Page 28 of A Poisonous Plot

“Hello!” she called, stopping beside the table. No reply came and her gaze dropped to the open notebook which overflowed with sketches of plants and flowers. She reached for a piece of paper as the words at the top jumped out at her.

“Poisonous plants in your garden,” she muttered, reading aloud. “Lily of the valley, hydrangea, bluebell, foxglove, oleander, daffodil, ivy…” Her gaze snapped up before she’d finished the list. A chill rippled up her spine as she set the list down again.

Was this connected with the welcome baskets? And the smoothie?

“Hello?” Lily called again, venturing towards the counter at the back of the cafe.

“I’ll be with you in a minute!”

The voice came from the direction of the office and sounded distinctly like Sally Pengelly.

Lily didn’t wait for her, but drifted back there and gave a gentle knock on the door, which was slightly ajar.

“Sorry.” Sally looked up from the computer screen. “It’s been so quiet this morning that I slipped in here to get caught up on a few emails.”

“It’s fine,” Lily said. “I just thought it was odd that there were no staff around.”

“You haven’t bumped into Denzel? He should be here somewhere.”

“I haven’t seen him.”

“What are you after?” Sally asked, her warm persona practically oozing from her pores.

“How do you mean?”

Lily was hoping to nose around and see what she came up with, but she supposed that might not be so easy if people saw her as an investigator. That was probably why most investigatorskept their identity anonymous. But that wasn’t so easy when you lived on an island with less than two thousand residents.

“Houseplants, I assume?” Sally said as she rose from the chair.

“Yes,” Lily replied, happy that Sally had assumed she was there to buy plants, rather than investigate. “I don’t know anything about plants, though.”

“I can help you pick some out. People tend to just go for what they like the look of, but that’s usually a mistake.” She passed Lily and walked into the cafe. As she talked animatedly about the different levels of care and attention plants needed, Lily trailed behind her, then stopped at the edge of the tables.

As though she’d imagined them entirely, the laptop and papers were gone.

“Everything okay?” Sally asked, turning back to Lily.

“Do you know who was in the cafe before?”

“We had a few customers first thing,” Sally said, forehead crinkling. “No one I knew. Why?”

“There was a laptop on that table.” She pointed. “And some papers. I was only in the office for a moment. How have they just vanished?” Her eyes scanned all around but there was no one to be seen. “You said Denzel was here? Would he have been working at one of the tables?”

“On a laptop?” Sally’s lips twitched at the corners. “That would be very high tech for him. I mean, he has his own business, so you’d think he must have a laptop, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he didn’t. The man doesn’t even have a smart phone. If you want to speak to him, you have to call him. It’s quite annoying that he won’t message or email.”

“Who would have been sitting here with a laptop?” Lily asked, annoyed at herself for giving the person time to pack up and leave without her clocking them.

“I couldn’t tell you.” Sally looked a little unnerved by Lily’s frantic tone. “Arthur was here earlier, but I think he left a while ago.”

“Someonewas here,” Lily said, setting off towards the exit. “They were just here!”

Outside, she dodged around plants, her eyes darting manically as she searched for the person who’d been researching poisonous plants. They couldn’t have gone far, but when she reached the car park, there was no sign of anyone.

“Lily!” Sally called, following at a gentle run. She stopped right in front of Lily and grabbed at her upper arms. “Are you okay?” she asked breathlessly.

“Yeah.” Lily continued to glance around, sure that there must be someone lurking nearby.

“Do you feel all right?” Sally asked, staring directly into Lily’s eyes.

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