by Laura Durham
I felt my phone buzz and gave an impatient groan. If Reese was going to call me all day, it was not going to help his case. I pulled out my phone and looked at the screen. It was a text from Kate but only a series of random letters. Either she butt dialed me or was having a stroke. I typed back ‘What?’ and pressed send.
I didn’t get a response, so I slipped my phone back into my pocket. She must already have her phone on mute. I decided I’d better go upstairs and check on the bride myself. I gave a final, envious glance at the swimming penguins as I crossed back through the pool deck and opened the French doors leading into the house. The noise of splashing penguins and band sound checks were replaced with an Andrea Bocelli song, and I remembered the opera singer whom I’d told could practice in the library. I’d barely made it two steps into the kitchen when Fern rushed into the room.
“Thank heavens I found you.” He stopped to catch his breath when he reached me.
“What’s wrong?” I asked, grabbing him by the shoulders.
“It’s . . . the bride.” His words came out in stops and starts. “She’s gone.”
Chapter 4
“Missing?” I asked Fern as I stood in the bride’s upstairs bedroom. “How can she be missing?”
The bridesmaids were down the hall in the sister’s bedroom with the makeup artist, so the sunny room stood empty and silent. A king size sleigh bed was covered in a white duvet piped in pale blue and stacked with a variety of white-and-blue pillows, as well as several stuffed penguins. A tall wooden wardrobe was positioned across from the bed with the wedding dress hanging from one of the open doors, the full organza skirt billowing to the floor. The matching vanity by the window was covered with hairdryers, bottles of styling serum, and bobby pins, the tufted stool pulled out at an angle as if the bride had just gotten up. Sheer curtains covered the wide window that overlooked the pool, the rolling hills behind the house, and the stables in the distance.
I crossed to the mahogany vanity where a half-full flute of champagne with lipstick marks on the rim sat next to a natural bristle brush. The scent of hairspray and perfume lingered in the air.
“When I came up to see how much progress Kate was making with Veronica, this is what I found.” Fern indicated the door to the en suite bathroom hanging open. “I assumed she was getting makeup done down the hall and went to check there, but no luck.”
I leaned into the bathroom. Nothing but a lot of beige tile carved with scrolls and flowers, a garden tub surrounded by jars of bath salts, a glass-doored shower, and a long stretch of marble with two sinks and a sizable collection of Crème de la Mer products. A quick check of the door in the corner revealed the toilet and a bidet, not that I expected to find the bride hiding in there.
I went back to the bedroom and sat on the tufted bench at the end of the bed. I could hear the giggles and chatter from the bridal party from a few doors away. I rubbed my temples. “She can’t really have run off,” I said, trying to convince myself more than anyone. “That’s so dramatic, even for her.”
Fern joined me on the bench, crossing his legs at the knee. “I checked all the rooms upstairs and did a quick run through of the main rooms downstairs before I came to get you. I thought there was an outside chance she might have gone to the kitchen for a bite.”
I shook my head. “She would have sent Kate if she needed something. Which reminds me, where is Kate?”
“I thought she was with you, and I’d missed her somehow when I came upstairs and ran around looking for the bride.”
I sat up straighter. “This is good news. If Kate is with Veronica, they can’t be far. Kate would never let her do a ‘runaway bride.’” I pulled out my phone and texted her. “They must be somewhere in the house.”
Fern’s shoulders relaxed. “Of course you’re right. It’s a huge house after all. Maybe Veronica wanted to get away from the bridesmaids and convinced Kate to go with her.”
“Did you know there are twelve bathrooms in this place?” I asked Fern as I stared at the screen of my phone waiting for a reply to my text.
“Goodness.” Fern wrinkled his nose. “Can you imagine having to clean all of those?”
“No, and I don’t want to have to search all of them or the twenty or so other rooms in this place.”
A long, white box appeared in the doorway, seeming to hover in midair until a man’s bald head joined it, followed by the rest of his body. “Is this where the bouquets should go?”
