Who did Abby share a booth with, and what was their occupation?

A ROSE FROM THE DEAD
A Flower Shop Mystery
by Kate Collins
ISBN: 0451222415    Signet

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CHAPTER ONE 

“Okay, guys, great joke. Phone booth-in-a-coffin. Ha, ha. Now let me out. The door is stuck.” 

I waited a moment, then pressed my ear against the smooth pine finish, listening for snickers coming from the other side, but all I heard was silence. I pushed against the wood, but it didn’t budge. “Ross? Jess? Are you leaning against the door? Come on. It isn’t funny anymore. I’m claustrophobic.”

When the booth still didn’t open, I pounded on it.  “Let me out of here!”

More silence. I pictured them pinching their lips shut so they wouldn’t guffaw.

And the reason you trusted a pair of twenty-three-year-old males in the first place was?

I ignored that smug little voice of rationality.  Let it find its own answers since it was rattling around in my head anyway. Right now, my only concern was breathing, because the air in the two feet of space around me had suddenly become unbearably stuffy.

Sweat beads gathered at my temples, plastering my hair to my skin. Why wasn’t this phone booth air-conditioned? Was a little vent in the ceiling too much to ask? I gave the door one last smack with the heel of my hand, then rested my forehead against it. “You guys are in major trouble now because I’m phoning the police. Won’t you be embarrassed then?”

The silence roared in my ears. Or was that my shallow breathing?

I turned to reach for the ebony receiver behind me. The phone was a replica of the old coin-operated kinds of my mother’s generation, and the handset felt awkward and heavy as I held it to my ear. In the light of the dim red bulb overhead I read the instructions on the front of the machine. Insert coins? I actually needed money to make the call? I didn’t have any money with me. How had people functioned before cell phones?

Luckily, I never went anywhere without mine. I replaced the clunky black phone, slipped my hand in the pocket of my khakis, felt for the sleek, stainless steel case, flipped it open, and thumbed in 911.  “Hello, yes, I’d like to report being locked in a coffin. Wait. Don’t hang up. This isn’t a joke. My name is Abby Knight. I own Bloomers Flower Shop, and I’m at the morticians’ convention in – yes, my father is Sgt. Jeffrey Knight, formerly of the New Chapel PD  – anyway, could you send someone over to – yes, he is doing well, considering his injury. Sure, I’d be happy to pass along your best wishes – if you’d send someone over to get me out of here!”

At once the door of my jail opened, flooding the space with bright light from the floor-to-ceiling windows on the opposite side of the hallway. I blinked several times, holding up a hand to shade my eyes until the blurry male shape before me came into focus. To my relief, it wasn’t either of the two pranksters who had imprisoned me. It was Marco, the hunk-of-the-Midwest, the man who could make me breathe shallowly and like it just by sauntering into a room.

“Never mind,” I said to the dispatcher. I shut my mobile phone and slipped it back into my pocket. “Marco, thank God you came. I was starting to hyperventilate.”

“What were you doing in there?” he asked, regarding me curiously as I emerged fanning my face.

What, indeed?

There I was, a bright young florist of some note – okay, maybe half a note (I had owned Bloomers for a mere six months), and maybe only bright because of my red hair -- but there I was, nevertheless, in the middle of a mortician’s convention, trying to drum up business, only to find myself wedged in a phone booth as if I were some ditzy female who couldn’t find her way out of a -- well -- phone booth.

That it resembled an antique coffin straight out of a vampire movie set only made my humiliation worse. What person of even average intelligence would be gullible enough to walk into an upended coffin? Talk about the height of embarrassment. For a short person, I was the Sears Tower of Shame.

But, on the plus side of things, Marco Salvare had proven once again to be my go-to guy. He was not only an ex-cop and new bar owner, but also a former Army Ranger, a tough, savvy, modern day warrior whose group motto said it all: “Rangers lead the way.” And if anyone had found a way into my heart, it was Marco.

He was all man -- hard jawed, firm mouthed, straight-backed and taut bellied -- with nut brown eyes that knew how to cut through pretense and a strong, masculine nose that was slightly askew. His wavy dark mop drooped casually onto the left side of his forehead and ruffled onto the nape of his neck, but never reached farther than his collar. He was sexy, sincere, and thoughtful, the kind of guy girls like me dream of snagging. Yet he remained something of a mystery.

At this moment, however, there was nothing mystifying about what he was thinking. His most captivating feature, aside from his penetrating gaze and that hint of five o’clock shadow, was his expressive mouth – straight, firm lips that curved up at the corners when amused and slanted down when bemused. Judging by what I saw now – the left corner at a downward tilt of forty-five degrees – he was perplexed.

“How did you get locked in?”

“That’s what I’d like to know. Just wait till I get my hands on those two idiots.” Huffing angrily, I started to charge past him, but he caught my arm and held on.

“What two idiots?”

“Ross and Jess Urban -- or, as I now prefer to think of them, Thing One and Thing Two.  We met them early this morning while we were setting up our display, remember? Dark blond hair with light blond tips, large teeth, big dimples in their chins, very tan? One of them looked like a model for GQ -- he had on Ferragamo loafers and a Tag Heuer watch -- and the other one looked like a homeless skateboarder. They manage a chain of funeral parlors for their father.”

“You still haven’t told me how you got locked in.”

“After you left earlier, they came to the booth and said I had a phone call and brought me here. So I stepped inside, and the door – lid -- whatever -- latched behind me.”

Marco examined the latch in question. “Abby, this slide bolt isn’t automatic. They locked you in.”

“That does it. I had a feeling they might be trouble, but I ignored it because they’re funeral directors. You’d think they’d behave. What if I had passed out from a lack of oxygen -- or even worse -- died in this coffin? I don’t even want to think about the irony there.”

“Take a look back here,” Marco called. “This isn’t even a working phone.”

I went around to the back of the tall booth. There, on the ground, lay a disconnected phone cord -- and not a phone jack in sight. Obviously the coffin-phone booth was just for display, but how was I to know it wasn’t real? I’d never been to a funeral directors’ convention before. It wasn’t even my idea to be there.

Displaying my floral wares at the Midwestern Funeral Directors’ Association’s regional convention was actually the brainchild of my friends Max and Delilah Dove, owners of the Happy Dreams Funeral Home, located around the corner from Bloomers and just off the town square in New Chapel, Indiana. Max and Delilah had suggested I rent a booth alongside the other businesses that supplied products and services to morticians, as a way to generate more income for my shop, a small business struggling to hold its own against the giant chain competitors. The convention was being held at the Woodland Hotel and Conference Center, on Lake Michigan about twenty-five miles north of New Chapel.

Since the fifteen hundred dollar rental fee was a little too steep for my budget, Max and Delilah had generously offered to split the cost and share booth space. Even at the bargain rate of seven hundred fifty dollars I’d still been hesitant to commit the money, until I learned that I’d get to attend the Saturday night banquet with a guest of my choice. The banquet, Delilah had promised, was an event not to be missed, with food provided by an excellent caterer and entertainment afterward, if I cared to stay for it.

After hearing that, I’d signed up immediately. I was all about free food. But I was not about looking like an ignoramus.

  “Boy, are those two Urban jokers in trouble. How dare they lock me in a phone booth and put my life in jeopardy. And for what? A laugh? Well, I’m going to have the last laugh because. .  Marco, are you listening to me?”

One glance at his face was answer enough. He was staring up the long, brightly lit hallway toward the exhibition hall at the end, his jaw hardened and his eyes narrowed to slits of steel-edged fury.

Uh-oh. I knew that look. My twin tormentors were toast.

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