It was a relief to be in the flower delivery van by herself. Molly didn’t even turn on music or a podcast on the way to the police station. She needed the quiet after the busyness of the morning and the buzzing of the weird lunch.
While she drove, Molly considered why she felt so safe at the garden center. It was actually the only place she’d ever worked, other than the campus coffee shop in college. Molly had worked a few hours a week with Grandma Patty and Grandpa Will at the garden center during high school, while May had gotten a job at their local library shelving books. Grandma Patty shared her interest in flowers and gardening with both twins and Shannon at an early age, but Molly’s passion grew stronger than the other girls’. Molly attended the Ohio State University Agricultural Technical Institute and majored in horticulture. May went to the nearby Ohio State University campus and majored in accounting and then got a job at a local tax service firm two towns over from Hawthorn Heights. Molly couldn’t understand May’s love of numbers.
After college, Molly never even considered working anywhere besides the garden center and just started right back where she left off with Grandma at Patty’s Plant Place. Grandpa had died while the twins were in college, which was hard on all of them. It felt wonderful to help Grandma with the shop in his absence. Molly was the one who started selling the living flower arrangements, and Grandma loved them. When Grandma died six years ago, May came to work at the shop too and was glad for fewer hours so she could stay home with her kids more. And so the garden center was like a second home. Molly missed her grandma, but she still saw her fingerprints and influence throughout the shop, especially the name, of course.
A half hour later, Molly was in the police station parking lot. She flipped the rose-gold hoop earring around in her fingers again. Was it Shannon’s? Should she turn it in? Would it get Shannon in trouble? Where was Shannon? Molly sat a while in indecision in the van’s air-conditioning and finally hit Shannon’s number on her phone screen to call her. No answer. She waited for the voicemail greeting to play. She almost hung up.
“Uh, hey, Shannon. It’s Molly. Just wanted to check in about the stuff that happened yesterday on the trail. You probably heard about the hiker that went missing. He was in the shop a bit before the bridge was reported, um, broken. We were all questioned by the police. Me and Theo and Charlotte, anyway. Just wanted to make sure you knew.” And she clicked off. That wasn’t what she meant to say at all.
She flipped the earring around some more. It really looked like the pair she knew Shannon was wearing the day before. Molly decided to go the route of less confrontation but still see if she could find an answer about it. She took a picture of the earring in her hand and made sure that the van’s interior was cropped out of the view. She didn’t know why she didn’t want Shannon to know she was in the van, but she definitely didn’t want Shannon to know she was in the parking lot of the police station.
“Forgot to say in my message: found this earring and thought it might be yours?” She texted Shannon with the picture. That would do it. No mention of the trail. No mention of Trevor. No accusation. It kind of sounded like she may have found it in the shop. And she didn’t actually have to talk to Shannon. This was better. Shannon would probably respond if she was missing the earring and not ignore her as she had so far. If she wasn’t missing herself, that was.
Molly decided that she’d deliver the earring after the flowers. That would give Shannon some time to reply, and if she hadn’t in a few hours, then Molly would turn it in to the police. She plopped the earring in the cup holder of the van and threw the gear into reverse.
With her foot still on the brake and her hand still on the gearshift, she paused. Oh. Except now Shannon would know that it was Molly who gave the earring to the police. No more anonymity, like Joe had said. Molly put the van back in park and put her hand to her forehead and leaned on it. She really should have thought about this longer. Why was her relationship with her cousin so complicated? Now she’d just have to wait for Shannon to reply. If it was hers, she’d return the earring, but if Shannon didn’t claim it, then Molly would give it to the police. She wouldn’t know if Shannon was lying or not, but at least she had tried. It was better this way.
Back at the shop, May was extremely interested in all the new products and vendors Molly could report about, but knew that she needed to collect the living arrangement and head out to deliver it on time. They only talked briefly before Molly hopped back in the van, the plants well tethered in the back.
Still no response from Shannon as Molly and the grouping of flowers and succulents traveled to a neighboring town, Oakville Heights.
