Knott spent the rest of the week finishing up paperwork from their case and turning his attention to the SSK. He let Misha coordinate the payment arrangements they had come up with between Ethan and Derrick. As a wedding gift, he gave them a card, in which he placed the two tickets to the winery in Napa Valley. Misha would never know he gave them to the newlyweds, and they deserved a weekend getaway sometime down the road when they settled into married life.

Liam had been away most of the week as the precinct had kept him busy, but he and Misha had also been extended an invitation to the wedding, so that morning, Ray heard him bustling down the hall getting ready. Ray lay in bed going over the events of the last couple of weeks in his mind, but sadly for him, his attention kept coming back to the note from the SSK, and he couldn’t put it from his mind. Something hadn’t sat right with him all week, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

He had expressed this to Misha, who told him, “You’re like a hound. Like Orlando. Once he gets something scented, he doesn’t quit until he finds whatever it is he’s looking for.”

“You’re comparing me to your dog, Ms. Crawly?” he said, raising his eyebrows. She stared him down as usual, and he looked away.

“You know damn well it’s Misha, or Mish, Raymond. And yes, once you get something stuck in your craw, you don’t let it go,” she told him, shaking her head.

She had been clicking away on her phone ever since the party. Apparently, her party planning expertise had gotten around to her social media circles, and she was getting requests left and right for paid gigs. Ray had grown increasingly nervous the more she talked about it, until the day before the wedding, when she said, “Come on, out with it. You’ve had that look like you have mental constipation all week.”

“Mental constipation?” he asked, horrified. Where did she come up with some of these things?

“Sorry, Carlos is sick. But seriously, Ray, spill the beans. What’s bugging you?” she asked, as she filed a nail at her desk.

She hadn’t forgotten about the fedora, and he had been wearing it all week to entertain her. That morning he had been grateful, because it had been misting, and it had kept his hair dry. So he twirled it by the brim in his fingers when he blurted, “Are you leaving me, Ms. Crawly?” He hadn’t meant to be so abrupt. It sort of just came tumbling out of his mouth. He tried to quickly backpedal and recover thought. “What I mean to say is, you’ve got this growing party planning business now. I just wondered if, well, if that meant…” He trailed off. He had voiced his concern plain as day. Now he just had to battle with the knot in his stomach as he waited for her response.

What he didn’t expect was to be accosted and engulfed in a Misha-shaped hug. He wondered how she moved so quickly in those heels.

“Aw, Raymond, I could never leave you!” she cried. He tried to tug his arms free. She was squishing his fedora.

“Well, that’s splendid,” he said. His nerves were making his English show again, and he did a quick mental calculation to reset himself so he was just plain old Ray.

“How could you think—? Who am I kidding, of course you would. Ray, I love this job. I don’t ever want to leave. It’s you and me. Me and you. We’re like Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Or Nancy Drew, but you can be one of the Hardy Boys. You know?”

“Umm, yes. I think I’ve got it for certain. Although I would hardly call myself a Hardy Boy.” He frowned.

“Well, I sure as hell am not a Miss Marple!” she exclaimed and slouched back into her seat. Thankfully, the moment of affection was over, and he felt an immense relief to know she wasn’t going anywhere.

“No, you most certainly are not,” he commented. He felt an affection for her, certainly, but he doubted he could ever express it. He tried to convince himself it was just because she was so good at her job.

“Do you know why I want the business degree?” she asked him. Her dark eyes were keen, and he felt like he had somehow just walked himself into one of those corners without knowing how he had gotten there. He was completely in the dark as it pertained to exchanges with women, even a colleague, and she was holding the flashlight.

“Erm, no,” he replied honestly.

“I got my degree so my boys can be proud of their mama. I got it so I can hang it right there beside your criminal justice degree, so that when clients walk in, they don’t look at me and judge because of what they see in terms of appearance or race. So they see an intelligent woman who works for a reputable investigator, and they can have a small bit of comfort, knowing they are in good hands. And yours are the best when they walk in needing someone to help them sort their lives out.”

“Thank you for that.,” he said. He felt a lump in his throat. They were the kindest words anyone had ever said to him, but he refused to let himself cry. Apparently, Misha wasn’t done yet, though.

“I see a lot of things, Ray. And I know I’m an over the top, in your face, no-nonsense woman. But I see a lot of things walk through that door. I see a lot of people who are looking lost, and you know what else I see? I see you, right there in the middle of it, doing your best to help people from all walks of life, no matter who they are. That’s something to be proud of. That’s something I told Keith I wanted to be a part of. I want to hang my hat and my degree next to yours, because you do good work here, Raymond Knott. You’re a good man, and there are few of them left in the world.”

