Page 27 of Drop Dead Gorgeous

He looks pleased.

CHAPTER 6

GRIM

Ido not think she wants to be forgotten.

The thought follows me as I make my way through the side streets toward Belladonna Blooms. Lavinia's words from the other evening have lingered far longer than they should.

"The dead are like anyone. They want to be seen. They want to be remembered."

So do you.

The words had risen to my tongue before catching there, stubborn as a thorn beneath the skin. I have known tens of thousands of living souls, and yet the first person to truly unsettle me is a florist who leaves her shop after dark to sweep fallen petals from the pavement because she dislikes seeing beauty left to decay beneath someone's boots.

The bell above the shop door remains silent when I try the handle.

Locked.

Through the glass, Belladonna Blooms sits wrapped in quiet. Buckets of flowers glow softly beneath the front windows, their colors muted by the overcast afternoon. Lavinia's coat still hangs on the hook beside the register, and taped neatly to the inside of the glass is a handwritten note.

At cemetery. Back soon.

—L.

I should consider it a fortunate coincidence.

Had she been here, I possess no errand capable of surviving even gentle questioning. The vase I borrowed still occupies the center of my kitchen table. The novel she insisted I read rests beside it, barely begun despite the uncomfortable certainty that I already know precisely how it ends. The dark chocolate she declared a proper housewarming gift remains untouched in my freezer because I cannot decide whether eating it would somehow diminish the kindness with which it was given.

None of those reasons would have convinced her.

Certainly not the truth.

I simply wished to see her.

I tell myself I should leave.

My feet disagree.

Before I fully realize where they have carried me, I am climbing the old ridge overlooking the original cemetery, the oldest corner of Blackthorn Bay where the headstones lean into one another like elderly friends. Three hundred yards separate it from the newer section, yet it feels centuries older. Wind and rain have softened many of the inscriptions beyond recognition, leaving only fragments of names for the living to puzzle over.

I pass the garden center, the library, and the little café whose cheerful staff continue laughing through a future only I can see. A loose gas fitting. An unnoticed leak. A single spark that will arrive exactly when it must. Fate is rarely dramatic. More often, it is simply patient.

The cemetery greets me with its familiar stillness.

My shoes sink into damp earth already marked by mourners, groundskeepers, and the occasional teenagers who mistake forgotten mausoleums for hiding places. The patterns nevertruly change. The living polish granite and marble in hopes of leaving something permanent behind.

I wait quietly at the edge of every story.

Today, however, my attention belongs elsewhere.

Lavinia kneels before a weathered grave tucked beneath an ancient cedar. Mud stains the knees of her pea-green parka, and loose strands of copper hair have escaped her braid, dancing across her cheek whenever the wind stirs. With careful, practiced hands she trims away stubborn grasses before arranging a small bundle of wildflowers she'd gathered along the path.

She speaks as she works.

I cannot hear the words from this distance, but I know her voice well enough to imagine them. Gentle. Patient. Warm enough to make even silence feel companionable.

She belongs here.