“You’re in the right place,” I told Mack, one half of the flower designing duo also known as the Mighty Morphin Flower Arrangers.
Mack set the box on the bed and stepped back, putting his hands on the waist of his black leather pants.
“No vest today?” Fern asked, appraising the man’s outfit of white T-shirt, leather pants, and black motorcycle boots.
Usually the outfit included leather vests complete with chains, which made it easy to hear them coming. Today, without their vests, they were in stealth mode.
“Too hot,” Mack’s partner, Buster, said as he came into the room carrying a smaller white box I guessed was the boutonnieres.
Buster and Mack were the owners of Lush, one of DC’s top floral designers for weddings. They were known for dramatic designs and for their notable appearance. Both men topped six feet tall and three hundred pounds, were bald with goatees, and wore lots of black leather. Even though they were similar, Mack’s hair—what little he had—was dark red while Buster’s goatee was brown, and Buster always wore a pair of motorcycle goggles on top of his head.
Fern swung his crossed leg. “I’m lucky I don’t perspire.”
“You’re lucky you don’t know what it’s like to sweat in leather pants,” Buster said.
I knew it would be foolish to suggest they wear shorts or breathable fabrics since they rode Harleys even when coming to weddings.
Mack did a quick scan of the room. “Where’s the bride? We want to show her the bouquets and make sure she likes them.”
I exchanged a look with Fern. “The bride is . . . not here.”
Mack raised his pierced eyebrow. “Where is she?”
Fern cupped a hand around one side of his mouth and said in a stage whisper, “We don’t know.”
Buster gave me a questioning look. “Is this true? We don’t know where the bride is?”
“Technically only one-half of the Wedding Belles team is in the dark on the bride’s location,” I said. “Kate is with her somewhere, and I’m sure she’ll text me any moment to tell me where.”
We all looked at my phone, which did not vibrate or ring.
Fern rested a hand on my knee. “We should face facts, sweetie. The bride has done a runner, and Kate is her accomplice.”
Mack’s mouth fell open a bit. “Cheese and crackers! We’ve never had a groom left at the altar before.”
“I could go for some cheese and crackers right about now,” Fern said, touching a hand to his flat stomach.
As members of a Christian biker gang, Buster and Mack made it a rule not to swear, which led to some interesting expressions during times of stress.
“This groom will not be left at the altar,” I assured Mack, although I didn’t feel so confident. Where was Kate, and why wasn’t she answering my texts?
I stood up as my phone rang, swiping to talk without checking who was calling. “Kate, where are you?”
“Not Kate,” Richard said, “but where are you?”
“In the bride’s room.” I lowered my voice. “We can’t find her or Kate.”
Richard was silent for a moment, and I thought I’d lost the call. “What do you mean you can’t find them?”
“When Fern came to the room, it was empty. He did a quick search of the rooms and had no luck. I’ve texted Kate but haven’t heard back.”
Richard’s breath became more ragged. “Do you think the bride ran off before the wedding? Tell me now, Annabelle, before my chefs start caramelizing the Brie tartlets.”
“Kate would neve
r aid and abet a bride in running out on her own wedding. She knows I’d kill her.”
“You’d have to get in line,” Richard muttered.
“I’m going to have a look around the house. They have to be here somewhere.”
“And I’m helping her,” Fern said, leaning over toward the phone.
“We will too,” Buster added in his deep rumble of a voice.
“Well, that’s comforting,” Richard said. “We have a gondolier and two Christian bikers on the case.”
I tapped my foot against the plush carpet. “If you want to help, you could look yourself. We have a lot of rooms to get through.”
“Fine. I’ll take the pool house,” Richard said. “It’s the closest room to our makeshift kitchen setup in the garage.”
“Call me the second you find them,” I said before clicking off.
“Buster and I will take the basement level,” Mack said. “Maybe they’re downstairs in the movie theatre.”
