You know what they say about the best-laid plans.

Ragen walked up to me, looped her arm through mine, and pulled me toward an empty chair in the middle of the wide store. We'd met during my previous visit to the island, but the greeting was still extremely friendly. Not what I expected from someone who lived on an island with rich people.

"You heard?" I asked as she practically dumped me into a chair and then scraped the other across the carpet to get closer. The dark wooden bookshelves lining the room set the scene, reminding me of a Hitchcock film if they'd been shot in color.

How many true crime books did they have in stock?

"Girl, everyone has heard. This is a small island." She leaned forward, waiting for me to start.

I opened my mouth.

"Wait!" Her hands flew up to stop me. "Harvard!"

I flinched with her yell.

A simple "What?" was returned from the back room.

"Vonnie's here. We're starting without you," she replied, softer, but not by much.

Harvard popped his head out from behind one of the matching bookcases stationed in the middle of the room and smiled at me. "Give a man a second, woman."

He tossed two skeins of bright blue yarn toward the shelves where they housed the ample collection for sale. They hit a basket and bounced off, landing on the floor.

"You're picking those up," Ragen said with annoyance. "Now tell us everything."

I hesitated. What exactly did they want to learn? "I saw very little. There's a body in the condo we were looking at. She had on pink heels."

"No one told you?" Ragen shook her head, her blonde hair with light pink ends falling over her shoulder. It was all blonde when I'd been here before and the pink tips were a pleasant touch. "It was Melissa Cramwell. The leading realtor on the island."

"Very cutthroat," Harvard threw in. He adjusted his chair an inch to the right and moved his butt in the seat. The chair wobbled a slight amount. "One day I cut in front of her on the sidewalk. I thought for sure she'd shove her spiked Valentino's in my chest. She said horrible things to me."

Ragen rolled her eyes. "She called you badly dressed."

Harvard threw his hands in the air. "Exactly! Just because I'm not falling into a stereotype doesn't mean I don't care about my outfits." He ran his hand over his white T-shirt and fiddled with the hem before flicking imaginary dust off his light-colored jeans.

Ragen and Harvard spent the next five minutes bringing me up to speed on Melissa Cramwell and her history of "speaking the truth" as she apparently liked to call it. Once they finished, it didn't seem so farfetched that the woman had ended up dead in a walk-in closet.

"Do you have a lot of crime here?" I asked.

Ridge and Broadrick made it seem like the island was the safest place in the United States. Broadrick said he'd have barely anything to do while heading up the Florida office. "Murders?"

"No," Harvard and Ragen answered together.

"I'm sure they'll blame this on the tourism they're letting on the island. They always need a scapegoat," Harvard added, moving his chair to the left this time. It jerked back and forth when he sat in it again, and he scowled. "We've never had a murder. There was that drug overdose and a couple of accidents here and there, but not murder."

"I bet that's about to change," I said without thinking.

Ragen leaned forward, wrinkling her fitted shirt. "Why?"

"Because I'm here now." I pointed at my chest.

Harvard watched my movements intently. He narrowed his eyes before speaking. The chair moved again. Was it the chair, him, or an uneven floor? "What does that have to do with it?"

"You don't find all the accidents interesting?" They sure had a lot of them up to and including a leading real-estate woman being found with a needle in her head.

Harvard shrugged. "Accidents are bound to happen."

Oh, these sweet summer children. I ran my finger over my chin. These two clearly hadn't watched Hot Fuzz. "Calling something an accident only meant they don't have to place blame on anyone. Less paperwork, too."

Ragen and Harvard tipped their heads in thought.

"And I love to place blame." My grin peeked out around the corners of my lips again and then fell.

"What?" Ragen asked.

The breath rushed out of me. "I forgot I'm not a PI anymore."

I wouldn't be placing blame on anyone soon.

"That's so cool. You're a PI?" Harvard asked, his eyes lighting up with excitement. The chair wobbled, and he jerked it to the right, settling it on another patch of floor.

I shook my head. "Not anymore."

"Why not? Being a PI would be kickass," he said, making a Karate chop in the air while in his chair. "I'd use all my Bruce Lee moves on people."

Ragen laughed. "Sure, you would. I can see it now, including the hospital bill."

