by Laura Durham
“Who are you talking to?”
“No one,” Richard said. “You are decent, aren’t you?”
“If you mean am I dressed, then yes. What’s going on?”
My front door flew open and Richard and Fern stood in my hallway, their arms laden with canvas grocery sacks.
“Ta-da!” Fern cried. “The cavalry has arrived!” He rushed past me, giving me an air kiss on both cheeks.
Richard came inside and closed the door behind him with one foot. “Fern insisted that we come over and lift your spirits, so here we are.” He lifted the bags in his arms, and I spotted two bottles of wine and a wheel of Brie. My spirits felt a little better already.
Fern had dumped his bags on my kitchen counter, and he and Kate stood side by side unpacking them.
“This is an unusual selection of food.” Kate examined a pineapple and a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream.
Richard glanced at his Gucci watch. “We would have been here sooner, but Fern insisted we stop and get all your favorites.”
“Chocolate croissants from Pâtisserie Poupon and cupcakes from Baked & Wired.” Fern held up a paper bag and a white pastry box.
Kate peeked into another paper bag. “Are these what I think they are?”
Fern grinned and nodded. “Julia’s empanadas.”
I gave Richard a hug, and my voice broke. “You two are the best.”
“Now, now.” Richard patted me on the back then cleared his throat and pulled away, making his way to the kitchen. “Today is not only going to be a carb-fest. I also brought healthy food because you know you don’t eat right, Annabelle.”
I didn’t usually welcome Richard’s scoldings about my admittedly lousy eating habits, but today I’d let it slide. I walked over to the counter that separated my kitchen and living room and pushed back the wooden accordion shutters so I could see fully into the kitchen. I’d been meaning to remove them entirely since I liked being able to see in each room from the other but hadn’t gotten around to it.
“You seem pretty upbeat,” Kate said to Fern. “Did you escape Tricia’s poisoned pen?”
Fern folded one of the fabric grocery bags and laid it on the counter. “Only because she’s afraid I’ll make all her hair fall out the next time she has her hair done.”
“Why does she think that?” I asked.
Fern pulled open a bag of salt-and-vinegar potato chips—Kate’s favorite—and popped one in his mouth. “Because I told her I would.”
“I hardly think threatening a client is a good business practice,” Richard began, but Fern cut him off.
“I told her if she wrote even one bad word about me I’d shampoo her hair with enough Nair to leave her bald as a coot.” Fern’s face darkened. “I feel bad that I didn’t include the rest of our team in the threat, though. I should have warned her off trashing you, and I didn’t. I’m sorry, girls.”
Kate threw an arm around his shoulders. “It isn’t your fault that our bride is an awful human.”
“And you didn’t know she’d pan us,” I said. “The wedding was beautiful after all.”
Fern smiled as he put a four-pack of my favorite bottled Mocha Fraps in the door of the fridge alongside a six-pack of Diet Dr Pepper. “It was. Any normal bride would have been over the moon with it. Even if the best man’s toast was disastrous. Then, again, he had to follow me so the expectations were high.”
“All toasts are painful,” Richard said. “I had one that went on for forty minutes with the best man recounting every year he’d known the groom.”
“This is why I need my sedative dart gun,” I said. “If someone start talking too much, I could casually shoot them with a dart then drag their inert body away.”
Kate looked at me askance. “I’m pretty sure that would be illegal.”
“But effective.” I walked around to join my friends in the kitchen. “We should eat. Because I have big plans after lunch.”
Kate lifted the lid to the cupcake box. “Dessert?”
I shook my head. “I’m going to Tricia’s house to tell her exactly what we all think of her.”
Chapter 7
“Did I mention that I think this is a horrible idea?” Kate asked as she tried to navigate the Georgetown sidewalk beside me in her heels.
“Several times,” I said.
