Murder Borrowed, Murder Blue

by Stephanie Blackmoore

  I rolled up the whip with a smirk on my face and deposited it back in my sister’s purse.

  “I introduced Beau and Ginger a year ago.” Dakota shook her head. “In the space of an hour I’ve gone from mourning Ginger to finally recognizing her betrayal with Beau. It all fits now.” A knowing cast came over her face. “Beau went on a few trips with his friends, and it was always at a time when Ginger was unavailable. They must have been seeing each other.” She gulped and accepted the tissue Rachel handed her.

  “I thought Beau flew in on the red eye that first day we filmed for I Do. I arrived in Pittsburgh the night before. He probably arrived the night before too, on a separate flight, and just pretended to come in the next day.”

  “That explains the two wineglasses at Ginger’s house,” I muttered. “Beau lied and flew in a day earlier, and spent the evening with Ginger.”

  “And it explains why Ginger was so secretive about her new man.” Ellie shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Dakota.”

  The actress drew herself up to her full height and wiped the tears from her eyes. “There’s only one good thing that’s come of all this.” She offered us a shaky smile. “I won’t be marrying Beau tomorrow.”

  “Amen to that.” Ellie returned Dakota’s tenuous smile with one of her own, and the two friends set off to comfort Roxanne. The would-be mother of the bride seemed more upset about Dakota’s broken engagement than the bride herself. Roxanne sat at a table, her head in her hands, sobbing as if the world were ending.

  “At least Ginger’s memorial tomorrow will get to take center stage,” I said to Rachel. “It’ll get the proper dignity befitting it, with no wedding celebration immediately afterward.”

  “If a woman who cheated with her best friend’s fiancé deserves any dignity,” Rachel sniffed.

  “True. But she didn’t deserve to die.” I pictured Ginger slumped over my desk the night of the Winter Ball and drew in a sharp breath. It was a vision I’d never scrub from my brain.

  “Why do you think Beau killed her?” Rachel shuddered and drew the pretty metallic pink sweater she’d donned for the rehearsal dinner closer around her shoulders.

  “I think he really needed this marriage to Dakota,” I theorized. “His star is fading, and hers is ascending.” I felt my mouth twist down in a disapproving frown. “Ginger may have threatened the golden goose, his marriage to Dakota, so Beau took her out.” A wave of disgust crested and crashed over me. “He must have been the one sending her the bouquets of flowers. He’s been cheating on Dakota for over a year, and he thought he’d have his cake and eat it too. His relationship with Ginger, his marriage to Dakota, and a revived career as the cherry on top.”

  “I hope I broke his ankle,” Rachel spat.

  Owen was now comforting Dakota, his arms around her in an embrace that plainly announced to all his romantic intentions. Rachel shrugged and turned to get a long-awaited cup of tea.

  “Are you okay with this?” I tilted my head in the direction of Dakota and Owen, wondering for the umpteenth time how my sister’s date with the foundation owner had gone.

  Rachel beamed, a peaceful look on her pretty face. “I spent the night with Owen,” she said, taking in my shocked face, “just talking.” She giggled and took a sip of tea. “He’s an honorable guy. Iris is right—he never got over Dakota. He wants the best for her.” My sister took in my surprised face and laughed. “Owen may be the only guy who ever got away.” Rachel seemed wistful that her wiles hadn’t worked on Owen, but if she was right about him pining for Dakota, she’d never really had a chance.

  I’d been wrong about Owen’s involvement with Ginger. I blushed thinking of how I’d basically accused him of being her killer to anyone who would listen. My instincts weren’t always correct, and I needed to remember that. Maybe it was time I stuck to wedding planning rather than sleuthing.

  The party bizarrely went on into the night. Guests who’d watched the catastrophic blowup of Dakota and Beau’s engagement now congratulated the actress on avoiding her marriage. I groaned as I thought of the carriage house and the props that awaited us there for Dakota and Beau’s wedding that wasn’t to be. We’d ordered hundreds of silk flowers in every shade of pink, red, cream, and white imaginable. Tablecloths in magenta and petal pink awaited in neat piles for us to spread out and top with a feast of gourmet comfort food. Rachel’s peanut butter chocolate cake was a work of art that now wouldn’t see the light of day. Hundreds of glittery snowflakes were to be hung later tonight from the carriage house ceiling. And it was all for naught. There would be no wedding. It was the first wedding I’d planned that wouldn’t go off. I’d even managed to make my jettisoned wedding to Keith happen for someone else, and I found myself growing a little wistful.

