Wedding Duress (Events By Design Cozy Mystery Series Book 2)

by Ally Gray

  “It definitely sounds possible,” Stacy agreed. “I hate to even ask, but since we’re dragging the skeletons out of the closet kicking and screaming, are we sure it’s not some old flame or frenemy of the bride’s?” Stacy hated to ask since there was absolutely no way to do it in a way that didn’t smack of ugly gossip. She felt a layer of grime settle all over her skin just for having asked, but she immediately felt better when Mrs. Perkins shook her head quickly.

  “No. It’s not possible. The committee won’t even accept an application for Miss Georgia unless the girl has a spotless dating history, and believe me, they check. Boy, do they ever check! A doctor’s report confirming she’s a virgin is worth serious points in the judging.”

  Stacy looked horrified, and the older woman had to insist that she was only kidding about that last part before she could continue. “Diana has lived a very sheltered life, her mother was good about seeing to that. All kinds of doors get slammed shut if you have even a hint of scandal, especially where your ‘maidenhood’ is concerned, and Mrs. Barber has groomed Diana since infancy for this kind of future. Face it, it might be the 21st century, but the public still wants their flowers of Southern womanhood to be pristine.”

  She felt the pressure of her own past bubbling under the woman’s gaze. Why, just the fun she’d had with Nathan over the course of their brief relationship—the glorious, insatiable, sweat-and-scream-inducing fun—would have excluded her from many of the clubs and opportunities that Mrs. Perkins was at that very moment alluding to. She tried her best to keep her composure under the imagined scrutiny of the old matron.

  “So is the mother of the bride devastated that Diana didn’t win the national crown?” Stacy asked, thinking back to the scrawny but surgically top heavy corn-fed blonde from the Midwest who came away with the title, leaving Diana as a top-five finalist. Maybe this was a sick form of revenge against her daughter for not being the winner she’d been raised to be? Mrs. Perkins once again shook her head, leaving Stacy to wonder if she’d ever learn to figure out what the older woman was talking about.

  “Not in the least. The last thing a mother wants is for her daughter to make it all the way to the top spot. It’s life changing, and there’s no going back once they place that crown on top of your hair sprayed and teased head. That’s when the real jackals come out of the woodwork to dig up every little secret that you thought you’d paid to have buried. If you only win state, you become a comfortable celebrity, someone who’s revered, who’s petted and pampered for the rest of her life. Diana will head up any committee she comes within a ten-foot radius of, forever. She’ll never have to lift a finger at a car wash fundraiser or sling a spatula for a bake sale. From the moment she gets married until the day her last grandbaby graduates from one of the state colleges, Diana will be the queen bee.”

  “Did anyone think to ask her if that’s what she wanted? Maybe she really just wanted to live the quiet life, you know, get a degree and have a career? Or maybe she wanted the American Dream, where she could settle down with a nice man, have a minivan-full of kids, and be a part of the PTO.”

  “Oh honey,” Mrs. Perkins said in a patronizing tone, patting Stacy’s hand, “no one wants to be a part of the PTO. Not ever.”

  Chapter 5

  The entire company was on edge after the incident with Diana’s gown. The other things could be chalked up to strange accidents and mindless foibles, all coincidentally happening around the same wedding. The cake icing that had mysteriously given everyone at the taste testing stomach-twisting diarrhea had been hard to explain, even though these things have been known to happen. But the ugly assault on an innocent dress? That was no accident.

  Stacy assigned one of the members of the in-house security detail to guard the second gown after its fitting, insisting that he not even leave the room to take a bathroom break without finding a trusted replacement to stand watch in his absence. She hated to think what the overtime pay for having him babysit a dress overnight was going to cost the company, but it was nothing compared to the actual cost of the dress itself. It was also a pittance compared to what it would cost them to lose another dress for this important wedding.

  “So, how’s the fashion design industry treating you these days?” Nathan asked, breezing into her office and setting a peace-offering latte on her desk as she worked. Even a latte wasn’t enough to get on her good side today.

  “That’s not funny.”

  “It’s hilarious, and you know it. Get it? Because you’ve spent more time working on dresses than party planning lately?” He grinned at her, and for a brief moment Stacy remembered how he’d won her over in the first place.

  “It’s just fine, thank you. I have a former motorcycle gang member whose biceps are bigger than your thighs guarding the current gown. And yes, before you say anything, I do actually know how big your thighs are. They’re no match for this guy’s upper arms.” She took a sip of the wonderfully perfect latte and went back to looking over sketches for the seating arrangements for an upcoming wedding that was in a non-traditionally shaped church.

  “So what do you do when you’re not ordering motorcycle gang members around? Do you, maybe, perhaps… like to go to the theater? The movies? Black Friday sales in which people bludgeon each other for discount electronics?”

  “No. None of those things.”

  “Well, what? There must be something you like to do that doesn’t require access to the Fortress of Solitude.”

  “Actually, no. Pretty much every relaxing and enjoyable thing I do is solo.” She instantly turned bright red as she realized how that sounded, and Nathan was quick to cough over his laughter at her admission of how she spent her free nights. “What I meant was…”

  “Oh, don’t worry. I understood what you meant completely.”