We’d walked from my apartment to Wisconsin Avenue then turned to head up to Glover Park, where the bride lived. Since it was a weekday afternoon, we had to dodge not only people on the sidewalks but sandwich boards placed outside shops to beckon customers inside. I passed a woman talking on her cell phone then edged around a double-sided chalkboard advertising a mani/pedi deal for a nail salon. I slowed to let Kate catch up.
“Are we even sure she’ll be home?” Kate grabbed the sleeve of the white cardigan I’d thrown over my T-shirt.
“Well, they don’t leave for their honeymoon in Paris for a week, and I’m sure she’s too worn out from writing nasty reviews to leave her house.” I waved the white envelope in my hand at her. “And if she’s not there, we’ll leave this.”
“It’s a good letter,” Kate said. “But are you sure you want to respond to her at all? Couldn’t we just wait for Fern to make her hair fall out?”
“Normally I’d be all for taking the high road.” I paused at an intersection. “We’ve had plenty of high-maintenance brides, and I’ve never called any of them on their bad behavior. I know it’s all part of the job.”
Kate hitched her pink purse over her shoulder. “The bad part of the job.”
“But this girl wrote reviews specifically to damage people who worked really hard for her. You, me, Buster, Mack, the hotel staff—we put up with way more abuse than anyone should. And our reward for that is a review filled with complaints that simply aren’t true?” I shook my head. “Not this time. Those reviews can hurt our business and that business is how we all survive.”
“You’re right.” Kate balled her hands into fists. “I’ll bet she doesn’t even care if my clothing and cocktail budget gets slashed.”
I glanced at Kate as we crossed the street ,with her taking two short steps for every one of mine. “I don’t give you a clothing and cocktail budget.”
“I know. I give myself one.” She winked. “When I’ve been very good, I get a shoe bonus.”
We reached the bride’s street, and I turned left. We’d come to her house so many times during the planning process, for meetings and dress fittings and to pick up guest RSVPs, that I didn’t even need to glance at the numbers on the row houses.
The Glover Park neighborhood sat right above Georgetown and consisted of narrow brick row houses pressed tightly together, nearly all with wooden porches jutting out front. The houses alternated between redbrick and those painted shades of yellow, cream, green, and blue.
“You’re sure about this?” Kate asked as we got closer to the house. She paused for breath and leaned against a car parked at the curb.
“What’s the worst that could happen? She already wrote us a bad review. You can’t go lower than one star. At least we can have our say and tell her what we think of her.”
We reached the yellow-brick house with gray concrete steps, and I led the way up the stairs to the porch, grasping the metal handrail. Most houses on the street had rocking chairs or swings on their porches, but this one was spartan. I remembered the bride’s mother telling me that Tricia couldn’t be outside because of her allergies, and the groom wouldn’t sit outside without her. I had a feeling the bride had decided that her fiancé couldn’t be outside without her, and he’d had to go along with her scorched-earth policy regarding porch furniture.
I knocked firmly on the door, and it eased opened. The last person who shut it must have been in a hurry and not pulled it closed all the way. I turned back to Kate. “Should I poke my head in and call their names?”
I called the bride’s and groom’s names. No answer. I called out again, this time a bit louder. Silence.
“Maybe
they’re upstairs.” Kate nudged me. “Maybe they’re too occupied to hear you.”
I cringed. “It’s completely quiet. Unless they’re mimes, I doubt they’re ‘occupied.’”
“Maybe the bride also suffers from narcolepsy and fell asleep?”
“That’s one lucky groom,” I said under my breath.
“Should we drop off the letter and leave?” Kate craned her neck around me to look into the hallway of the house. “There’s a hall table right there.”
I spotted the whitewashed table with a matching mirror hanging over it. It held a shallow crystal bowl with a set of keys, a photo in a silver frame, and a miniature boxwood topiary shaped like an inverted cone. I stepped inside the house and Kate followed closely behind, her heels making clacking sounds on the hardwood floors. I leaned my letter up against the topiary, briefly touching the greenery to ascertain that it was, in fact, fake.
“Let’s go,” I said. I didn’t want to admit it, but the heavy silence of the house gave me the creeps. Where were they?
