A little bell rang when I went into the flower shop. Your Secret Garden was cool and humid and alive with the sights and smells of flowers and greenery and planting soil and soft classical music from tiny Bose speakers hanging from the ceiling. In the front of the shop there were cans of fresh flowers sitting on risers and a refrigerated cooler with glass doors showing ready-made floral arrangements. There was a little counter about halfway back with a workspace behind it where a black man and a black woman maybe in her sixties were building a flower arrangement. The black man was maybe five-eight, with the long arms and ropey neck of a guy who could’ve fought welterweight. An FTD sign sat on the counter.

In the front of the shop a slender black woman in her late twenties was arranging baby’s breath in a can filled with daisies. She was wearing green pants and a light blue smock like orderlies wear. When the little bell rang, the man and the older woman in the back and the slender woman with the daisies glanced up at me and stared. The man gave me hard eyes for a time, then went back to working on his arrangement. Wouldn’t see many white guys in here.

The slender woman came over and smiled. “May I help you?” She was pretty except for a two-inch scar splitting the left side of her upper lip and two smaller scars cutting the brow above her left eye. They weren’t old scars. A little name tag on her smock read Sarah.

I said, “Hello, Angelette. My name is Elvis Cole. I need to talk to you about Charlie DeLuca.”

Her smile fell away faster than a sinking heart. She glanced at the man behind the counter, then back at me. The man was staring at us. He couldn’t hear, but he knew something wasn’t right. She said, “You the police?”

I said, “Charlie DeLuca’s holding a woman I know. She wants out, and I’m trying to find a way to make him let go.”

She glanced again at the man behind the counter and made her voice low. The man stepped away from the flowers he was working with and wiped his hands on a gray cloth. She said, “We don’t talk about that. If you not the police, you better get out of here.”

“You were with Charlie, weren’t you?”

Looking at the floor now. “I was with a lot of men. William was in Dannemora and I had three kids to feed.”

“Sure. It must’ve been tough.”

She looked up, angry. “William been out nine months and he’s stayin’ out. We both out. We got a man let us run this place.”

I nodded. The shop was a nice shop. Clean and fresh. Not like Dannemora. Not like walking the streets. I said, “Charlie hurt your eye?”