Ray couldn’t help the tear that slid down his cheek then. Misha had turned her attention to her phone to give him a moment to collect himself. They hadn’t spoken about it since then, but as he laid in bed, he couldn’t help but have the nagging feeling that something was not quite right. He and Misha were right, he was as right with Liam as he would ever be, but there was still something.

Was it the SSK? He had been racking his brain all week trying to decipher the meaning of the letter, the cork, and the monocle. He kept coming up empty handed.

He sighed and climbed out of bed, heading for the shower. He passed Liam, who was wrapped in nothing but a towel when he went by, and his heart skipped a beat. He had been right. Liam had a smattering of reddish curls on his chest that were still damp from the shower, and the sight made Ray forget all thought and reason for a moment. He stumbled as he tripped over the threshold to the bathroom, but he steadfastly refused to look back to see if Liam had noticed.

When he was ready in his best suit and tie, he met Liam and Misha downstairs, and they all climbed into her minivan and drove out to the Estates.

The gates were being manned by a guard that day to avoid the constant buzzing into Ethan and Derrick’s home. Residents were permitted to come and go freely, and wedding guests had to flash their invitations to be let in.

When they arrived, Ray climbed out of the back seat of the van and brushed cookie crumbs from the seat of his pants. He noticed they were early, and he tucked his card under his arm as they walked up the path to the church. The florist van was sitting out front, and he saw that a red bike was lashed to the roof rack of the van. A woman in a uniform was carrying crates of live flowers, which had been stuck in green floral foam drenched in water so the flowers remained completely fresh.

“Would you care for some help?” he asked her. He had interviewed her last week. She was a petite woman named Martha. She had outlined her feud with Derrick about the flowers when he interviewed her, and she seemed bitter at the time that he hadn’t taken her advice and gone for more elegant colors, but Ray could see how that wasn’t his style.

“Oh, thanks,” she said, as she handed him a box. “Can you just take the rest of these boxes to the basement? They are going in the centerpieces. I need to go deliver the boutonnieres to the grooms,” she told him.

Ray picked up a box, as did Liam. Misha just looked at them both, then looked at her shimmering silver dress and followed them. Ray descended the stairs at the direction of the pastor, a pleasant little old man who reminded him somewhat of a hobbit, and set the box on an empty table where several others had been placed. He looked around the reception hall and added his card to a group of others near the gift table. He was just about to climb the steps to the sanctuary to take his seat when he heard a screech of horror.

Ray looked at Liam, who looked at Misha, and they all began running to the back rooms.

“He needs help!” Martha cried as she came running to them. She ran past, and Ray thought it odd that she kept going, but he heard Derrick’s shrieks of horror and continued to run toward it.

When they entered the room where Derrick and Ethan were getting dressed, he stepped on something squishy and realized it was a boutonniere, but the sight that greeted him was Ethan clawing at his hand where the skin had turned a burnt red and had begun to blister.

“Oh my God!” Misha shrieked.

Thinking fast, Ray grabbed the pitcher of water and stuck Ethan’s hand in it, before he turned back to the door and began running back down the hall shouting, “Don’t touch anything!”

He ran up the stairs, past the pastor, who looked bewildered, and pushed his way through the throng of people who had gathered at the foot of the stairs to find out what was going on and why there was screaming coming from the basement.

“Call poison control!” he yelled back at the pastor.

Pastor Knight’s face looked ashen, but from somewhere deep in his robes, he extracted a very modern cell phone, which looked foreign in his hand.

Ray noticed Liam hot on his heels as he burst out of the parish into the afternoon light, and they began sprinting down the street toward the slow-moving vehicle trying to escape.

He was able to catch up to the florist’s van and open the driver’s door, because she was trying not to hit the crowds of people in the street, which were narrower than usual due to the rows of cars.

“Get off me!” she screamed as he grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the van. The van slowed to a stop, and fortunately for Ray, she hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt.

“What the hell, Ray?” Liam shouted as he ran, panting, up to them both. The woman was kicking and scratching at Ray, who was holding tight to one of her arms and working to get control of the other. They were gathering a crowd of onlookers, who were whispering and snapping pictures.

“It wasn’t a hate crime. Not at first, anyway.”