Kate held up the framed photograph of the bride, groom, and maid of honor in Georgetown sweatshirts. “The bride is actually smiling in this.”
“She didn’t start having her issues until after college, remember?” I whispered, even though there was no one around to hear us.
Kate shook her head and replaced the photo. “You know I never retain personal facts about our couples. There isn’t enough room in my head. Plus I don’t care.”
We’d started toward the door when we heard a sound behind us. Kate spun around and grasped my arm. “What was that?”
My heart pounded, but I tried to breathe calmly. “I think it came from the kitchen.”
“Tricia? Dave?” I called. No response.
Kate relaxed her grip. “Maybe a window blew open.”
A faint moan came from the kitchen, and Kate slapped both hands over her mouth.
“That wasn’t a window,” I said. “We should check it out.”
Kate dropped her hands from her mouth. “Are you kidding me? Have you watched no horror movies? This house is haunted, and you and I need to get out of here as fast as humanly possible.” Her eyes darted around her. “Especially me. I’m blond. The blondes are always picked off first.”
I took Kate’s hand and pulled her forward. “It’s not haunted. Come on.”
“If we get attacked by evil house spirits, I will never speak to you again.” Kate hunched behind me as I walked slowly down the hall.
“You’ve already threatened to quit twice this week. Your quota is up.”
“Oh, I won’t quit. I just won’t talk to you,” Kate said as we shuffled along.
“Well, that should work well.”
When we reached the kitchen, I poked my head around the opening that led into the room and dropped Kate’s hand. “Oh, no.”
“What is it?” Kate looked over my shoulder then sucked in her breath. “I’ll call 911.”
Now I knew why the groom hadn’t answered me. He lay facedown on the black-and-white tile floor in a growing pool of blood.
Chapter 8
“The ambulance is on its way.” Kate came back into the kitchen but stood far away from the body on the tile.
I rose from where I’d knelt down next to the groom, glad to get some distance from the metallic scent of blood. I took a slow breath and let the sudden wave of nausea pass, the taste of bile bitter in the back of my throat. I didn’t normally react to the sight of blood, but the smell was another matter entirely. “He’s still breathing.”
“Should we do something?” Kate wrung her hands. “CPR? Mouth-to-mouth?”
I shook my head and pointed to the round hole in his shirt over his shoulder. “It looks like he was shot in the back. I don’t think we should move him.”
“Who would shoot him in the back?” Kate’s eyes darted around the kitchen like she expected the shooter to jump out from the contemporary white cabinets at any second. “Do you think it was the bride and that’s why she’s not here?”
“I don’t know.” I steadied myself with one hand on the cool alabaster-and-gray marble countertops and tore my eyes from the body. “Why would she shoot him?”
“You’re right. She’s the one with all the money. He should be the one knocking her off. And it’s not like she could find another guy as hot as him who would put up with all her crap.”
I motioned to the groom on the floor. “He can probably still hear you, you know.”
Kate cringed. “Right.” She put both palms on the counter and let her head fall between them. “Sorry.”
“Don’t touch anything,” I said, pointing at her hands on the counter. “We don’t want to mess with the crime scene.”
She jumped back like she’d been burned. “You’re right. You don’t think we’ll be suspects, do you?”
“I’m sure we’ll be witnesses.” I snatched my hand from the counter and walked gingerly around the room, looking for something to use to wipe off our prints. A roll of paper towels sat tucked in a corner on a standing metal holder. I pulled off a few sheets without touching anything but the paper and proceeded to wipe the spots on the swirled marble where we’d made contact. I balled the used paper towel up and shoved it into my pocket.
“Great.” Kate began pacing in a small circle again. “Just what we need.”
I had to agree with Kate that this day was going from bad to worse very quickly. The warmth of the room and the sight of the growing puddle of blood began to make me feel dizzy. I looked out the back kitchen window and breathed deeply, trying to imagine that I could smell the small fir tree outside in their postage stamp of a yard. I’d never fainted, but there was always a first time.
