by Laura Durham
Richard opened the flaps of his jacket. “This is divine. Remind me why we didn’t air condition all the tents?”
“Because Mrs. Hamilton didn’t want to lose the view of her estate. If we put in AC, you know we have to put up fabric walls to keep the cool air inside.” My eyes scanned the tent for people and any trace of the person I believed to be Tina Pink. A pair of bartenders were stocking the bar, and a few waiters placed beaded votive candles on the tables, but none of them were the blond woman I’d recognized.
“I’m willing to make the sacrifice,” Richard said.
I threw my arms in the air. “Where did she go?”
“Look.” Richard pointed to a section of the fabric tent walls in the back, a sliver of sunlight entering the dimly lit space as the drape was pulled open and fell back again.
I noticed a flash of blond hair ducking between the folds of crimson fabric and headed toward it, instinctively hopping out of my shoes before I scuffed the polished black-and-white squares of the dance floor. “That’s her.”
Richard ran around the dance floor since he couldn’t easily slip out of his lace-up oxfords, but I made it to the back of the tent first and burst through the back of it, looking right and left for Tina Pink. There was no sign of her.
“Do you see her?” Richard asked, pawing at the voluminous fabric as he fought his way out of the tent.
“She’s gone,” I said, looking between the back of the house and the door that led to the garage-turned-catering-kitchen. “And I don’t know which way she went.”
Richard kicked the last bit of fabric from around his ankle. “Are you sure it was Tina Pink?”
“Pretty sure.” I thought back to the moment I’d locked eyes with her and had seen the familiar flash of anger. “If it wasn’t her, why did she take off running?”
“Maybe because a deranged wedding planner and her incredibly stylish friend were chasing her?” Richard suggested.
“You didn’t see the way she looked at me.” I began trudging around the tent to the house, still holding my black flats dangling by two fingers. “If that wasn’t Tina Pink, then one of your waiters has serious anger management issues.”
“You can’t honestly believe I would hire Tina Pink as a waiter,” Richard said, matching my steps. “I do remember what she looks like you know.”
I paused at the French doors leading inside the house. “First off, she cut her long hair, so now she looks like a boy. And secondly, you might not have hired her. She may be here pretending to be a waiter. It wouldn’t be difficult to show up in black pants and a white shirt, swipe a bistro apron, and wander around like you know what you’re doing. No one would think twice about it.”
Richard opened the door for me and held it while I stepped inside. “I like to think there’s more to being a waiter with Richard Gerard Catering than that, Annabelle. You know I require my staff to have a thorough knowledge of both Russian and French service.”
“I doubt she was going to grab a tray and serve filet mignon,” I said. “The only reason Tina Pink would be here is because she’s involved in the kidnapping.”
“Tina Pink?” Mack said from where he stood at the kitchen sink filling a pair of plastic spray bottles. “Are you saying she’s here?”
Aside from Mack, the kitchen was empty, but the air held the scent of coffee, and I saw that the stack of muffins in the middle of the oval table had dwindled in size. I wondered if my crew was stress eating or if the family had started to eat their feelings.
“Annabelle is convinced she saw her disguised as one of my waiters,” Richard said. “We chased after her but didn’t catch her, and I never got a good look.”
Mack gaped at me, his jaw slack as water overflowed the spray bottles and cascaded onto his hands. “If she’s here then that means . . .”
“This entire mess may not be about the Hamiltons at all, and it may be completely unrelated to any sort of terrorism.” I lowered my voice. “It could be Tina Pink getting revenge on Wedding Belles.”
Mack turned off the water and shook the water droplets off his beefy hands. “If it’s revenge she’s after, she could just as easily be after Buster and me. After all, we were partly responsible for bringing her husband to justice.”
“I think if it comes to kidnapping, Kate is an easier target than the two of you,” I said.
Richard leaned against the marble countertop. “Let’s say Tina Pink did kidnap Kate and the bride. Why is she still running around here?”
“Maybe part of the fun is seeing us worry?” I said, although I didn’t really believe it.