“You don’t think they’re watching The Notebook, do you?” Fern asked, jumping to his feet. “Kate and I adore that movie. Maybe I should go with you two to check.”
I pulled Fern to my side as he tried to leave with the florists. “You’re with me, and we have no time for matinees. We’ll take the main level since you already searched all the bedrooms.”
Fern made a pouty face but followed me out of the bedroom behind Buster and Mack and down the sweeping staircase to the foyer. The two burly men continued downstairs while Fern and I walked through the living room with its soaring cathedral ceiling and massive fireplace. A slim man in a tuxedo paced at the far end, humming scales. He paused when he saw us.
“Don’t mind us,” I told the man I recognized as our opera singer.
We popped our heads into the father’s empty study as I heard the tenor begin to sing again. We passed several waiters in long white bistro aprons over their black pants when we entered the open kitchen and informal dining room that stretched across the back of the house. I glanced out the glass walls facing the pool. There was plenty of activity under the dinner tent as the band set up and the final touches were put on the décor by the floral staff, but I didn’t see Kate or the bride. There was no one in the formal dining room with the oval table that could seat twenty or in the den with the sectional sofa and big-screen TV mounted over another fireplace.
Fern threw up his hands. “That’s it.”
“You’re forgetting the rooms off the garage.” I motioned for him to follow me.
“Why would they be hiding out in the mud room or the assistant’s office?” Fern asked as I opened the door to the office of the mother of the bride’s personal assistant. The lights were off, and no one sat behind the wooden desk.
“We have to check everything.” I pulled the door closed and stepped into the mud room with its shelving unit and series of cubbies.
Fern motioned to the baskets tucked in the tall white unit. “Not in here unless they used a shrink ray.”
We retraced our steps to the kitchen, and I stopped short when I spotted a woman with tightly curled gray hair, wearing a floral bathrobe, rifling through the kitchen drawers.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
The woman looked up. “You can if you’ve got any ciggies.”
“Ciggies?” Fern snapped his fingers as a look of recognition passed across his face. “Oh, you mean cigarettes.”
“Yeah, cigarettes.” The woman looked at us like we were slow. “You got any?”
Fern and I exchanged a look.
“No we don’t,” I said. “Do you mind me asking who you are?”
The woman sighed and closed a dark wood drawer, turning her attention to the overhead cabinets. “I’m the granny, I mean grandmother.” She cleared her throat and it sounded like she was hacking up a hairball. “The bride’s grandmother.”
From creating the ceremony program, I knew Veronica only had one living grandmother, and it was her mother’s mother. I looked at this woman with her raspy voice and her frizzy perm and tried to see the connection with the sophisticated Mrs. Hamilton.
“I know my daughter keeps cigarettes hidden somewhere.” She put her hands on her hips. “If I could only find them.”
I’d never seen the mother of the bride smoke, and I wondered if this was a habit she’d kicked long ago.
“Sorry,” I said. “I can’t help you there.”
“You haven’t seen your granddaughter recently, have you?” Fern asked.
The woman moved the chrome espresso machine and peered behind it. “Which one?”
“The bride,” I said. “Veronica.”
She gave a half laugh, half snort. “The princess didn’t want family around her while she got ready, so I haven’t seen her all day.” She shrugged. “Fine by me.”
Fern raised his eyebrows.
The old woman’s head snapped up. “You don’t think she has smokes in her room do you?”
“The bride doesn’t smoke,” I said.
The grandmother cackled as she lifted the lids off two white ceramic containers sitting to one side of the shiny black stovetop and looked inside. “Sure she doesn’t.”
Was this woman crazy? I’d had plenty of clients who smoked, but Veronica and her mother had never once smelled like smoke, and I’d never seen packs of cigarettes in their purses or anywhere in the house. You might be able to disguise a drinking habit with mints and mouthwash, but smoke lingered in your hair and clothes and was a dead giveaway.
The woman slammed the drawer shut and made for the doorway leading to the foyer. “Guess I’ll keep looking upstairs.” She leveled a finger at us as she passed. “Don’t tell my daughter you saw me. I’m not in the mood for a lecture.”