“What?” Liam shouted.

“It hasn’t sat right. The green Styrofoam, the red bike in the park. None of it fit,” he explained.

“Ray, what the hell are you talking about?” Liam demanded.

At this point, Misha was pushing her way through with Derrick and a wincing Ethan, whose hand was bandaged in a cloth. It was soaked in what Ray hoped was cold water to stop the burn from spreading.

“What is going on here?” It was the pastor who spoke. He glanced between the three of them and then back at Derrick and Ethan, whose faces were a cross of horrified and perplexed.

“Come on, Ray, you need to start making some sense. You’re already making a scene,” Liam whispered urgently.

Ray finally clasped Martha’s other hand and was able to lock her wrists behind her back. For a small woman, she sure was strong when she fought back. Ray took a deep breath and then addressed everyone, as he had her in an arm lock she couldn’t wiggle out of.

“It hasn’t sat right with me all week. I couldn’t explain why I felt off about Shawn’s arrest. I thought maybe it was stress thinking about the SSK, but then I realized as I set the flowers down in the basement. Forensics never found the ties linking the evidence to Shawn. There was enough to convict him based on his actions at the party alone, so I couldn’t quite put my finger on it,” he continued.

“Yeah, and?” Liam asked.

“Well, there was never an explanation for the red bike at the park where they caught someone watching them. There was never any explanation for the green Styrofoam found on the letters. Shawn didn’t have access to stuff like that.”

“Stuff like what?” Liam was beginning to sound exasperated as they heard the faint wail of sirens begin.

“The Styrofoam. It’s everywhere,” Ray explained. “And by that, I mean the floral foam.”

It took people a minute to catch up to what he was saying, then he heard a collective, “Oh!”

“The floral arrangements are all stuck in the floral foam, which is made of green Styrofoam,” he told Liam.

Liam was catching on, looking at Martha with a discerning eye. “And the bricks?” he asked.

“There were brick pavers in a small courtyard outside the flower shop. Granted, bricks are pretty generic, but I’m willing to bet you’ll find a few that are missing back there. Maybe you can match it to trace elements of the potting soils she used in the garden.

Ray then nodded to the bike. “Flower shops sometimes deliver via bike in the city. It saves on gas for the van, which they save for major events like this one, and if it is a special delivery for a single person, they can put the arrangement in the basket in the front and cycle to the place to drop it off. It was her bike you saw in the park. I’m willing to bet, anyway,” he told Derrick and Ethan.

At this point, an ambulance arrived, and the paramedics pushed through the crowd. Ethan stepped forward and unwrapped his hand to show the paramedics. Ray looked down to see the satisfied smirk on Martha’s face when she saw his burnt fingers.

“Which chemical?” he asked her. His voice was low and dangerous and she looked up in fear.

“Why should I tell you?” she snarled.

“You don’t have to. I’m sure we’ll figure it out when we search the shop. I would hazard a guess at hydrochloric acid, which is used in sugar and acid preservatives for field-grown cut flowers. That’s the best guess I can come up with.”

“He deserved it. Threatening to take away business from me,” she hissed. Her eyes were wild as she looked at Derrick, who looked at her in horror. Ray could see the shame and guilt as plain as day on his face. He remembered having the conversation with Ethan about the tantrum that Derrick had thrown about the wrong flowers. Apparently, Derrick had been one bridezilla too many for the florist, and she had snapped, deciding to go after him and Ethan.

“So when the bricks and notes weren’t enough to scare them off, you decided to sabotage their boutonnieres?” Ray asked. It was a clever plan, really.

“I might have escaped if he hadn’t opened the arrangement right away. I left them outside the door. They were in plain packaging that couldn’t be associated with the flower shop in any way. I used generic roses from the grocery store so they couldn’t be traced back to my shop because I knew the police would ask. I didn’t label them and figured they would assume someone had left them as a gift, because they didn’t order them with their initial floral arrangement package. Typically, they go in tandem with a bouquet, but since this isn’t a traditional wedding, they didn’t order them.”

“So, you decided to threaten my business, those animals, because I gave you a hard time.” Derrick sounded so dejected.

“That’s right. Your fiancé came into my shop, all high and mighty because his precious Derrick-baby didn’t get what he wanted. He told me he would make sure no one would ever come to my shop for wedding arrangements again if it wasn’t perfect for his honey, because he wanted everything to be just right for you!” she shrieked at Derrick.