“Do you really think a former wedding planner could do this?” Mack asked. “This is a pretty serious crime.”
“And was she a great planner in the first place?” Richard drummed his fingers on the white-and-gray marble. “This plan took some serious coordination. I honestly didn’t think that bimbo had it in her.”
“Which bimbo?” Fern asked, coming into the kitchen with an empty champagne bottle in each hand. “Kim, Kylie, Kendall?”
“Tina,” I said, opening the under-cabinet recycling bin for Fern.
Fern dropped the bottles and tilted his head at me. “Which show is she on?”
“She’s not,” I said. “We’re talking about Tina Pink.”
“That awful wedding planner with the even more awful husband?” Fern hiccupped. “I still have nightmares about him coming after me.”
“Annabelle thinks she saw Tina here,” Mack said.
“What?” Fern looked wildly around. “What would she be doing here? You don’t think she’s come to finish off the job, do you?”
“If it was, in fact, Tina I saw with her hair cut like a man and dressed up like a waiter,” I said, “I think she may be involved in the kidnapping.”
Fern staggered over to one of the chairs and collapsed into it. “Poor Kate.”
“You weren’t worried about her before?” I asked.
“Of course I was.” Fern wrung his hands in his lap. “But it’s one thing to be taken by terrorists and quite another to be kidnapped by an insane wedding planner.”
“We don’t know she’s insane,” Richard said. “Having bad taste doesn’t mean she’s certifiable, although you wouldn’t get any arguments from me if that became the new litmus test.”
“You said she cut off her long, blond hair and now has a man’s haircut?” Fern asked.
“If it was her, then yes,” I told him. “And not a cute pixie cut, either. It looked like she’d gone to a military barber.”
“I rest my case.” Fern raised and lowered his eyebrows slowly. “In-sane.”
“If she is involved, what can we do?” Mack asked, holding his two spray bottles at his waist like guns.
“First we have to find her and make sure it’s actually Tina Pink,” I said. “There’s a possibility I’m wrong.”
“Wrong about what?” Daniel asked as he and his brother came into the room.
“Annabelle thinks she spotted Tina Pink posing as a waiter,” Mack explained.
Daniel’s face remained blank, but recognition crossed Mike’s face.
“The one with the husband and the big pool brouhaha?” he asked. “Isn’t she a wedding planner too?”
“Was a wedding planner,” Richard corrected him. “Past tense. I haven’t heard a peep about her since that day, not that she ever had much business in the first place. I honestly don’t know how all these new planners stay in business. Plan your own wedding, throw out a shingle, take a bunch of photos of pretty tabletops and selfies drinking coffee and, poof, you’re an Instagram star with no income.”
We all stared at Richard.
“Sorry. Sometimes I need to vent.” He gave a flourish of his hand. “Carry on.”
“So this former colleague is now here working as a waiter?” Daniel asked.
Richard put a palm to his chest. “I didn’t hire her. I have exceedingly high standards for my service staff. I highly doubt she’d make the cut.”
Reese walked over and put a hand on my waist. “So what are you thinking?”
I closed my eyes for a moment to keep from tearing up. When I opened them, I gazed up at him, meeting his hazel eyes. “I think this kidnapping may have nothing to do with the DOD or the ransom or the Hamiltons. It might be all about Tina Pink getting revenge on us for ruining her life.”
“We don’t know her life was ruined,” Fern said. “We don’t even know for sure her hair is ruined.”
“Yes we do.” The voice from the doorway was accompanied by a small yip.
Richard’s head snapped around. “Leatrice! Hermes! What are the two of you doing here?”
It took me a moment to realize my nutty neighbor was wearing Richard’s tiny Yorkie in a front-facing baby carrier, the dog’s brown-and-black head peeking out over the top, and his little legs extending in front of him.
“I heard you yelling about Tina Pink when I was on the phone with Richard, and then I heard you say Kate had been kidnapped.” Leatrice shook her head, but her jet-black Mary Tyler Moore flip did not budge. “We were already in my car on the way to the movies, and I knew you needed my help, so Hermes and I rushed over.”
