something he'd dreamed of establishing since his Army Ranger days. But this weekend was special. We'd finally moved out of my parents' house and into our very own honeymoon cottage.

We'd met nearly two years ago, shortly after I'd bought Bloomers Flower Shop, when Marco helped me track down the hit-and-run driver who'd smashed my newly refurbished 1960 yellow Corvette convertible. That case turned out to be connected to a homicide, and after we worked together to pinpoint the killer, my second career was launched. Now I was Marco's partner not only in life but also in his PI business. He liked to call us Team Salvare.

“Am I interrupting?” our next-door neighbor called from her front porch.

“Come over, Theda,” I said. “Have a glass of wine with us.”

Theda had been a great help as our house was going up. Because she'd lived in the development for more than a year and had been one of the first to move in, she knew the ins and outs of the building process and had kept us from making costly mistakes.

In her late sixties, Theda had the strong profile and striking good looks of her Greek heritage. She was a tall woman, large-boned and thick-bodied but not obese, with curly dark hair sprinkled with gray and shrewd brown eyes that didn't miss a detail. She had been widowed a decade ago and had a man friend she saw occasionally.

“I was just about to take my evening stroll,” Theda said. “If you'd like to join me, I'll show you around the neighborhood. We can have that glass of wine afterward if the offer is still open.”

I glanced at Marco. “Want to go?”

“I'll get our jackets.”

We hadn't really had an opportunity to see much of the Brandywine community. Because of our dual occupations, plus the brutal winter snows that had hung on through March, we'd only driven through it. The subdivision was a community of ranch homes developed by Brandon Emmett Thorne. Its streets looped around the park and a large man-made pond before circling back to the main entrance.

All three streets were named after Brandon—Brandonbury, Emmett Lane, and Thorneapple, which Theda said was just one example of Brandon's pomposity. We had met the developer only once, at our closing, but Theda assured me I would reach the same conclusion once I got to know him better.

With Seedy on her leash, we accompanied Theda around the curve of our street to the clubhouse situated near the main entrance to the subdivision. After pointing out various features Theda said, “You've probably seen the park, so let's walk the length of the pond before the sun sets.”

From the clubhouse we followed a path down to the south end of the pond then walked in the grass at the water's edge as we headed north toward our house. The pond was about a city block long, a quarter of that in width and fifteen feet at its deepest point. The pond ended behind her lot, giving her a view of both the water and the park.

“You've got the best location in the neighborhood,” I said, holding tight as Seedy strained on her leash. She'd seen something interesting and seemed determined to explore it. “No, Seedy,” I said, pulling back on the leash. “Too damp and mossy there.”

“You're right about that,” Theda said, stepping down to the shore to prod a mossy section with the toe of her shoe. “We have a problem with it on both ends of the pond, but this end is much worse. The moss was supposed to have been treated last fall, but no one has ever come out to deal with it. Now it's spreading into my lawn.

“And yet I love living here,” she continued. “It's a great community. In fact, sometimes I feel like I live on a movie set. Neatly tended houses, well-kept lawns, our own park, a clubhouse with a fitness center . . .” She paused to stare at something in the water and gave a shuddering gasp. “Oh, my—and a body floating in the pond.”