“Maybe we should leave.” Kate motioned to the front door. “No one knows we were here. I even gave a fake name to the 911 operator.”
“You gave a fake name to 911?” I stared at her, my dizziness overshadowed by my surprise. “Why?”
She shrugged. “I’m used to giving fake names to guys at bars. It popped out before I could stop myself.”
“Do I dare ask what name you gave?”
“My fallback. Erica Kane.”
“Great. That doesn’t look suspicious at all,” I muttered. “A soap opera character placing a 911 call shouldn’t raise any red flags.”
“Hey,” Kate said. “I was flustered.”
“Tricia?” a woman’s voice called from the front hallway. “Dave? I’m here with the cake top.”
Kate and I exchanged a glance then peered around the doorway of the kitchen and into the short hallway. The bride’s maid of honor stood a few steps inside the house, holding a small white box. Her strawberry-blond hair was swept into a messy ponytail, and she wore almost no makeup. Quite a contrast from her wedding day look of a tight bun and dramatic, smoky eyes pulled so high it had looked painful when she blinked.
I stepped out of the kitchen to greet her and to keep her from coming any farther into the house and disturbing the already-disturbed crime scene. “Hi, Madeleine.”
Her eyes widened when she saw me. “Hi. What are you doing here?”
Kate joined me in the hall. “Just dropping off some final paperwork.”
Madeleine nodded but didn’t seem convinced. “Where are Tricia and Dave? I’m doing Tricia’s mom a favor and delivering the cake top from the wedding.”
The concept of saving cake for the first anniversary always baffled me since no food tasted good after a year’s worth of freezer burn.
“Dave is in the kitchen,” I said. Kate twitched.
Madeleine took a step forward. “Hey, Dave. I’m here with the cake.”
There was no answer, and the maid of honor narrowed her eyes. “What’s going on?”
“Listen, Madeleine.” I took a step toward her and held out a hand. “Something has happened to Dave. An ambulance is on the way.”
She shook her head. “An ambulance? Why?”
“It looks like someone broke into the house and surpri
sed Dave,” I said. “He’s been shot.”
Madeleine released the cake box, and it fell to the floor, making a dull splat as the top popped open and icing splattered onto the hardwood. Before we could react, she pushed past us into the kitchen and screamed when she saw the groom lying on the tile floor.
“Maybe we should call Detective Reese,” Kate said to me out of the corner of her mouth. “This could get ugly.”
Madeleine had dropped to her knees and had her hands over her mouth, her shoulders shaking as she cried.
“The police should be here any minute. We don’t need to call Reese every time we hit a bump.”
Kate’s mouth opened as she stared at me. “Hit a bump?” She waved a hand at the body, the growing pool of blood, and the sobbing strawberry blonde next to them.
I had to admit that none of this looked good. I stepped around the crying girl, bent over the groom, and placed a finger on his neck. The pulse was faint but steady, and I felt a wave of relief. “He’s still alive. Technically this isn’t a homicide. Reese is a homicide detective.”
Kate took out her phone. “You’re nuts. I’m calling him.”
“Home invasion isn’t his division.” I reached for her phone.
She dodged me. “So what? I’d rather have a cop we know on site than a bunch we don’t. What’s the big deal with calling him?”
“Nothing.” I closed the gap between us and grabbed for her again. If I was being honest with myself, I didn’t want the handsome detective to think I was chasing him. I hadn’t seen him since the moment we shared a couple of weeks ago at a bridal show. We’d texted a few times. Then he’d gone radio silent. I’d rather not have to deal with in-person rejection the same day I had to find one of our grooms shot in the back. “I don’t think we need his help.”
Kate backed away from me, punching numbers on her phone with one thumb. “You know it’s okay to ask for favors? Or help? Even from a hot guy.”
“I’m telling you, we don’t need help. At least not from him.” I heard her phone dialing and the wail of an approaching ambulance’s siren. “Everything is under control.”