I didn’t bother to ask how she found us since Leatrice considered herself to be an amateur spy and kept me under constant surveillance. It would not surprise me if she had a tracker on my car or phone or both. “How did you get past the guards?”
“They asked if I was performing the ceremony and I said yes.” She rubbed her hands together. “Do you need me to perform the ceremony?”
“No,” I said so forcefully she took a step back.
Richard’s voice came out as little more than a whisper. “Is Hermes riding in a Baby Bjorn?”
“I got the baby carrier from the nice family on the second floor who no longer have babies,” she told him. “Hermes loves it.”
I crossed to Leatrice, giving Hermes a rub on the head. “You can’t be here.”
“But you need me, especially all the information I got on Tina Pink.” Leatrice lifted Hermes out of the carrier and handed him to Richard, who still looked gob-smacked. “You were right; she has reason to want to get revenge on all of you.”
Chapter 24
“All of us?” Fern asked as he rubbed Hermes under the chin.
“Weren’t you all responsible for what happened to her husband?” Leatrice asked, unhooking the baby carrier from around her waist and lifting it over her shoulders.
“What is she wearing?” Richard whispered to me.
Without the baby carrier covering her chest, I got a full view of Leatrice’s bright flower-print dress with puffy sleeves. So much for her flying under the radar.
Mack set his spray bottles on the counter. “But it was self-defense.”
“I doubt Tina Pink sees it that way.” Leatrice shuffled to the glass wall overlooking the terrace and pool. “Did you know her big house was repossessed as well as her fancy cars? And all her bank accounts were frozen.”
I swallowed hard. “So she went from being a wealthy Potomac wife to having nothing?”
“Maybe she shouldn’t have married a criminal,” Richard said. “I hope I’m not supposed to have sympathy for her.”
“We shouldn’t judge until we’ve walked a mile in the other person’s shoes,” Mack said.
Richard wrinkled his nose. “Wear someone else’s shoes? Not unless they’re the new Prada loafers, honey.”
Hermes yipped in agreement.
Leatrice spotted Daniel, and her bright-coral mouth curled into a smile. “You look familiar.” Her smile faltered. “You never appeared on America’s Most Wanted, did you?”
“No,” Daniel said, holding out his hand. “I’m Daniel Reese. Mike’s brother.”
“Of course.” Leatrice ignored his extended hand and gave him a hug. “I can see the family resemblance.” She darted a glance at his ring finger. “And you’re not married either I see.”
Daniel stammered while his brother looked on, grinning.
“So what has she been doing?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation back to Tina. “She disappeared from the wedding scene, and I assumed she left town. Even her BFF Brianna pretended she’d never heard of her.”
“Typical Brianna,” Fern said. “That wedding planner doesn’t have a loyal bone in her body.”
“You know she interviewed for this wedding,” I said.
“You went up against Brides by Brianna to get the Hamilton wedding?” Richard looked over his shoulder. “Are we sure she isn’t here with Tina trying to ruin us?”
Fern shuddered. “Don’t even joke.”
“From what my online buddies could find, Ms. Pink is living in a rented studio apartment somewhere near Mount Vernon,” Leatrice said.
I wondered if these were the same online buddies from Leatrice’s days hanging out on the dark net with hackers named Dagger Dan and Boots. After getting me in trouble for using her hacked information, and after her online pals had gone underground for a while, she’d agreed not to dabble in the quasi-legal. I suspected she occasionally used her buddies for intel, although she never admitted it, and I didn’t ask. Some things I’d rather not know.
Richard shook his head. “How the mighty have fallen.”
“Okay,” I said, pacing small circles as I thought out loud. “She loses everything, blames us, and comes up with a plan to crash one of our big weddings and kidnap Kate.”
Mack sucked in a breath. “I’ll bet she heard about the wedding from Brianna.”
“You know,” I said, “you may be on to something. We booked this wedding before everything went down with Tina, which means she and Brianna were still buds. I’ll bet Brianna mentioned losing this wedding to us and probably gave all the details to her friend without knowing it. The Hamiltons had the date and location settled before they interviewed planners. That would explain how Tina knew enough to infiltrate the event.”
