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“Ok. What else can you tell me about it?”
I close my eyes and picture the envelope and small white card. “Nothing. That’s all it said. There was no signature or florist logo on the card or envelope.”
“What do you think the message means?” Bastien asks.
My heart lurches, and my ears ring, but I still can’t come up with any ideas. My voice trembles when I answer, “I don’t know. I thought you’d sent it.”
“Hey. Breathe, Birdie,” Bastien croons. “You’re safe. No one can get to you inside the compound. First thing in the morning, I’ll call Frank. He’ll access the gate logs and get me some information on the delivery driver.”
“I can do it tonight,” I rush to say. “Just… please don’t hang up.”
“I’m not going anywhere, but you do not have to do this right now.”
Abandoning my sandwich, I race barefoot to my office upstairs. “You know by now that if I don’t, I won’t sleep.”
My ungraceful footsteps are loud in the stairwell, and soon, so is my breathing. “You don’t have to run, Birdie. Slow down and take some deep breaths.”
I don’t slow down, and I’m already sucking as much wind as I can get. A funny thought occurs to me about what might happen if security spots me racing through the hallways of the executive floor. Dismissing the concern, I lift shaking fingers to the code panel at my office door.
The lights come on automatically, illuminating the large flower arrangement still on my desk. They’re no longer beautiful but a bad omen, and I want them gone.
I power up my computer, and, so I’ll have both my hands free, I pop in my Bluetooth earbuds and get to work. My fingers fly across the keyboard until I get what I need from our security server. “Gate security logged the delivery van as belonging to Stem and Petal. They accepted delivery instead of allowing the driver entry, which I already knew.”
“Good. The gate guys did what they were supposed to do. What about footage?”
“I’m pulling it up now.”
I find the right feed and advance the video to the time shown on the security log. The van comes into view right when it’s supposed to be there. “I got the van.”
“Great. That means we’re one step closer.”
I cycle through the footage until the van leaves, then check the footage from another camera, showing a different angle. As I’m scanning, I work through my next steps out loud. “Just to be thorough, I’ll run the tag and also get into the florist’s system.”
Bastien voices his approval, and before long, I forget he’s still in my ear. “Dammit.”
“What? What is it?”
“The delivery van is an old, converted mail truck. The driver is on the right, so the camera never gets a good look.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Bastien says. “We know who the florist is. Finding the driver isn’t important. We want the customer.”
I find a good shot of the delivery van tag, talking myself through the process, something I’ve always done. “Ok. The van registration checks out. The florist is a little mom-and-pop shop in Virginia Beach.”
After several more minutes of not-quite-legal searching, I learn the shop has an online point-of-sale account but nothing else. “Shit. They don’t even take online orders.”
A few minutes pass, bringing more bad news. “If these guys have security cameras, they feed to an offline system. I can’t find what I need without asking them directly.”
“Not a problem. Since they’re not a franchise, we won’t have to worry about corporate red tape. We’ll be able to get what we need from them over the phone tomorrow. You’ve taken this as far as it can go tonight. You should try to get some rest.”
“Not yet. I can check cameras from other businesses in the area from today and a few days prior. Maybe one has a view of the florist.”
“Birdie.”
“If not, I’ll try traffic cams. Maybe I’ll spot the blue car. If nothing else, I might be able to get shots of people coming and going to see if I recognize anyone.”
“Birdie, listen to me!”
Bastien’s voice cuts through the noise in my head, but he doesn’t get it. “Please don’t ask me to stop. I’ve already given up my life because of one monster. I don’t want another to take what little sanity I have left.”
