Page 93 of The Perfect Deception

“Okay, see you later.”

When she fi­nally left work and re­turned home, there was an­other plant out­side her apart­ment door. This time it was a bou­quet of car­na­tions. Pink ones, tied with a blue bow. She picked them up and di­aled Tracy as she un­locked her door.

“He did it again,” she said with­out even say­ing hello.

“What did he do?”

“Left me a bou­quet of flow­ers out­side my door.”

“Re­ally? What kind? Color? Tell me!”

“You don’t need to sound so ex­cited about it.”

“I’m sorry, Din. I’m putting aside my feel­ings about him and sep­a­rat­ing them from my fas­ci­na­tion with this game he’s play­ing.”

“That’s just it, it’s all a game to him.”

“So have fun with it.”

Dina sighed as she un­wrapped the bou­quet, filled a vase and put the flow­ers in the wa­ter. “They’re pink car­na­tions tied with a blue bow.”

“Is there a card?”

“Oh, I for­got to look. Hold on.” She sifted through the wrap­ping un­til the hard edges of a card dug into the pads of her fin­gers. “Yeah, found it.”

She pulled it out of the en­ve­lope. “This one says, ‘A fool thinks him­self to be wise, but a wise man knows him­self to be a fool.’”

“Oh,As You Like It!” Tracy said. “I love that play! Okay, I’ll re­search the flow­ers and get back to you. Un­less you want to…”

“Nope, all yours.”

“Okay, gotta run, baby’s cry­ing. I’ll call you later.”

Maybe it was the basil, but she had a sud­den de­sire for Ital­ian, so she made her­self pasta with a red sauce for din­ner, along with a salad. She was just fin­ish­ing up when Tracy called her back.

“Car­na­tions mean ‘alas for my poor heart’—kinda dra­matic, don’t you think? Pink means love, ob­vi­ously and blue is the color of trust and peace.”

“Ha! And I don’t mean that in a funny way. He wants me to be­lieve he loves me and that I should trust him? He’s in­sane.”

“But cre­ative, Dina. You have to give him that.”

“Some­how I think you’re silently root­ing for him.”

“No, but I’m mak­ing notes for Joe. He could learn a thing or two from Adam.”

“Care­ful what you wish for, Tracy.”

“I know. And I’m look­ing for­ward to to­mor­row.”

“Oh my god, you think this is go­ing to con­tinue?”

“Of course I do!”

“How long?”

“De­pends on how long it takes for you to talk to him.”

“Oh brother.”