ENGAGED TO BE MURDERED (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 4)

by Jeanine Spooner

  The whole night went on like this, sleepless, jarred, and pained. At times Kitty crept out of bed, but wasn’t sure where to go or what to do. She washed her hands in the bathroom, sometimes her face, though neither was in need of scrubbing. Then she graduated on to the cakes, eating them as though the sugar could snuff out her distress.

  By the time the sun was rising, brightening her bedroom, Kitty had finally fallen into a deep sleep. When she woke, having slept through her alarm and Sterling’s as well, he was gone. Ordinarily, she’d savor this moment to laze around in bed, listen to the pings and clanks of the heaters, relish the sound of the wind whipping snow against the windows with soft ticks, but she did none of those things. She felt stuck, sad, as though her life was spinning out of control and off its axis; Trudy was at the forefront of her mind, and Sterling haunting her from the back of it.

  She lifted her head from the pillow, and felt the immediate pang of a hangover, but the wine hadn’t caused it. She’d barely had more than a glass. It was a cake hangover—too much sugar and not enough water to wash it down. She could still feel the Triple Chocolate Threat, one of Harry’s most popular samples, sitting like a rock in her stomach.

  Kitty groaned and forced herself to her feet, which she slid into her purple, fluffy slippers. She wrapped a pink robe around her, warding off the draft that was seeping through the cracks in the windowpane, and then padded into the kitchen where she put on a pot of coffee and ran through her options for making things right with Trudy.

  But how could she make it right when she hadn’t done anything wrong?

  It wasn’t like she’d asked to be cursed. She had no idea why death seemed to be following her from one wedding to the next. And she didn’t know what she could do about it.

  Still, she was determined to give Trudy the most magnificent, most romantic, most amazing wedding ever, and the first step in that effort would be to get back into Trudy’s good graces.

  Kitty drank her coffee with that aim in mind and treated herself to the last scraps of cake, as she gazed at the winter wonderland beyond the window.

  A deer trotted through the snow at the edge of her property, and began frolicking in jolly circles, which invited its fawn to cautiously come into the clearing from the shelter of the tree line and do the same.

  She watched the peaceful creatures until their long legs carried them back into the woods and by then her mug was empty. She set it in the sink then hopped to it, starting a shower and pulling a dress and tights from where they hung in her closet.

  As she got ready for her day, she vowed that this time she would not only not get in Sterling’s way as he investigated, she wouldn’t even let on that she was looking into matters. That would ensure they’d stay in good standing. There would be no fights, no angry nights in separate apartments, and no threat of the relationship ending.

  She also vowed to catch Margie’s killer, placing that goal above all others. Which meant that she’d have to hustle Trudy’s wedding into shape. It would still be perfect. She’d make sure of it. But she needed as much free time as possible to pry into the sordid lives of Sadie Francis and any other persons of interest.

  The next step in pulling Trudy’s winter wonderland wedding together would be to coordinate the decorations to give the ceremony a unified presentation, and that’s precisely what Kitty bared in mind when she knocked on Trudy’s apartment door at a quarter to ten in the morning and said a silent prayer that Ronald not be home.

  The door popped inward and Trudy’s bright eyes darkened, as her pleasant demeanor fell flat.

  “I thought I’d catch you before you left for the salon,” Kitty said cheerfully, even though it was the opposite of how she felt. She wedged a stack of wedding binders through the crack in the door to prove she meant well. “I made some collages of decorations to see if you like any of the looks I’ve put together.”

  Trudy frowned, her mouth an annoyed line, and drew the door back. Kitty spilled through and felt a pang of nostalgia for the good times they’d had in Trudy’s cramped, eclectic home.

  When Kitty reached the living room she striped her hat off her head, fluffed her hair, and then unbuttoned her peacoat, holding the binders to her chest with one hand all the while.

  Trudy stared at her. Her arms were crossed. She didn’t look pleased.