“I’m sorry I took it out on you,” he whispered. The apology shocked everyone, even Martha for a moment. But she recovered quickly.

“Well, sorry doesn’t cut it! I wanted you to be miserable. I wanted you to know what it was like to suffer. Everything had to be perfect, blech. That’s sickening. My flowers were tasteful. Yours are like some psychedelic Easter eggs gone wrong! They aren’t wedding flowers! I’m the professional. I know what goes best at weddings!” she hollered.

Ray had heard enough. He quirked his eyebrow at Liam, who walked over and took her by the arm, leading her away down the street. He had already called for backup, and he walked her to the gate to wait for the cruiser to arrive.

Ray walked over to where Derrick and Ethan were standing. Fortunately, the burns weren’t so bad that the paramedics needed to take him to the hospital.

“What she did wasn’t your fault,” he said quietly to Derrick, who looked horrified.

“But I was rude to her,” he whispered, as he looked around, seeing if anyone was listening to their conversation.

Ray sighed, he felt more like a tired-out uncle still trying to impart a last bit of advice to his wayward nephews before they set off for their epic adventure. “I know. But you know what? We’re all rude at some point in our lives. It doesn’t matter who you are. We all succumb to moments of weakness and lash out. You’re a man who was bullied your entire life, and she tried to bully you into purchasing flowers you didn’t want for your wedding. This is your special day. It shouldn’t matter what color they are, like it shouldn’t matter what color someone’s skin is, or whether they are gay, straight, or whatever label they associate with themselves. If pastels make you happy, that was what is important. You lashed out, finally, at someone who was bullying you. And I think that’s where your whole journey of self-discovery began. You finally stood up for yourself. Granted, you’ve learned since then, hopefully, how to do it in more productive ways. But the point is, she took it and made a hate crime out of it, because she knew she could weaponize that. Then, when that didn’t work, she lashed out in this way.” He nodded to Ethan’s hands. “Because she had the tools and skills to implement a way to hurt you. Don’t blame yourself for this. You made a mistake, but she went too far,” he finished.

“Kind of ironic the whole day is about taking my hand in marriage.” Ethan looked down at Derrick. With his good hand he chucked his chin. “We’ve certainly been put to the test before the wedding. Let’s put it in the past and have a beautiful marriage.” He kissed Derrick lightly, in front of everyone.

Ray smiled and linked arms with Misha as they followed the couple back into the church. The crowd followed soon after, and the wedding was beautiful. Liam even managed to slip in towards the end and catch the proclamation of marriage and the kiss, and Ray couldn’t help but yearn for the time when it had been them kissing.

Someone had snuck down and put the arrangements in the centerpieces, so it would be perfect for Derrick and Ethan. As the reception was in full swing, they sought out Ray, who was sitting in the corner, and handed him an envelope.

“I’m not so sure about envelopes.” He looked at Ethan’s bandaged hand. He had been able to get his wedding band on his other hand until that one healed. They laughed and encouraged him to open it.

Inside was a thank you card, and out fell two identical tickets to a winery in Napa Valley. The tickets boasted of an event for gay singles to come, meet and greet one another, and enjoy the tours of the winery. Ray laughed as he looked at the tickets and they looked perplexed.

“What’s so funny?’ they asked in unison.

“Nothing. It’s an inside joke. Thank you for this,” he said sincerely, holding up the tickets. He didn’t have the heart to tell them what was waiting for them in the wedding card he had left for them.

“Thank you for helping us save this marriage before it even started,” Derrick said.

Ethan nodded his agreement, and Ray stood, shaking their hands. “It was my absolute pleasure to help,” he said.

The happy couple walked away, and Liam walked up, holding out a drink to Ray.

“Want to go to a singles retreat in Napa Valley?” Ray asked.

Liam glanced at the tickets he held up. “That’s for a winery,” he stated flatly.

“Well, yeah, but if we’re going to decipher a clue about the wine cork the SSK left us, it’s a good place to start.”

“I don’t drink wine,” Liam said, still looking unamused by the whole prospect.

“Me neither, but it might be time to expand our palates if we want to catch a killer.”

“Fair point. I’ll drink to that,” Liam said.

“What are we drinking?”

“Scotch.”

Ray smiled as they clinked glasses, and he savored the burn as he sipped his favorite drink. He might not drink wine, and Liam wasn’t keen on it either, but he noticed that Liam hadn’t made any comment or expressed any qualms about the retreat being for single gay men. That thought warmed Ray’s heart more than his Scotch did.