STORY 3
Every Friday at 3 p.m., the bell above Blooms & Thyme chimed, and Eileen the florist received the same order: a bouquet of black dahlias for the mayor’s wife, paid in cash with no sender’s name.
But today, the flowers were different.
The usual white ribbon was replaced with a frayed red one, and tucked between the stems was a polaroid. It showed the town’s abandoned lighthouse, its door pried open, a brass key glinting on the steps. Eileen recognised that key. The mayor wore it on his chain at every town meeting, calling it a “sentimental relic.”
That night, Eileen drove to the cliffs. The lighthouse door swung open with a nudge, revealing a desk stacked with ledgers. Inside were records of every “donation” to the town’s “restoration fund,” cash that had supposedly vanished when the contractor went bankrupt. Yet here were deposits dated after the project’s collapse, each matched to a donor’s name.
At the bottom of the pile lay a dried black dahlia, its petals brittle as old bones. Pressed beneath it was a newspaper clipping: Mayor’s First Wife Dies in Tragic Fall, Lighthouse Closed Indefinitely (1987).
The next morning, Eileen arranged one final bouquet: black dahlias, red ribbon, and the ledger’s first page folded like a note. She addressed it to the editor of the Harbor Gazette.
When the bell chimed at 3 p.m., it wasn’t the usual courier. The mayor’s wife stood there, her cheeks pale. “You weren’t supposed to see that photo,” she whispered. “I just wanted someone to know.
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