  After setting the binders on the coffee table and draping her coat on the back of the armchair, Kitty met her friend’s gaze. There would be no diving into wedding decorations. There would be no laughs over one idea or the next. Not until they cleared the air. Not until Trudy believed she was truly and deeply sorry, and willing to do everything within her power to fix what was so clearly broken between them.

  But Trudy didn’t give her the opportunity to lead the apologetic conversation.

  “I’m not sure Ronald and I can keep the date.”

  Kitty dropped to the couch, defeated.

  “Someone has to put Margie’s funeral together. That’s a lot of work—many arrangements and phone calls,” she explained, but it was really an excuse, a way for Trudy to distance herself from her cursed friend.

  “I can help with that,” she said, trying to perk up.

  “That won’t be necessary,” she snapped.

  “I’m sure you’re capable, but I want to help.”

  “How can I allow that, Kitty, when it’s clear as day that everything you touch turns to fire and brimstone?” Trudy looked away as though Kitty didn’t deserve eye contact. “Not to mention you never liked Margie.”

  “But—”

  “I just don’t believe you’re being sincere when you say you’d like to help.”

  “Trudy, are you firing me?”

  Kitty’s voice was a trembling quaver and her eyes welled up with tears.

  For all the effort Trudy had put into remaining stern and keeping a stiff upper lip, she collapsed into a fit of sobs when she saw Kitty in shambles. She swept through to Kitty’s side, sitting next to her on the couch, and took her hands.

  “I don’t know what to do!” she confessed, searching Kitty’s face to see if she’d lead the way. “Was she killed? On purpose? Had the poisoned ring been meant for me? Why does this keep happening at your weddings?!”

  “I don’t know!”

  “I don’t want to be mad at you, Kitty, and deep down I’m not! But I am scared! I’m terrified! I don’t know what to do except keep my distance from you! Ronald’s afraid to marry me. He wants to move to Nova Scotia!”

  “Nova Scotia?!” Kitty was in an absolute tizzy. “What the hell’s in Nova Scotia?!”

  “I don’t know!”

  As if sharing one heart and mind they both sighed in aggravation that quickly turned comical until they were both chuckling and sobbing like a pair of lunatics.

  Then Trudy exclaimed, “I’ll get the wine!”

  “I’ll get the wine! You get the sage!”

  “You get the sage! I’ll call the salon! I can’t go in like this! Look at me!”

  Trudy was a fright. Her mascara had streamed down her cheeks and her red lipstick had worked its way over her shiny teeth.

  “What about the wine?” Kitty said, worried as a mouse in a cat’s shadow.

  “We’ll both get the wine,” she devised.

  And they did.

  Several bottles.

  Kitty took to popping the corks and Trudy dialed the salon and explained her reasons for not being able to make it in, while she lit up a smudge of sage and waved its thick tendrils of smoke throughout the living room. Soon Trudy ended the call and tossed her cell on the armchair, closed her eyes, and focused all of her attention on breathing the sage smoke deeply.

  Likewise, Kitty followed the trails of smoke with her nose, sucking them up her nostrils, as she balanced a full glass of aromatic Shiraz in her hand.

  When both ladies were satisfied they’d been cleansed, at least for the time being, they sat back down on the couch and sipped their wine, letting the alcohol burn through them to t
ake the edge off.

  “Okay, look,” Trudy began in a tone that alluded to all she might divulge. “In the other murders when you foraged ahead, I was in awe of you and so proud when the killers were exposed.” She drew a long sip of her Shiraz to gather her thoughts. “But this time I’m really, really worried, Kitty. I don’t want you doing anything to get yourself hurt or killed.”

  She sounded like Sterling, but Kitty agreed.

  Trudy exhaled as though doing so would push the words out of her and finally said, “I have a very bad feeling about Sadie Francis.”

  “Why?” she asked, enthralled.

  “Because of what happened yesterday morning.”

  Chapter Five

  “We were in the supermarket,” she went on. Trudy took a shaky sip of wine, as the memory returned, and all Kitty could think was that she couldn’t picture Sadie doing anything so domestic as pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store. “I recognized her right away, of course, so I said hello and asked about my engagement ring.”