  “Nathan, stop it! You know, technically you’re my boss. You can’t talk to me like that. It’s sexual harassment. It might even be a crime. You could end up in jail with the motorcycle guy who’s currently safeguarding a beauty queen’s dress. And you do not want to have to explain that to people.” She didn’t look up from her work while she spoke, knowing that if she took so much as a peek at Nathan’s charming smile and encouraging expression, she’d end up agreeing to have at least one date with him.

  “What? I was just agreeing with you. You, a female employee and corporate executive in my company… I was merely affirming your position by listening very, very attentively. In fact, I want to be sure I heard you correctly, so why don’t you describe for me again what you said. What was it you said, something about how ‘every enjoyable thing you do is solo?’ Did I hear that right?”

  Stacy shot him a frustrated look and took a long, loud sip of her coffee before leaning sideways and dropping it from a great height into the garbage can at the end of her desk. She raised her eyebrows at her boss in a challenging way, then went back to work without saying another word. Nathan laughed, then let himself out of her office.

  She spent the rest of the day fielding phone calls from the various departments that had a stake in the state’s wedding of the year. It was so rare that the stars aligned to allow a sports legend, the heir apparent of a long legacy of football champs, to join hands in matrimony with a beauty queen. No one who cared at all about weddings, pageants, sports, or even simply concepts like true love was going to miss this event, and the department heads under Stacy knew what that meant.

  So she was completely caught off guard when the state’s most cherished stylist, the artist who would oversee the bride’s and mothers’ hair and makeup, a highly recommended flesh artist who oversaw the work of his own team of eight stylists on any given wedding day, barged into Stacy’s office and shouted, “Can you believe what that spoiled brat has done?”

  Sandrique held out his smartphone, thrusting it dangerously close to Stacy’s face in his anger. On the phone’s little screen was a photo of a frowning young woman, her tear-stained cheeks and bloodshot eyes making her look more like an ad for
a human trafficking prevention organization than anyone recognizable. But after staring at the unfortunate picture for a few seconds longer, the image on the high-resolution screen made her almost faint. She was really going to have to see a doctor about this, she thought in a detached way.

  “What the hell did she do?” Sandrique demanded, waiting only a split second for Stacy to respond before launching into a tirade entirely in his native Spanish, one that Stacy was sure included every imaginable cuss word. “How am I supposed to create magic with this… this… this poor excuse for a pop star on an alcohol binge?”

  After her eyes finally focused and told her brain that what she was seeing was real, Stacy’s heart wilted at the sight. It was Diana, her long, blond waves replaced by a chop job of a haircut. It was practically a buzz cut that would make the Marines proud. She closed her eyes and waved the image away, only able to open them again after hearing Sandrique slide the phone into the pants pocket of his skinny jeans.

  “I don’t know what’s going on…” she began, but the stylist’s angry speech, punctuated with the occasional Spanish profanity, told her more than she wanted to know.

  “They had the nerve to send this picture to me early this morning and ask what I could do with this. What can anyone do with this? This is the work of a psychopath, not a hair magician such as me!” He spit on the floor to emphasize his distaste for the situation, and Stacy made a mental note to get the cleaning crew in there sooner rather than later.

  “Wait a minute, what did you just say?” She looked up at the stylist, cringing as she tried to make the connection between the horrid picture and his words. “You called Diana a psychopath?”

  “Si, but it was only an expression. You know I would never call a bride such a name,” he said, calming down slightly as he realized what he’d said in his anger. His petulant smile and fluttering of his dark eyelashes only made him look all the more sad.

  “No, that’s okay. I mean, no, it’s not okay to call a bride that, but I understand. You’re emotional. Who wouldn’t be? And it’s not like she’s here… but you called her a psychopath…” Stacy immediately swiveled around in her chair to face her desktop computer and called up the internet browser. She opened a fresh Google tab and began clicking away at the keyboard. After a few minutes of searching for news articles on both the bride and groom as Sandrique cooled off, it all fell into place.

  “Listen, Sandrique, it will all be fine, I promise. In fact, I’m authorizing the purchase of a full human-hair wig for Diana. Probably best you head over there right away and get precise measurements then go pick one out, one that will match her shade. In fact, I’ll meet you out there.”

  “You’re not going to make me try the natural look? No pixie cut for this one?” he asked gratefully.

  “Honey, with this haircut, we left pixie cut about four inches ago and headed straight for military-chic. With as many photographers as we’re expecting at this wedding, we’re gonna need a really convincing wig. Go top-dollar, it’ll be fine. Just expense it to the company and I’ll make sure the bookkeeper knows to approve it.”

  After a quick meeting with Tori and Mandy to bring them up to speed, Stacy raced out of her office and jumped in her company car, a BMW that Abigail had insisted she drive since she represented the company. She punched the bride’s address into the car’s dashboard GPS and let the monotonous voice of the robotic navigator lead her.