“Well, she’s a piece of work,” Fern said, staring at the doorway the woman had exited. “No wonder they’ve kept her hidden away until now.”
Mack barreled through the doorway with Buster fast on his heels and almost knocked into us.
He grasped my shoulders to stop himself and keep me from falling over. “Thank the good Lord we found you.”
“What’s up?” I asked, noticing the worried expression on his face.
“We found this outside the front door.” Mack held up a phone.
I took the iPhone from him and flipped it over, recognizing Kate’s custom cover with the Wedding Belles logo. My pulse quickened. “This is Kate’s phone.”
Buster nodded. “She must have dropped it.”
“That explains why she wasn’t responding to you.” Fern patted my hand. “At least you know she wasn’t ignoring you. That should make you feel better.”
“And it was outside by the front door?” I asked.
Buster pressed his lips together without answering.
“Maybe the bride did run off and Kate went with her,” I said, even though I couldn’t believe Kate would do such a thing. “Or maybe they ran out for something, and Kate dropped her phone so she can’t tell us where they are.”
“I’m sure that’s it,” Mack said, a look of relief crossing his face. “Maybe it was a supply run.”
Fern snapped his fingers. “Or the bride was in the mood for fries. Do you remember the bride who made us take the limo through the McDonald’s drive-thru for fries?”
I let out a breath, but my heart did not slow. “That’s true. Brides can be insistent, especially this one. If she’d wanted to leave the house for some reason, I doubt Kate could have stopped her.”
Mack put an arm around my shoulder as he led me toward the kitchen table. “I’m sure this is a big to-do over nothing.”
A scream pierced the air and we all jumped.
“Who was that?” Fern asked, staggering against the marble countertop.
I half expected Richard to come running in from the makeshift kitchen in the garage, screaming bloody murder about his chef ruining the hollandaise sauce. When I looked up to see the mother of the bride staggering into the room from the far end, it took me a second to realize she’d bee
n the one to scream. She wore a black silk bathrobe that reached the floor and had her brown hair in curlers. Her eyes were wide, and her hands shook as she leaned against one of the dining chairs.
Fern rushed to her before she collapsed onto the floor. “Are you hurt?”
She shook her head as she slumped against Fern. “It’s Veronica. They’ve kidnapped my daughter.”
Kate’s phone slipped out of my hand and clattered to the floor.
Chapter 5
“Breathe deeply,” I said, rubbing Fern’s back as he bent over double with his hands on his knees.
Fern fanned his face. “It’s just such a shock.”
I turned to the bride’s mother, who sat at the oval kitchen table between Buster and Mack. “Can I get you anything, Mrs. Hamilton?”
She motioned to the glass of ice water sitting in front of her. “I’m fine. I should be getting back to my husband though. He’s the one who got the ransom call.”
I took a seat across the table, forcing myself to remain calm, even though my hands were shaking and I felt like I might throw up. “Can you run through what happened again? It was hard to hear with all the shrieking going on earlier.”
“Excuse me for being startled by the news,” Fern muttered from his upside-down position.
A waiter came inside through one of the French doors, and I could hear the sounds of the band tuning on the stage. I looked outside and saw the penguin handler drying off her charges with fluffy yellow towels I recognized from the pool house. My eyes went to the far end of the pool and the building that looked like a miniature Italian villa. I remembered Richard had been headed there to look for Kate and the bride, but I didn’t see him. I hoped he was busy in the garage kitchen and oblivious to the kidnapping. I had enough on my plate with Fern. The last thing I needed was a Richard meltdown.
“Of course.” Mrs. Hamilton took a sip of water, the ice cubes clinking in the glass. “My husband was in our bedroom getting dressed when his cell phone rang. I started to get upset with him for answering it on our daughter’s wedding day—he’s always taking calls from his business partner—but as soon as I saw his face, I knew it wasn’t that.”