Page 80 of Ghost Ribbon

I put the phone on speaker and walked toward the bathroom, setting it near the sink.

“What did you do?”

“Nothing,” Dimitri said. “Yet.”

“That isn’t reassuring.”

“I need help.”

“No, you need medication.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

He ignored that, which was typical. “Just get here.”

“Why.”

Another pause. “I’m building Rei a garden.”

I lowered my hands from my face and looked at my reflection in the mirror. “You’re what?”

“A garden.”

I stared at myself for a moment longer, then reached for a towel. “Say that again.”

“I’m building Rei a garden,” Dimitri repeated, slower this time, as if I were the stupid one in this conversation. “A real one. The whole thing.”

“Hire someone.”

“No.”

“You own enough land to employ professional gardeners.”

“I don’t want a gardener.”

“Clearly.”

“I want to do it myself.”

That was when I knew my morning was ruined.

By the time I arrived behind Dimitri’s mansion, the situation had somehow become even stupider than I expected.

There were bags of premium soil stacked in rows. Exotic plants sat in black nursery pots all over the grass. Flower trays crowded the stone path in splashes of blue, pink, white, and violent purple. Several gardening tools had been dumped in a heap.

And standing in the middle of it all, wearing black sweatpants, was Dimitri.

He shoved a shovel into my chest the moment I approached.

“Is this a joke?”

“No,” Dimitri said. “Dig.”

I said nothing for a long moment. I would have understood if he had asked us to dig a six-foot hole to bury a body. That was standard. Routine. Even respectable. But this? We were deep behind his mansion, and Dimitri wanted to play gardener. I stared at him, completely deadpan, my eyes unimpressed. “You could hire a gardener.”

Dimitri crossed his arms, looking deeply offended. “I don’t want a gardener. I want to do it myself.”