“This is all well and good,” Richard said. “But we don’t know for sure if Tina Pink is here or behind everything.”
“Then who were we chasing?” I asked.
“A terrified waiter?” Richard suggested. “Tell me this, darling, how would Tina know enough about Mr. Hamilton’s work to ask for his nerve agent as ransom?”
I gave Richard an exasperated sigh. “Maybe she researched his pharma company and came up with the ransom scheme. Aren’t you always admonishing me for not learning more about my clients? It’s possible she found out about the DOD contract and concocted the plan from there.”
Richard gave me a look that told me he wasn’t convinced, but before I could argue with him any further, Reese put a hand on my arm.
“The first thing we need to do is track down this woman.” He twisted to face me. “You say she’s still blond but her hair is cut like a man’s, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “And she’s wearing black pants, a white shirt, and a long bistro apron like the rest of the waiters.”
“This shouldn’t be too hard,” Fern said. “Most of Richard’s waiters are tall, dark, and hunky. From what I remember, Tina is a string bean.”
Leatrice rubbed her hands together. “I love a good search.”
I took another look at her boldly patterned dress, the fabric shiny and the puffy sleeves larger than her head. “I can’t have you wandering around like that.”
Leatrice dropped her eyes to her dress. “This is the dress I wore to the last wedding I attended. You don’t like it?”
“You haven’t been to a wedding since the Reagan administration?” Richard asked, reaching out to touch the floral print fabric like it was radioactive.
“Not unless you count the wedding you planned on the yacht,” she said. “And at that wedding, I wasn’t dressed as a guest since I was helping you track down a killer.”
“No, you weren’t.” No amount of hypnotherapy could remove the image of Leatrice in a sailor suit. “But I can’t pass you off as a guest since the guests aren’t here yet, and the
family is crawling all over the place.”
Richard tapped his chin with one finger. “We could hide her in a closet.”
I took Leatrice by the elbow and leveled a finger at Richard. “I’m going to put her in a costume. You’d better figure out how to explain Hermes.”
Richard looked down at the tiny dog squirming in his arms. Hermes wiggled up to lick his chin and yipped.
“The rest of us will spread out and look for Tina Pink,” Reese said. “Don’t try to apprehend her on your own. Text me, and Daniel and I will come to you. I don’t want anyone trying to be a hero.” He leaned down close to my ear. “Especially you, babe.”
I felt chills travel down my spine, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from lingering on his backside as he and Daniel headed outside. I looked away quickly when Richard caught me staring.
“I’ll go tell Buster,” Mack said. “He still holds a grudge against her for stealing away one of our best employees.”
“I thought to forgive was the Christian thing to do,” I teased. “Tina isn’t on your prayer list?”
Mack picked up his spray bottles on his way out of the kitchen and paused in the doorway. “Oh, she is. Buster prays she’ll get what’s coming to her.”
“Now that’s the kind of praying I can get behind,” Fern said after Mack had left the room. “Maybe I should start going to their prayer meetings.” He smoothed the shoulders of his black-and-white-striped top. “In the meantime, I’m going to search upstairs and finish the bridesmaids’ hair.”
As he sashayed out of the kitchen, I tried to imagine the prim hairstylist at one of the gatherings of the Road Riders for Jesus, but the thought of Fern in leather and chains made my head hurt.
“Come on.” I pulled Leatrice with me toward the French doors. “The costumes are in the pool house.”
“Wait for me.” Richard hurried after us, his dog jiggling in his arms. “Maybe I can find something for Hermes to wear.”
I highly doubted Sidney Allen stocked dog-sized costumes, but I didn’t want to burst Richard’s bubble. We skirted the length of the pool with me pulling Leatrice by the sleeve to speed up her pace. I wanted to spend the least amount of time possible outside in the heat, even though I suspected it was a lost cause and my makeup had melted off ages ago. We reached the pool house, which had glass-paned French doors exactly like the ones on the main house.