  Stacy drove as fast as safe driving practices and the laws of physics would allow. She almost bypassed the third largest shopping center she came to during the fifty minute drive to Diana’s parents’ home, but at the last minute decided it might be best not to arrive empty-handed. Surely any bride who’d just shaved her head two days before her own wedding was in desperate need of carbs. She swung into the inexplicably long line of the drive thru of a locally owned gourmet donut bakery and waited impatiently until she could pick up a dozen assorted treats and several specialty brew coffees for the bride, herself, and anyone else Stacy would have to face at a time like this.

  She wondered wistfully if it was too early in the day to put knock out drops in Mrs. Barber’s coffee, but decided it was just wishful thinking.

  Her jaw dropped when she finally pulled up to the house, and not just because the address took her through a brick and wrought iron gate and up a winding driveway through dense pines before plopping her in front of a mansion that could have graced the cover of Southern Elegance magazine. Rather than be blown away by the opulence in front of her—because, to be honest, most of the clientele who reached out to Events by Design came from means so comfortable they made a luxury resort look like a three star hotel—it was the sight of the crime scene tape being strung around the house that caused her to choke back a scream. Wrapped in tight loops around the eight marble columns in order to form a boundary line between the expanse of overly green lawn and the brick steps that led to the wraparound porch, the yellow tape fluttered in the light breeze like morbid party streamers. Three squad cars were parked at odd angles on the lawn, as if they’d raced to the scene and the officers had sprinted from the still-rolling vehicles.

  Stacy got out of her car slowly, still carrying the donuts and coffee, and watched in horror as the front door opened and two officers led a young blonde woman towards one of the waiting squad cars, her hands held behind her back by a pair of handcuffs.

  “But I didn’t do anything!” the girl yelled. “Mama! Di! You know I didn’t do anything! I would never do anything like this!” Stacy watched her go, but as the officers passed with their suspect and folded her into the back of a car, the girl caught sight of the wedding planner, recognizing her from different appointments for Diana’s big day. “Miss East! Tell them I didn’t do this! I love my sister, I would…”

  Her voice was cut off when the car door closed, sealing her silently inside while she continued to call out, her mouth moving but no sound coming out. Two junior officers who’d been waiting outside during the call on the Barber’s home looked at the suspect then back at Stacy.

  “Hey lady, do you know who she is?” one of them asked in an urgent whisper, more out of curiosity than out of a need for information. Stacy nodded.

  “She’s the maid of honor,” she answered in a voice pained with the sound of surrender.

  I will not throw up, she told herself as she walked up the front steps to face whatever awaited inside the house. I will not throw up… I will not throw up…

  “Miss East, thank goodness you’re here,” Mrs. Perkins yelled, coming out the front door and staggering down the steps. Stacy wondered if the handler was required to live with the queen twenty-four hours a day. She must not, because any handler worth her salt would never have let this hair travesty happen. Mrs. Perkins must have read Stacy’s mind. She was about to ask the older woman why the police had a member of the bridal party in custody, but the handler began jabbering about protocol before Stacy could ask.

  “Mrs. Barber called me as soon as she discovered the problem. The reigning Miss Georgia isn’t permitted to make any significant changes to her appearance without submitting a request and receiving the approval of the state pageant board. It’s in her contract. Her mother called me immediately. Oh Miss East, this is horrifying. What are we going to do?”

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Perkins. I’ve got Sandrique already on the hunt for the perfect wig. In fact, he should be here already. He’s an absolute magician, I promise. And let’s not be overly dramatic. I’ve heard of bad fashion choices and poor hair style decisions before, but ‘horrifying’ is a little strong, don’t you think?”

  Mrs. Perkins cocked her head slightly and narrowed her eyes, regarding Stacy carefully before she said anything accusatory. She analyzed Stacy’s expression and pressed both hands to her mouth, speaking from behind her loosely clenched fists.

  “Oh my dear, you haven’t heard? Sandrique is dead.”

  Chapter 6

  “Well, that explains the cops,” Tori whispered as she leaned h
er head closer to Stacy’s. She’d helped out by driving to the Barber home with a small selection of wigs, and stuck around to provide moral support as the assembled onlookers tried to convince the bride she still looked as beautiful as ever. Stacy tried to pretend there wasn’t a crime scene in the next room as the bride tried on different wigs. After all, the show must go on, dead body or not, specifically a dead body that Stacy had firmly requested not ruin her week.

  “If you think so.”

  “You disagree?”

  “Of course!” Stacy whispered urgently between reassuring smiles at Diana while Mrs. Perkins worked on the beauty queen and would-be blushing bride. “I mean, would you seriously have your sister arrested for something like this, without a scrap of proof? I might never speak to her again if she ruined my wedding, but I wouldn’t have her hauled off in handcuffs and thrown in jail without knowing why she killed someone, or if she even did it. Right this very minute she’s sitting in a holding cell between a meth head and a hooker. Would you do that to your own family member, and then go play dress up?”

  “Oh, I wouldn’t have to. If my sister got jealous and cut off my hair in my sleep—right before my wedding, let’s not forget—and killed the man who had rushed out to fix it, I wouldn’t have to have her arrested. Somebody would be calling the cops, all right, but it would be to investigate the missing person ‘cause they’d never find her body.”