  So far the recollection didn’t imply malice or death threats, but Trudy was growing more nervous with each word. Kitty placed her hand on her shoulder just as Trudy exhaled a shuddering breath.

  “It’s okay,” Kitty said kindly. “Take your time.”

  “She told me the ring had been ready for over a week.”

  Kitty blinked. “She did?”

  Trudy nodded and searched Kitty’s eyes for answers.

  “That’s not what Sadie told me,” she retorted. “I called her every day about it and all she had to say was that it was coming along and she’d let me know.”

  “When I questioned her about it, she said that resizing it was so subtle it was beyond her expertise so she called in a consultant. She didn’t give me a name. She only told me that it was the consultant who finished the job.”

  Kitty wondered why Sadie hadn’t allowed her to pick up the ring from Adorned if it was in fact ready.

  “Maybe she didn’t want anyone to touch it,” Trudy suggested. “If she delivered it to me then only I would put it on. There’d be no mishaps.”

  “But there was a mishap,” Kitty noted. “But it’s a good point. Maybe the poison needed a lot of time to dry or work its way into the silver band?”

  “Why would Sadie allow Margie to put it on her finger?”

  “She couldn’t very well intervene without revealing her dark motives,” Kitty said, thinking out loud. “Did you tell the police officer any of this?”

  “How could I? It’s hardly a smoking gun. It’s speculative at best.” Trudy took a nervous gulp of her wine. “It just gave me a very bad feeling at the time. It wasn’t only what she said. It was how she said it. She sounded conniving, as if she enjoyed telling me. Oh, it’s hard to describe.”

  “I believe you,” said Kitty, reassuring her friend that she didn’t seem crazy. “And it’s particularly strange that she was forthright with you, but blatantly lying to me. She knows we’re close. She wasn’t concerned we’d talk? It’s very strange.”

  Kitty mulled that over, drinking her wine then asked, “Did Sadie know Margie very well, or at all?”

  “I really don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. They seem on opposite sides of the track if you know what I mean.”

  “They do,” she agreed. Then again, Sadie was on the wrong side of the tracks compared to just about everyone.

  “Should we tell Sterling?”

  “No, not yet,” Kitty quipped with an easy smile so as not to alarm Trudy. “If I know Sterling, he’ll dismiss this sort of thing and it’ll be harder to convince him of anything later down the road.” Kitty chose not to mention that she had no plans of cluing Sterling into any of her discoveries. “Let me see what I can find out.”

  “Kitty,” she said, tone dropping low with anxiety. “Do you think that ring was meant for me?”

  “I can’t imagine anyone who would want to harm you.”

  Trudy nodded as if the statement would only give her solace if she could force herself to believe it.

  “You never know,” she said, worried, but Kitty grabbed her hand.

  “No one would want to hurt you. There’s just no way. Margie was different. She rubbed people the wrong way.”

  “But enough that someone would want her dead?”

  The last thing Kitty wanted to do was let on that if she looked at this thing logically—and gave proper consideration to the fact that Margie had intercepted the ring meant for Trudy—then it stood to reason that Trudy had been the intended target.

  “Let me see what I can find out from Sadie. If there really was a consultant, someone else who had direct access to the ring, then I might be able to figure out who they are and who they know. See if there’s any bad blood between them and Margie.”

  “Be careful.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a demand.

  “I will,” she promised. “For the mean time, you stay safe and in the company of other people, okay? If you’re not at the salon, then make sure you’re with Ronald.”

  “But I just called in sick. Ronald is at the hospital. He won’t be home for ten hours.”

  Trudy couldn’t very well tag along with Kitty when she swung by Adorned, but she could come to Happily Ever After in general and spend the day.

  “Let’s see,” Kitty said, thinking out loud. “We have some decisions to make about the wedding decorations, the cake, and we need to be sure your wedding gown was taken in properly and fits right. Let me make a few calls and schedule appointments for you. I’ll drop you off and pick you up.”

  “You don’t mind?”

  “Not at all. You’ll spend the day with me if you’re not at one of those stores.”

  Trudy gave her a feeble smirk then her expression drooped.