When making flower or plant deliveries, Patty’s Plant Place staff always wore a branded yellow-and-blue hat to look more official. The staff members had magnetic nametags that they wore in the shop, but they weren’t strict about wearing them all the time. Grandma Patty and Grandpa Will always asked employees wear navy blue aprons but Molly found hers so uncomfortable, and did away with them after Grandma Patty passed. For deliveries, Molly just kept a few hats in the van, and it worked. As it was, Molly made most of the deliveries.
Molly found the address easily enough, but she couldn’t see the house from the road, only a winding driveway with a gate. It must be a pain to pull the recycling and trash bins to the curb, Molly thought. They’d probably have to use a golf cart or something.
She donned her hat, and continued up the driveway in the van. As Molly rounded the last curve in the drive, her mouth fell open, and she slowed to a stop.
The home was immense, with arches everywhere. There were tall gray stone arches supporting the roof of the front porch, or whatever word you’d use to describe the entrance to such a stately house. The gray arches repeated above doorway-size windows on both sides of the house, eight of them on each side. There was no telling how many rooms the windows represented. Arch after arch of wisteria ran along a garden winding from the south side of the home as well, and the house itself arched out of a hillside. It didn’t have a steep roof but an arched roof, rounded at the top.
She hoped that her succulent and flower arrangement would be fancy enough for people who lived in such a richly designed and ornate house. Violas and pathos, even when paired with trendy succulents, might seem too simple in such a formal setting. She finished her crawl up the rest of the driveway and parked right in front of the ever-so-fancy front “porch.” Would a butler answer the door?
Molly could see the doorbell camera and did her best not to look directly at it as she waited for someone to answer. A cheery woman greeted her in less than a minute.
“Oh, this is so lovely!” she exclaimed without greeting Molly. The woman was a few years older than Molly and exquisitely dressed in shades of navy and bright pink. At least she seemed to enjoy some color, Molly thought. “Your shop is just the sweetest place, and I knew you would come up with something smart and perky for our table tonight.” She smiled at Molly. “We’re having out-of-town guests,” she added after a beat.
“I’m thrilled you like it. The order said purple with some succulents, and that’s what I did.” Flowers and plants had a way of helping her connect to people she wouldn’t usually feel comfortable talking to. “I guess I literally delivered what you had in mind.” Molly enjoyed her own joke with a chuckle as she gingerly handed over the pot of plants.
“How wonderful that the person who put the flowers together also personally delivered them. Thank you so much.” Then her smile faded, and she continued, “But my goodness. I just heard on the radio, on our local National Public Radio station, that your shop was the center of a lot of activity last night. I guess the story was on about an hour ago. How dreadful.”
Molly’s breath caught in her throat. “Oh. Yes.”
“There was an accident on the trail, the reporter said. A missing boy?”
“Yes, he’s missing,” Molly told her, her heart racing. “A young man, really. He was—is—going to be a senior in college this year.” She didn’t know why her body was reacting in such a way. This woman was kind and was just curious.
“I hope they find him. Do you know if there are any leads?”
“They’re not telling us much at all. We were all interviewed, but there wasn’t a lot to say. I don’t know anything myself.” For some reason, Molly purposely left out the fact that she’d met the young man and hung out with him, even when she offered that she knew Trevor’s age.
Satisfied with her answer, the woman smiled and told her, “Well, I’ll be following the story as much as my schedule will allow. I hope they find him soon.”
Molly looked down at the flowers and admired them again. She felt another rush of happiness and mentally let them go. “There’s a card in there. We always include some care information for the plants.”
“How thoughtful. Thank you again,” the customer said, her tone final but kind.
Molly stopped at Shannon’s house on the way to the shop but saw nothing of interest. Shannon usually parked in the garage, and Molly had no way of knowing if her SUV was parked inside or not. Shannon’s real estate agency was a twenty-minute drive in the other direction. Molly considered making a detour, but returned to her own place of work instead.
Molly drove with the radio dialed to the local NPR station, half hoping to hear a repeat of the story that her customer had heard but not really listening. So the news was out. Trevor was officially missing. And Shannon had neither surfaced nor claimed the earring.