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wanted it to be dark, with the lights off in the store and gallery,

and well after the store was closed for the day so that she’d

have time to get things ready. She’d told Emily she was doing

inventory and had asked for her help at nine. Emily, who was

busy with her art and all the new requests coming in, was too

preoccupied to question how strange that seemed. She’d

helped Dani with inventory before, and they’d done it later at

night, so it was a pretty legit cover.

Dani smiled to herself to think of how surprised Emily

would be. Probably almost as surprised as she was when Dani

had sat her down and truly done a reading for her, after their

two false starts at it. She had been delighted with the whole

thing and found it more helpful than she ever could have

imagined. They’d done so many readings together now that

Dani had lost track.

By the time the rest of the candles were lit, the jars carefully

placed into a circular shape around the open space of the big

gallery, it was really hot. Dani wondered at the wisdom of the

idea, and she just hoped that the smoke from those candles

wouldn’t cause the sprinklers to come on. That would be bad.

That would be really, really bad with all of Emily’s paintings

on the walls.

Since she was having second thoughts and didn’t want to

ruin the place, Dani blew out half the candles and removed

them from the circle. It was still pretty, and the heat wasn’t so

bad. No risk of sprinklers either. She grabbed the bag of rose

petals she’d gotten from the flower shop earlier and stashed in

the staff fridge in the back. She wasn’t a flower petal person,

but she knew Emily would like it, so she happily threw them

over the floor.