Abby Knight's marriage may be in full bloom, but house hunting is no bed of roses in latest novel in the New York Times bestselling Flower Shop Mystery series... Now that they’ve tied the knot, flower shop owner Abby Knight and her husband, Marco, want to put down roots. When it comes to picking a house, Marco can’t wait to get his hands dirty, while Abby isn’t ready for a fixer-upper. But conflict really sprouts when they’re checking out a dilapidated Victorian and watch a construction worker take a life-threatening tumble.   Since witnesses claim the man shouted for help, suggesting that the fall was no accident, the victim’s flamboyant wife hires Marco to find the person responsible. Meanwhile, Abby keeps secret from Marco her own investigation into the home’s inhabitants, a family whose off-kilter behavior has aroused her suspicions. If only Abby’s very pregnant cousin, Jillian, will stop distracting Abby with false labor pains, she can conclude her own inquiries before Marco finds out…and her case blossoms into a disaster. “Another triumph in the well-loved Flowershop Mystery series.”— New York Times  bestselling author Lorna Barrett Praise for the New York Times Bestselling Flower Shop Mystery Series:   “One of my favorite mystery series.”—Kate Carlisle, New York Times Bestselling Author of the Bibliophile Mysteries   “Engaging characters and witty dialogue.”—Fresh Fiction “Kate Collins’s Flower Shop Mysteries are always an auto-buy for me!”— New York Times Bestselling Author Julie Hyzy   New York Times bestselling author Kate Collins grew up in a suburb of Hammond, Indiana, one block from the family home of author Jean Shepherd, whose humorous stories inspired Kate at an early age. After a stint as an elementary school teacher, Kate wrote children’s short stories and historical romance novels before turning to her true passion, mystery. The author of the popular Flower Shop Mystery series ( Throw in the Trowel , Seed No Evil , Nightshade on Elm Street ), she lives in northwest Indiana and Key West, Florida. PRAISE FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING FLOWER SHOP MYSTERIES Other Flower Shop Mysteries OBSIDIAN ACKNOWLEDGMENTS CHAPTER ONE Monday “Are my newlyweds ready to go inside for a look?” Our Realtor pressed her hands together as though praying, her smile as desperate as her enthusiastic nods, as if to say, Of course you’re ready! At that price, you’d be fools not to be. Please, please, please? I glanced at Marco, who was studying the dilapidated Victorian home with a shrewd and, yes, disdainful eye. Good. We were on the same page. “No,” I said, just as Marco said, “Sure.” I turned to my handsome hubby in surprise. “Sure?” “No harm in looking.” “I am looking, Marco. The question is, what are you seeing?” It was peculiar for us to be at odds because our tastes ran in remarkably similar veins. Hand us a menu and we’d pick the same entrée every time. But clearly he wasn’t seeing what I was seeing today, because directly in front of us stood a narrow, wood-sided two-story with peeling paint, a porch that tilted dangerously to the right, a sharply peaked roof whose tiles had curled, dingy gray gingerbread trim, and a detached shed-turned-garage that might have held a Volkswagen Beetle—with no door handles. The old house, built sometime in the early 1900s, swarmed with roofers and painters who’d been hired to get it ready to be put on the market. Lorelei Hays, our overly eager Realtor, had heard that the Victorian was going up for sale and wanted us to see it before the crowds beat a path to the warped brown door. As far as I was concerned, a path would have been an improvement over the cracked cement sidewalk on which we stood. I loosened the emerald-and-navy-plaid scarf around my neck and took off my green gloves. The March sun was making a rare appearance in a week that had been rainy and cold. My little dog, Seedy, kept tugging at her leash, so I turned to see what she wanted and saw her wagging her shaggy tail, gazing up toward the roof where a painter was giving the decorative trim along the roofline above an attic window a coat of white paint. I doubted it was the worker who’d intrigued her. Seedy was a rescue dog who’d had an abusive owner, and she was still wary around most men. But I didn’t see anything else that could have attracted her attention. Studying the Victorian’s shabby facade, I could only imagine what the inside was like. No, I didn’t want to imagine it, because I was definitely not interested. The only positives were that it would be available in a month and it was located five blocks off the town square in my hometown of New Chapel, Indiana. And because my flower shop, Bloomers, and Marco’s business, Down the Hatch Bar and Grill, were located on the square, we could have walked to work. Lorelei bounced on the toes of her black patent pumps. “So? Are we ready to see the interior?” She was wearing a marine blue two-piece suit trimmed in black braid, with s