  “I’m so sorry I blamed you, Kitty.”

  Kitty gave Trudy a little squeeze. “It was understandable.”

  Trudy nodded and tried to shake her sense of shame.

  “Get dressed,” she suggested, as she plucked the Shiraz bottle off the coffee table and refreshed her glass. “And I’ll make those calls.”

  Setting appointments was a breeze and by the time Kitty returned her cell to her purse and buttoned up her peacoat, Trudy was dressed and bundled up as well. Together they worked their way around her apartment making sure every window was locked just in case, and soon they headed out. Trudy locked her apartment door, even the dead bolt, which she usually didn’t bother with. When they got to the street, Kitty made doubly sure the building door was securely locked, and then they padded up the sidewalk, as freshly fallen snow crunched under their boots.

  Kitty wasn’t one to drink nearly half a bottle of wine before eleven in the morning, the effects of which were hitting her now. She braced Trudy’s arm, realized her friend was just as tipsy, and had an idea when she saw the corner coffee shop, its holiday lights twinkling against the falling snow.

  “How about some coffee and muffins, and then I’ll drop you off to try on your gown?”

  “Oh, but I’ll be all bloated!”

  Kitty stopped and held Trudy by her shoulders.

  “You look great. You looked amazing before and there was no need to lose weight, Trudy, but now that you have its time to recognize that you’ve reached your goal. You don’t need to keep slimming down. Do you believe that you look really good and can stop losing weight now?”

  Trudy nodded, but it wasn’t convincing.

  “How many times do you want your gown taken in and your ring resized?”

  Trudy’s gaze fell under the weight of Kitty’s rhetoric.

  “Maybe a yogurt muffin,” she said. “Something low fat. And black coffee, no cream and sugar.”

  “As long as you eat,” Kitty said.

  When they reached the coffee shop Kitty held the door open for Trudy then followed after. By the grace of God there were two yogurt muffins behind the glass. Kitty ordered them along with coffees and a few cookies, which she knew Trudy wouldn’t eat.

&
nbsp; As they waited for their order, Kitty looked around the quaint little coffee house. There were a good number of college students pouring over their late breakfasts and books, fiction she imagined. The winter break lent itself to reading for pleasure. There were a few couples as well, and of course the lone customers who monopolized entire tables with their laptops, bags, and cell phones wired to the outlets nearby.

  Her gaze continued on, sweeping toward the storefront window where she noticed a muscular arm and leather pants. It was Sadie. Her back was to Kitty and she appeared to be speaking with a man who was seated across from her.

  The juxtaposition of Sadie and the man was jarring—tattoos and leather versus a crisply pressed, black suit and fashionable tie, two very different worlds clashing.

  The man had dark, deep set eyes and cheekbones that could cut glass, and there was something about the severity in his expression, the clenched jaw, the brown hair buzzed so close to his scalp it looked more like a dusting of color than a mop of locks; that told Kitty he wasn’t from around here. Sure, Greenwich had some wealthy residents and he certainly appeared to come from money, but that’s not what indicated he might be from out of town. The rich residents had an easy demeanor. They weren’t generally pressed for time. If they were in a coffee shop in the late morning, they’d lounge, relax and take in the scenery. And this man was doing none of those things. He seemed to be staring Sadie down. He looked wound up, unnerved and anxious.

  “Let’s go,” Kitty whispered to Trudy when the cashier indicated their order was ready, placing a paper bag on the counter beside the two cups of coffee.

  Trudy grabbed the bag and her coffee, and Kitty plucked up hers then ushered her friend out of the store before she could spot Sadie in the throes of her dark conversation with a strange man.

  Once she’d gotten her Fiat idling and the windshield wipers flapping to clear the snow away, Kitty stuffed the bigger cookie in her mouth and threw the car in gear, while Trudy blew on her coffee and buckled up.

  With any luck, Sadie would be back at Adorned by the time Kitty pulled up in front of Happily Ever After, but if she wasn’t, Kitty would have to devise a real plan. And it couldn’t involve breaking and entering.