Chapter 5 - The Key in the Roses

Rosa read the sentence aloud.

Naomi, who had refused to leave her alone after the brick came through the window, stared at the photograph.

“What roses?”

Rosa’s eyes widened.

“The bouquet.”

They looked at each other.

“The one Celeste took,” Naomi said.

Rosa was already reaching for her coat.

Twenty minutes later, they stood outside the Whitmore Grand Hotel, where a charity gala glittered behind tall glass doors. Black cars pulled up one after another. Men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns crossed the red carpet.

Naomi grabbed Rosa’s arm. “We can’t just walk in.”

Rosa pointed through the lobby windows.

On a marble table, beneath a gold sign for the Evelyn Whitmore Foundation, sat the enormous red bouquet.

Celeste had brought it to the gala.

Rosa’s stomach turned.

“She put stolen flowers at her mother’s memorial fundraiser.”

“Technically she paid.”

Rosa gave Naomi a look.

“Right. Bad time.”

They entered through the side service door after Rosa recognized Luis, a banquet worker who used to buy flowers from her.

Inside, a string quartet played. Champagne moved on silver trays. A ten-foot portrait of Evelyn hung above the ballroom entrance.

Rosa stopped beneath it.

“She hated big pictures of herself,” she whispered.

Naomi studied the bouquet across the room. “Where would a key be?”

“Inside the binding. Miguel used to wrap keys under ribbon when he made deliveries.”

They crossed the ballroom slowly.

Celeste stood onstage beside her father, Arthur Whitmore, a silver-haired man in his sixties with a polished smile and cold eyes.

Arthur was speaking into a microphone.

“My late wife believed this city should always make room for progress.”

Rosa almost laughed.

Then Arthur saw her.

His smile disappeared.

For half a second, fear crossed his face.

He handed the microphone to Celeste and stepped offstage.

“Rosa Alvarez,” he said when he reached her. “I thought you had more sense than to come here.”

Rosa looked past him to the bouquet.

“I came for something that belongs to me.”

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Arthur followed her eyes.

And then, without looking away, he said to a security guard, “Remove those flowers. Now.”