“Jesus Christ!”

“And a good morning to you, too,” Kit replied, grinning at Alice as the bewildered journalist and her friends walked into the Planet.

“Kit, what the ***** happened in here? It looks like a florist exploded all over the place,” Alice said, blinking at the tableau before her.

“Wow,” Dana murmured, eyes round with amazement as she came to stand next to Alice.

“Tell me about it, girl,” she said dryly. “Alls I know is, some ten trucks rolled up to this place this morning when I opened and asked if I’d sign for a delivery.”

“Whoa,” Shane whispered, looking equally thunderstruck. She pulled off her sunglasses, eyes blinking blearily in the early morning light streaming through the doors.

As far as the eye could see, on every single flat surface in the Planet, there sat a large crystal vase, and in each vase there was an enormous bouquet. Shane crossed over to the counter where Kit was standing, and studied the nearest one. Tiger lilies… like trumpets whose bells had been split with sound… white, with tiny, maroon-colored specks spreading out from the center, and white orchids. She hooked her sunglasses into the collar of her t-shirt and reached up, fingertip carefully grazing the underside of the petal of one of the lilies.

“Took ‘em about three hours to get all these things unloaded,” Kit said. “I wound up givin’ ‘em a couple of sodas on the house. Poor guys were worn out.”

Frowning, Shane stuffed her hands into her pockets and let her eyes roam over the main room. There were similar bouquets in their vases taking up practically every horizontal surface in the joint… always tiger lilies and orchids, but each bouquet was a different color. At one table, Shane could see deep violet tiger lilies with an accompanying spray of soft, bright purple orchids. At another table, she could see white-edged orange lilies and orange-yellow orchids to match. Purple, yellow, pink, gold, red and what looked to be every conceivable combination of those colors decorated the Planet’s counter space and all of its tables. The fragrance of them all combined was heady, but not overwhelming.

“That’s it? They just… show up, drop all these flowers off, and then leave?” Alice said, narrowing her eyes. She was no longer in awe of the sight; she was too caught up in solving the mystery, now.