Chloe in Willowmere

Rosie came flying into Marco's Bakery with the kind of urgency that made even the bread seem to listen. Breathless with importance, she told Chloe that the anonymous flower arrangements had returned—not to one porch or two, but to doorsteps all over Willowmere. Marco, pausing behind the counter, tried for skepticism and landed somewhere nearer respect when Rosie's tally sheet kept growing under Chloe's gaze. Chloe opened her notebook at once, because this was no longer a charming little curiosity but the shape of a pattern spreading through the town. Out beyond the bakery window, bouquets were beginning to appear like quiet messages no one had signed. By the time Rosie said the word dozens, the morning had already tipped into mystery.