  I made my way over to the tea station, admiring Rachel’s use of the antique bird tea cages. They were a hit with the guests, and I was glad she’d found them in the butler’s pantry and put them to good use.

  I selected a tea cage labeled DARJEELING and poured hot water from the carafe over the trapped leaves. The tea smelled heavenly, but I paused before I took a sip.

  “This is a great party.” Owen sidled up to me, his grin infectious. The spring had returned to his hipster-booted step.

  “All’s well that ends well,” I mused. We clinked teacups and I started to take a drink, then stopped.

  “What’s wrong?” Owen asked. “You don’t like the tea?”

  I shook my head. “I just think I shouldn’t get caffeinated. It’s been a crazy day, and I want to make sure I sleep tonight.” It was near midnight, and a caffeinated cup of tea wasn’t the best idea.

  “You can have mine,” Owen gallantly offered, proffering his cup. “It’s chamomile, and I haven’t even taken a sip yet. I promise.”

  I thanked him for the herbal tea and took a grateful gulp, the hot liquid soothing after the frantic and frankly freakish day.

  “I just have to ask you one thing,” I blurted out. “You and Ginger . . . you were never an item?”

  Owen tipped his head back and roared with laughter, his glossy auburn hair falling onto his forehead. “Nope. She was my best friend. We really were the four musketeers, me and Dakota and Ellie and Ginger. But I never dated her.”

  Owen’s effervescent laughter faded.

  “Are you okay?”

  He realized even before I did, from the look on my face, that something was wrong.

  My vision began to swim, the vivid tropical colors of the greenhouse plants swirling together in a dizzy kaleidoscope. My heart rate accelerated, the thunderous pounding in my chest like the hooves of a hundred racehorses. The blood rushed in my ears and I was falling, falling, falling.

  “Mallory!”

  It all went black.

  Chapter Nineteen

  “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  Rachel held my hand as I lay in my hospital bed.

  Dakota and Beau’s engagement party had gone out with a bang, or so I was told. I wasn’t conscious for the end of it. But I did start to come to in the breakneck ambulance ride from the Barnes’s nursery.

  I’d arrived at the McGavitt-Pierce Memorial Hospital in record time and promptly had my stomach pumped.

  “You were breathing all funny,” Rachel went on, twin tracks of tears staining her face. She brushed them and a few streaks of magenta eye makeup away. She gulped and sniffled. “Iris was screaming that it was probably belladonna, since that’s the only plant in the nursery that’s poisonous enough to cause a reaction that quickly.”

  The hospital had admitted me and administered physostigmine on the hunch Iris was correct. I wouldn’t feel like myself for some time. My doctor wanted me to remain in the hospital for observation, and I was happy to oblige. I was certainly safer in the hospital than I would be roaming the streets of Port Quincy, or trying to plan a wedding for a couple and a bridal party in which nearly every member was a potential murder suspect. I rubbed my aching head and tried to make sense of it all.


  “But the wedding!” I rocketed up in bed, causing my heart rate alarms to beep in clanging annoyance. I’d forgotten it was tomorrow.

  How in the heck am I going to pull this off ?

  A nurse popped her head in my room as Rachel gently pushed me back to my pillow and the alarm abated.

  “Don’t let her get too excited,” the nurse warned my sister.

  Rachel gave me a sympathetic yet incredulous look. “Did the poison affect your memory, too? There isn’t going to be a wedding, Mallory.”

  Oh yeah.

  It all came rushing back. The clip falling from Beau’s pocket as he moved to make a speech at the rehearsal dinner, and Dakota telling him off, once and for all.

  I rubbed the bridge of my nose and closed my eyes.

  “Someone tried to murder me.” My voice sounded small and scared. “But why?”

  Rachel clasped my hand. “Maybe the killer thinks you know something.”

