The deliveryman could barely see over the flowers.

He stood on my front porch holding a wide white box packed with yellow roses, their stems tied together with a gold ribbon. More flowers filled two plastic buckets at his feet.

“Amber Cole?”

I nodded.

“One hundred yellow roses.”

He checked the label, then looked behind me as though expecting a birthday party.

“There’s no card,” I said.

“Nothing came with the order.”

My husband, Daniel, had been in Chicago for three days. He had texted me that morning from what he claimed was a hotel conference room.

Running late. Call you tonight.

Daniel had never sent me one hundred flowers.

He usually bought a small grocery-store bouquet and left the price sticker on the plastic.

I signed the delivery screen and carried the first box into our kitchen. The deliveryman brought in the rest, wished me a good afternoon, and drove away.

For several minutes, I stood beside the kitchen island looking at the flowers.

They were fresh. Too fresh. Their petals were bright and tightly layered, without a single brown edge.

I counted them twice.

Exactly one hundred.

Then I noticed the first red mark.

It was a thin streak near the base of one flower, just above the thornless stem. At first, I assumed it was dye from the ribbon. I touched it with my thumb.

The mark did not smear.

I turned the rose slowly.

Someone had drawn a small red line directly onto the stem.

I found another marked flower in the second bucket.

Then a third.

Three yellow roses.

Three red marks.

I dropped the last flower onto the counter.

The Warning My Father Never Explained

My father had been dead for six years, but I heard his voice as clearly as if he were standing behind me.

Never ignore three red marks.

He had said it once when I was fifteen.

We had been sitting in his old Ford outside a diner in western Pennsylvania. He was still working then, a county investigator with a habit of keeping case folders in the trunk and sleeping with his phone beside his pillow.

A story about a missing woman had appeared on the radio.

My father turned the volume down.

“Some people leave signatures,” he said.

“Like fingerprints?”

“Not exactly.”

He looked through the windshield instead of at me.

“A fingerprint is something they leave by accident. A signature is something they want you to find.”

Then he said the words I had never forgotten.

“If you ever see three red marks together, call the police. Don’t touch anything else.”

When I asked what he meant, he told me it was work and changed the subject.

Standing in my kitchen twenty-two years later, I took three steps away from the roses and called 911.

Two patrol officers arrived first. They photographed the flowers, the delivery labels, the front porch and the kitchen counter. One officer asked me to repeat the story about my father.

Twenty minutes later, Detective Lena Ortiz walked through my front door.

She was in her late forties, with dark hair pulled back and a small notebook in her hand. She did not laugh when I told her about the warning.

She put on gloves and examined the marked stems.

“What was your father’s name?”

“Thomas Mercer.”

Her pen stopped.

“Investigator Mercer?”

“You knew him?”

“I knew his reputation.”

She looked at the flowers again.

“Did he ever mention the Hartwell disappearances?”

The name meant nothing to me.

Ortiz asked the patrol officers to step outside. Then she pulled out one of the stools beside the island.

“Twenty-two years ago, three women disappeared from towns along Route 30. The disappearances happened over eleven months. There were no bodies and no confirmed crime scenes.”

“What does that have to do with these flowers?”

She turned one of the marked roses toward me.

“Before each woman vanished, someone close to her received yellow flowers. Three of the stems were marked in red.”

The refrigerator motor clicked on behind us.

I looked at the buckets again.

“Were there one hundred?”

Ortiz hesitated.

“Yes.”

I called Daniel immediately.

His phone rang six times before going to voicemail.

I called again.

Then I texted him.

Call me now. Police are here.

The message showed as delivered but not read.

Ortiz asked when I had last spoken to him.

“Yesterday morning. We texted today.”

“Where is he staying?”

I opened the hotel confirmation Daniel had forwarded before leaving. Ortiz copied the name and called from her phone.

She spoke to the front desk for less than a minute.

When she ended the call, she placed the phone face down.

“Daniel never checked in.”

I stared at her.

“That’s impossible.”

“The reservation was canceled two days before his supposed arrival.”

I opened Daniel’s morning message again.

Running late. Call you tonight.

“Someone has his phone.”

“Possibly.”

“Or he lied to me.”

Ortiz did not answer.

The Office Daniel Had Kept Locked

Daniel worked as a financial compliance consultant from a rented office ten minutes from our house. I had visited it only twice.

Detective Ortiz drove me there while another officer stayed at our home to collect the flowers.

Daniel’s office manager, Rachel, met us in the lobby. Her face changed when Ortiz showed her badge.