Death Waxed Over - Tim Myers [60]
“I’ll come back later,” I said, “with flowers of my own next time.”
She shivered, despite the blanket pulled up around her. “Thank you for the thought, but I’d rather have balloons or some magazines. Anything but flowers. Ugh.”
“No flowers,” I promised and left her room. As I walked toward the elevator, I noticed that one of the arrangements Becka had discarded was sitting at the nurses’ station. I wasn’t sure how she’d react when she saw that. I also wasn’t all that sure I wanted to replace the offerings she’d gotten with anything else. It occurred to me that Becka was using the stalking incidents to get closer to me, and I honestly wasn’t interested in reopening that relationship with her. Even if I didn’t have my hands full with the candleshop and the entire River’s Edge complex, Becka and I had broken up for some very good reasons, and none of them had changed.
It was time to stop being her guardian and turn the job over to the police.
I bumped into Vince in the lobby, a vase of flowers in his hand. I said, “If I were you, I’d swap those out for a stuffed animal or something.”
Vince said, “Why, did you already give her flowers?”
“Me? No way, but somebody did, and she thinks they’re from the guy who was stalking her.”
Vince shook his head. “This guy just doesn’t give up, does he? What do the cops have to say about it?”
“She doesn’t want to call them. I tried to convince her they needed to know, but she won’t listen to me. Maybe you’ll have more luck than I did.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know, Becka kind of has a mind of her own.”
“You don’t have to tell me that; we dated, remember? Vince, don’t let her go back to her apartment. Make her go to her sister’s place if you can. She’s got to stop being a target or something a whole lot worse may happen to her.”
“I’ll try.”
I felt better with Vince there watching over her. I just hoped he’d have more luck with her than I had.
Back at the candleshop, I found Eve waiting on a pair of customers in the sheet wax section. She nodded toward me, but I wanted to wait until our customers were gone before I brought up all that had happened. After Eve rang up the sales, she said, “How’s Becka doing?”
“She scraped her face and broke one arm. Other than that, she’s going to be fine. She had quite a scare, though. Somebody shoved her from behind, and she tumbled into the river.”
“Did they find out who pushed her?”
“That’s the thing. Nobody else was around.” I decided to keep my suspicions to myself about Becka’s renewed interest in me. I was sure Eve would have something to say, most likely a crack I didn’t need to hear.
I followed Eve to our office, and she grabbed her sweater off the hook on the door. “Well, you’ve certainly had quite a day, haven’t you?”
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here to help you with the shop. I’ve been an absentee owner lately.”
She shrugged. “Don’t worry about it, you’ll have plenty of time to work this evening. You do remember you’re closing by yourself tonight, right?” We’d worked out a new schedule that reduced Eve’s hours until we could get back on our feet again. Naturally I’d forgotten all about it rushing around Micah’s Ridge.
“Absolutely. Have a nice evening.”
“You, too,” she said. “See you tomorrow afternoon, Harrison.”
“Good night.” After she was gone, I ran a report to see what kind of day she’d had without me. The numbers were better than I had any right to expect. Maybe folks were starting to forget that scathing article in the newspaper about me. It was amazing how much dirt they’d thrown at me based on one hysterical woman’s delusions. I guessed it all depended on who the hysterical woman was, or more importantly in this case, who she was married to.
I got a phone call as I was helping a customer with a candlemaking kit for her mother’s birthday. I hated to answer the telephone when I was with someone, because I figured if a customer took the trouble to come to the shop, they deserved preferential treatment over someone who just called.
“At Wick’s End, can you hold, please?”
“Harrison, it’s Jubal Grant at the candleshop.