The Final Arrangement Read Online Free Page A

for sale. 
    As we placed the last mono-botanical arrangement of fuchsia gerbera daisies in the cooler, I heard the back door slam against drywall, and then the pounding of feet.
    “Quincy!”  Nick was almost breathless after blasting through the store.
    “What’s wrong?”
    “I was just in a hit-and-run.”  He sounded genuinely upset.  But in the short time Nick had been employed by me, he had already proven to be quite a storyteller.  Coupled with that, my sister Sandy’s husband grew up in the same neighborhood as Nick, and Sandy knew all of the dirt about Nick and his infamous reputation.  Her “helpful” warnings about Nick were reminders of my inferior abilities to run the business, thus keeping her superiority intact.  This of course only made me want to believe in Nick all the more now, despite my better judgment, if only to prove my sister wrong. 
    “A hit-and-run?” 
    “Yeah!”
    My shoulders dropped and I looked for the nearest seat when I realized Nick was serious. I reached to my forehead and drew my hand down my face as if it might help swipe the stress and frustration of the day out of my head. I took a deep breath and sighed. “Tell me what happened.”
    He pointed as he said, “I was at the intersection right there.  I was turning left onto Main Street, and just as I went to get into the left turn lane, this truck hit me on my side and then passed me on the left and turned left in front of the cars coming straight and took off onto the freeway.”  He said it all without stopping for a breath. 
    “Where did it hit on the van?”  I asked as I started toward the back of the shop. 
    “On my side in the back.”
    We arrived at the van.  A small dent dug into the rear panel and poppy-red paint streaks overlaid the dent like brush strokes, just behind the rear wheel. 
    “Nick! It looks to me as if you just didn’t look in the mirrors and ran into someone.”
    “Quincy, I swear I looked.  It was a red pick-up truck.  I saw them in the rear view mirror when they were behind me.” 
    I looked at him with a puzzled expression. 
    “Far behind me, Quincy.  There is no way I would have hit them if they hadn’t sped up.  I swear.”
    “You said them.  There was more than one person?”
    “Yeah, I’m pretty sure, ‘cause when I looked over after the truck hit me, I saw them passing me.  It was two guys.  They were looking at me, shaking their fists and yelling.”
    “What did you do after they passed you?”
    “I waited until it was my turn to go through the intersection, and then I tried to follow them, but I was too far behind.  I saw them get onto the freeway.” 
    What else today ?  I took a deep, cleansing breath, and exhaled as slowly as I possibly could.  “Okay, Nick.  Let’s go call the police.”
    ###
    Nick busied himself with sweeping and taking the garbage out to the dumpsters while we waited for the police to arrive.  His newly found work ethic led me to believe he might have told the truth about the accident. 
    Cindy had gone home promising to wash and return my clothes the next time she worked.   I attempted to get some much neglected paperwork done while waiting for the police, but I found myself staring into space at my desk, thinking about what I would say to that jerk detective when he arrived.  I thought of several different ways to tell Detective Arroyo how I would be talking to his boss about the way he had talked to me over the phone. Of course I would need to get the hit-and-run taken care of before I berated him. 
    When he questioned me about Derrick, I would tell everything I knew about him, which was pretty close to nothing.  Just that he took over half of my business with absolutely zero design skills and the highest prices for flowers and then treated me like garbage when I saw him in person.  The detective said I was the last person seen with Derrick.  But I didn’t think anyone knew about our recent altercation, nobody else