  It was possible. I’d run my theories by too many people, apparently, in my quest for justice for Ginger and Xavier. I could have tipped the killer off that I was onto them. Although it must have been inadvertent, because other than Beau killing his lover Ginger, which I was pretty sure of, the rest of the crimes were a mystery. Someone had murdered Caitlin Quinn thirteen years ago and poisoned Xavier this week. And we were no closer to catching the perpetrator of either crime.

  A happy thought skittered through my brain. “I don’t think I was meant to drink that cup of tea with the belladonna, Rach.” I clued her in on my cup switcheroo with Owen mere seconds before I’d taken a near-fatal swig.

  “So Owen was just being gallant and offered you his cup.” Rachel nearly swooned. She may have been okay with his unrequited love for Dakota, but my sister was still somewhat smitten with the philanthropist hipster.

  “Fair enough. But if the belladonna wasn’t meant for me, why poison Owen?” I wished I had my legal pad to sketch out the list of suspects. Rachel used her sister sixth sense and bent to her side to hold my purse aloft.

  “You brought my bag. You’re the best sister ever.”

  Rachel returned my weary grin. She pulled out a yellow legal pad with a flourish but gently batted away my hands. “Uh-uh, I’ll write out the suspects this time. You need to rest.”

  I acquiesced and leaned back into the anemic hospital pillows. Rachel perched on a chair next to me, pen at the ready.

  “First, there’s Beau. He already murdered Ginger, so we know he has it in him to kill someone.” I shivered.

  And his next victim was almost me.

  “And what’s his motive?” Rachel busily scratched away on the yellow paper.

  “He was probably jealous that Dakota still seems to be in love with Owen.” Jealousy could make a person do irrational things, even commit murder.

  “But all he had to do was keep it together for one more day,” Rachel mused. She put down her pen. “If Beau hadn’t dropped Ginger’s clip, they’d be settling in for their last night as an affianced couple. And then tomorrow they’d seal the deal.”

  “That’s true.” I frowned. “But even if they got married, that might not stop Dakota from leaving Beau someday to be with Owen. Or maybe Beau thought she’d call off the wedding at the last minute? She was showing signs of cold feet.”

  “And Beau’s music isn’t as popular as it was. He only puts out greatest-hits albums,” Rachel chimed in. “He needs this marriage to Dakota.”

  Dakota’s star was rocketing through the stratosphere with her string of acclaimed indie roles, while Beau’s was definitely dimming. Their union had been as much about business as it was about love or affection. I nodded as my sister jotted it down.

  “Beau had just as much access to the belladonna as we all did. And he had access to the plant encyclopedia in the library with the page marked for the belladonna entry.” I remembered the day I’d reached out to brush the soft, mauve-belled plants with the lustrous black berries and had been firmly rebuked by Iris, and how I’d later marked the page.

  “Well, if he did it, that would be convenient. He’s probably in the Port Quincy jail right now being booked for Ginger’s murder. Ooh!” Rachel set aside the pen with a clatter and it rolled off the legal pad. “Beau disappeared for a few minutes before he rubbed his impending wedding in Owen’s face. Maybe he was doctoring Owen’s tea then?”

  I nodded at my sister’s reasoning. It was looking like Beau had probably inadvertently poisoned me.

  “Although . . .”

  “There’s still Ellie,” I finished for my sister. “She’s obviously in love with Owen despite their broken engagement.”

  “And it’s her family’s nursery. Maybe she put too much belladonna in the tea and was hoping Owen would drink it close to the end of the rehearsal dinner, go home, and not wake up.”

  We both were silent for a few beats as we realized that could have been my fate.

  “Maybe Ellie was secretly despondent that Owen was still holding a candle for Dakota,” I suggested.

  “But then why didn’t Ellie just go after Dakota?” Rachel had a point.

  “That’s true,” I admitted with a frown. “That would make more sense, but nothing about this wedding has made much sense at all. And if we’re considering Ellie as a suspect in my—I mean Owen’s would-be poisoning, then we have to consider Iris, too.”