"Whatever." He waved his hand at her. "Why'd you quit?"

I shrugged. "It's a long story, but basically I put my aunt and uncle in federal prison and got one of my best friends shot."

Ragen grimaced. "Wow, that's rough."

"Yeah, but it's too bad you stopped. You could charge way more on the island. A PI would make bank here. Rich people will pay anything as long as they think they're getting a deal."

Ragen nodded. "He's right. No one here has any idea what things actually cost. Rosy once paid me ten dollars for an apple we had sitting on the counter."

"Did you take it?" I asked, imagining the scene. How did that conversation even go?

"Hell, yes." Ragen clapped. "It wasn't even my apple."

We laughed.

Even if the island had enough cheaters to fund my early retirement, I didn't have it in me to return to being a PI. I'd done enough damage. I raised my hands in a surrender. "I'm out of the game. No more crimes for me."

The Florida police had to solve this one on their own.

"Well, it's good for Larken that the police are calling it an accident. She'd probably be the first suspect," Harvard said. He lifted his chair a full foot from the floor and moved it to the original place where he'd first sat in it.

"My realtor? Why?" I didn't see our realtor as a killer, even if she definitely had a little fiery personality hidden in her.

Ragen nodded as she watched Harvard move his chair another inch to the left. Her hand gripped the armrest, her knuckles turning white. "They were always in a tremendous competition. I'm surprised we never saw the two women have a duel down Main Street. Melissa always won, but Larken grew closer to topping her sales every year."

Hmm. Not only was Mellisa Cromwell outspoken, possible a little mean, but she also had a beef with Larken.

Interesting.

Was Larken into knitting?

"Hey, totally off topic, but I saw these cute knitting needles on TikTok. They were like rainbow colored when the light hit them. Do you sell anything like that?"

Harvard glanced up from where he'd been inspecting the floor. "No, Cady doesn't let us buy anything too crazy. She doesn't want to scare the locals." He jerked his chair a centimeter to the left, almost bumping into Ragen's seat.

"Holy hell, Harvard. Just leave the damn chair alone." She stood up and pulled him from the chair by his hand. He went willingly with a smile. "Well, fix this shit."

"Yeah, yeah," she countered, and the two of them continued bickering like siblings.

It made me smile and my heart hurt at the same time. I missed my sister Vivi, even if it was just to yell at her for doing something equally annoying.

**

That evening, sitting on our hotel room bed with my laptop perched on my lap, I scrolled through the page of flower arrangements one last time. I had to make sure that whatever we sent was absolutely perfect. It had to be the best.

An episode of Psych played on the television, but I wasn't watching. Broadrick insisted we watch the series, but I had no desire to watch someone else solve crimes. The bed dipped as he sat beside me and looked over my shoulder at the laptop screen.

He eyed the arrangement my mouse hovered over. "Tony would hate that."

I clicked on the flowers, bringing up their full description and different shots of the arrangement. The white, pink, and purple flowers surrounded by greenery came displayed on a large stand. Something you'd sit beside a casket or perfectly in the middle of a living room. The website promised they were hand arranged by a florist local to Pelican Bay-Lily. The display was almost four-feet tall and had roses, snapdragons, carnations, and lavender.

"I know. That's why I'm getting them," I said, trying to measure exactly how tall the layout would be on him.

He laughed as I clicked on the "buy now" option and filled in the details.

"The anger will keep his heart pumping," I said as I waited for Broadrick to hand me his credit card. My chest hurt in the same spot where my aunt put a bullet in Tony's chest-a bullet I'd led him right into. I'd never be able to make up for what happened to him.

But I had to start somewhere. "Should we add balloons?"

Broadrick chuckled. "Whatever will make you feel better, babe."

I nodded. Yeah, flowers and balloons. Big balloons. A lot of them. After surviving the gun shot and two different surgeries to repair the damage, Tony spent three weeks in the hospital. We had to leave for Florida before doctors released him.

Since I couldn't be there to welcome him home, I wanted something else to greet him on his return. But maybe not the balloons. That might be too much. The heart attack would send him back to the hospital. I didn't want to kill him. Just keep him on his toes.

"I wonder if Lily could get a hot nurse to deliver the flowers?"