The Lie Hidden in Roses Chapter 02

The Lie Hidden in Roses Chapter 02 The Warning on the Petal

In our second year together, Rowan and I had spent one rainy night on the couch watching some true-crime series neither of us could stop judging.
In one episode, a suspect used flower colors to pass coded messages.
Rowan had leaned forward like the show had suddenly become a matter of national security.
“We should have a code like that,” he said, turning to me with a seriousness that made me laugh. “Red roses mean danger. White roses mean everything’s okay. Yellow means be careful.”
I told him he was being ridiculous.
Then I nodded anyway.
It had been one of those private, useless things couples collect over time, something so specific and strange that no one else in the world should have known it.
Which meant there were only two possibilities.
Either the man in my apartment really was Rowan.
Or someone had wanted me to see those roses.
Someone had made sure I would understand.
The shower was running in the bathroom, the steady rush of water barely covering the sound of my heartbeat.
I moved down the hall and eased open the bedroom door.
Rowan’s suitcase sat open on the floor, packed with the same almost obsessive precision he always used. His shirts were rolled into identical tight cylinders, his socks lined up by color, every item placed as if the suitcase had been measured with a ruler.
That was Rowan.
That was exactly how Rowan packed.
I crouched beside it and slipped my shaking fingers through the inside pockets.
Passport.
Phone charger.
A half-used travel pack of tissues.
Nothing useful.
I was about to close the suitcase when I caught sight of a scrap of fabric peeking through the narrow gap in the closet door.
I went still.
Then I opened the closet.
His gray jacket hung inside.
It was the same one he had worn when he left for the trip, the one he refused to throw away no matter how worn it got. The cuffs had been fraying for months, and every time I told him to replace it, he insisted it was broken in perfectly and therefore irreplaceable.
I reached into the pocket.
My fingers brushed something soft.
Damp.
Old.
I pulled it out and found a single red rose petal resting in my palm.
It had already started to die. The edges had curled inward, and the red had deepened toward the center, dark and uneven, almost as if the petal had absorbed something it should not have touched.
Two words had been written across it in black ink.
Run now.
The letters were uneven and hurried. The final stroke dragged out too far, like whoever wrote it had been forced to stop before finishing properly.
I knew that handwriting.
It was Rowan’s.
His writing always looked clean at first, careful and controlled, but the last stroke of each word lifted slightly at the end, almost like it was trying to escape the page.
The shower shut off.
I shoved the petal back into the jacket pocket, closed the closet, nudged the suitcase into its original position, and rushed back to the living room.
I had just lowered myself onto the couch when he came out, rubbing his wet hair with a towel.
He had changed into Rowan’s lounge clothes, a gray T-shirt and dark blue athletic shorts.
They fit him perfectly.
Of course they did.
“Maren?” he called from the bedroom a moment later, his voice easy and softened by the shower. “Can you check the suitcase for my charging block? I can’t find it.”
“Sure,” I said, forcing the word out as I stood.
When I walked in, he was bent over the suitcase with his back to me, still pretending to search.
The back of his neck was exposed.
The ceiling light was harsh and white, bright enough to show every line, every pore, every inch of skin.
I stared at that spot.
Then my heart seized.