  Rachel retrieved the fallen pen and scribbled some more on the legal pad. “Iris couldn’t have been happy that Owen broke her daughter’s heart. Especially because he was still pining after Dakota, who was always besting her daughter. But then again, why didn’t Iris just go after Dakota herself, freeing Owen for Ellie?”

  “And what if”—my voice grew small—“the poisoner is Dakota herself?”

  Rachel’s green eyes grew wide, and she added Dakota to the list of suspects. “Dakota could have wanted Owen all to herself.”

  “And she could have thought that once she married Beau, Owen might go back to Ellie. And she couldn’t let that happen.”

  “Because if she can’t have Owen, no one can.” Rachel shivered.

  My head was swimming and eddying with a horrible host of never-ending suspects. “And if we have to consider Dakota, we need to consider Roxanne.” I paused to press the palms of my hands against my eyes. My throbbing headache had returned, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could play murder detective with my sister.

  “I should go,” Rachel declared. She stood and started to tuck the legal pad back into my bag.

  “No!” My voice was louder than I’d meant it to be. “Let’s finish this.” I gulped. “Before someone else ends up dead.”

  “Okay.” Rachel reluctantly perched on the chair. “Roxanne. She wanted Dakota to marry Beau more than Dakota herself, it seemed.”

  “To enhance her daughter’s brand,” I said with disgust. “She knew her daughter was still in love with Owen.”

  A shiver of knowledge doused my nerves in icy water. This line of thinking seemed more plausible.

  “She’d been deathly afraid in the past of her cash-cow daughter throwing in the towel on acting and moving back to Port Quincy permanently,” I breathed out in a somber tone. “Maybe she wanted to remove him from the equation once and for all.”

  “Owen kind of looked like he was about to make one of those ‘speak now or forever hold your peace’ kind of speeches tonight,” Rachel agreed.

  “We’re forgetting one thing though.” I stopped my sleuthing and my mouth broke open in what felt like a cheek-splitting yawn. “What if Owen meant to poison me?”

  It was the simplest explanation, and the only one we’d yet to consider.

  “Why?” Rachel was as flummoxed by this possibility as I was.

  “It all goes back to where we started.” I yawned again. “He might think I know something that I don’t even know I do.”

  “Well”—Rachel smiled mischievously—“Truman will probably have this sorted out in no time. The camerawoman was wandering around all night fi
lming. Maybe she caught whoever put the poison in Owen’s cup on film.”

  The thought cheered me. Maybe this debacle of a wedding show would soon be behind us, the murderers and perpetrators all neatly ensconced in the Port Quincy jail.

  But then I remembered Dakota and my spirits dimmed. “How is Dakota taking her breakup with Beau?”

  “She’ll be all right.” Rachel waved her wrist in an offhand manner and started to pack up my legal pad.

  A wisp of a horrible thought danced through my brain.

  “Rachel. What if Dakota knew Beau was stepping out on her with Ginger?”

  “And Dakota killed her?” A knowing look stole over my sister’s pretty features, darkening them.

  “She is a phenomenal actress,” I continued. “And Nora is denying she killed Ginger. If my best friend were canoodling with my fiancé, I’d go nuts too.”

  “Ahem.”

  The nurse was back. She cleared her throat and offered us a not unkind smile. “It’s time you got some rest.” Her voice was warm, but she also meant business.

  “Thanks for visiting, sis.”

  Rachel bent down to give me a bone-crushing hug, her perfume redolent of jasmine and cupcakes and roses. “Anytime.”

  “Is it too late for a visit?” Garrett’s gorgeous face broke out into a relieved grin as he crossed the small hospital room in a few large steps. “Thank God you’re awake, Mallory.”

  “See you soon, Mall. Promise to sleep? No more sleuthing?” My sister raised her perfectly shaped brows in expectation. I crossed my fingers beneath the white blanket and solemnly nodded.

  Rachel slipped from the room and my boyfriend sat on the bed.

  “I thought I’d lost you when I heard what had happened.” He brushed a curl from my forehead and ran his finger down the side of my face to my chin.

  “I’m going to be fine,” I promised. A well of emotion crested and crashed, and I found myself brushing away a set of tears.

  “I love you, Mallory.”

  “I love you too.”

  The exhaustion of the day finally caught up with me, and I closed my eyes.