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

by Ally Gray

  Keep her talking, she told herself, trying to figure out how she could thwart the woman’s plans. She told herself to play it cool, to dig around for the truth without coming out and saying it, but instead she blurted out, “So, why are we trying to stop this wedding?”

  “Because it’s a horrible mistake! He doesn’t love her! He just got swept up in their plans, and he’s been distracted by something shiny. It’s not right.” The woman actually seemed to deflate just a little, leaning back against the seat like a child who’d been told she couldn’t have dessert.

  Suddenly, it all clicked. Stacy glanced in the mirror and confirmed the girl’s somewhat homey appearance, her slightly stringy hair, her slightly pudgy cheeks that were completely free of makeup. She almost looked tomboyish in her oversized sweatshirt, the shirt from Ben’s college, Stacy noticed. Coupled with the engagement ring on her finger and the kidnapping attempt, she finally understood what was going on.

  This was the jilted girlfriend. It made the restraining order even make sense, in some ways, especially considering she was at this very moment sitting in the backseat of Stacy’s car. Of course Mrs. Barber would want this poor girl out of the way, paving the path for Diana to meet and win over the quarterback. Stacy felt her spirits lift for a split second as she thought about their pseudo-rescue mission, the mission to save and restore true love, but then she thought better of it.

  “Heaven, I’m sorry, but you can’t interfere like that. If Ben has made his choice, you have to respect it, even if you know in your heart it’s wrong. And anyone who would make a choice based on superficial things like looks or money deserves exactly what he gets, if you ask me.”

  “You don’t know him like I do. You don’t know how he is, how he has no confidence. That witch and her awful mother tore him down brick by brick, just like a hostage, so they could build him back up and make him dependent on her. On them. This isn’t who he is, you don’t know the real him. You don’t know the Ben that I know.”

  “You’re right, but this isn’t the way to do it! The time to try to talk him out of it has passed. I mean, you can make one last effort, but what are you going to do if he doesn’t listen? You’ll have to live for the rest of your life knowing you made a black mark on his wedding day. Are you really going to do that to someone you care about?”

  “I have to. Even if it hurts him, I have to tell him the truth, to make him see what a horrible mistake he’s making. She’s not the girl he was meant to be with.”

  And you were, Stacy finished in her head, her heart breaking just a little for the young woman. She nodded slightly and kept driving, knowing that today wouldn’t end well but taking some small amount of comfort in the fact that not only would Mrs. Barber be furious at the sight of this woman showing up unannounced to try to bust up the wedding, but that Heaven needed a champion right now. If Ben wasn’t man enough to be her hero, Stacy would just have to fill in.

  “But what’s the plan when you get there? You know the bride’s mother is going to make sure you don’t get anywhere near the groom.”

  “Like she can stop me,” Heaven muttered. “She has no choice in the matter. It’s my step-mother we have to worry about.”

  “Your step-mother? I don’t get it, what’s she have to do with any of this?”

  “Yeah, she’s a total piece of work. I don’t see how anyone hasn’t taken a baseball bat to the back of her head yet.” She smirked evilly while Stacy stared at her in the rearview mirror, alarmed at the first serious utterances of violence. After all, this woman was technically kidnapping her. “I’m sure you can relate, she’s probably been a thorn in your side, too.”

  Stacy wanted to ask what on earth Heaven was talking about, but by that time they’d arrived at the location for the wedding. Her backseat passenger crouched low and ordered Stacy to keep driving, but she was tempted for a moment to do something to call attention to the situation, anything that would keep the crazy girl from gaining access to the venue. Her sensibilities screamed at her to make sure this wedding happened without any further pranks, mishaps, or interference, but a small part of her kept insisting that Heaven deserved a chance to have her say. She drove forward, waving at the security detail and the large number of hired help who were already at work on setting up for the event.

  “We’re here,” she said quietly, as though someone could hear inside her car with the windows rolled up. “Now what?”

  “Crap, everyone’s wearing uniforms. I need you to get me a uniform. I brought regular clothes, just some black pants and a white shirt, but I didn’t know they’d be wearing matching tops.”

  “Yeah, sorry about that. The temp agency we hired to send over workers for the setup has its own uniform. I can see if I can get you something…”

  “That’d be great. I’ll just wait here, okay? And lady, please don’t screw me over, all right?”

  “What do you mean?” Stacy demanded, taking offense at the idea that she’d pull something sneaky, even if it was against a semi-hardened criminal. Sneaky just wasn’t her style, if anything, she was too confident, too up front about things.

  “You know. Just don’t go ratting me out, okay? This is really important to me. I have to tell Ben the truth.”

  Stacy nodded and climbed out of her car. She hunted down one of the temp managers and requested an extra work shirt before signing Heaven in on the clipboard. She returned to the car and passed the shirt through the back passenger window, which her assailant had opened a crack.

  “Here. It’s the only size I could get, sorry if it’s too big. And by the way, for the rest of the day your name is George.”

  Heaven pulled her sweatshirt off over her head and slid the dark purple work shirt on over her tank top. She smiled gratefully at Stacy and stepped out of the car. “You know, it’s really nice of you to help me, I really appreciate it. And since I’m signed in and I have a shirt, put me to work!”

  “You want to work at setting up a wedding that you’re trying to prevent? I don’t understand. Why would you help out knowing you hope it doesn’t happen?”

  “Because he’s free to make his own choices. I just want him to know that he does still have them. If he chooses to get married today after I’ve talked to him, then I’ll know that he made the decision with all the information he needed, but he still chose her.”

  Stacy was impressed with Heaven’s logic, but a frown still creased her features. “I hope you don’t take this wrong, but I’m not really sure I can trust you with anything important. I mean, you’ve done a pretty decent job of sabotaging things so far, how do I know you’re not just here to pull some monumental prank?”

  “I already told you I haven’t done anything! Why won’t you believe me?” she cried, but her face brightened slightly. “Never mind, I get it. I did wait in your backseat for two hours and force you to sneak me in here. Mystery solved.”

  “Mystery solved…” Stacy mumbled to herself, using Heaven’s words to remind herself of something that had been nagging at the back of her brain. “You know, I have something I have to do. Why don’t you just hang out around here, see if anyone needs help, you know?”

  “Really? You mean, you trust me? You think I’m telling the truth?”

  “Somehow… yeah, I do.” Stacy patted the girl on the shoulder and took off running as fast as her high heels could carry her.

  Chapter 10

  The catering truck arrived promptly at eight. The flowers arrived according to the meticulously planned schedule at nine. The last chair was put in place and draped with tulle—in the proper shade of periwinkle, this time—at nine-thirty. Nathan appeared precisely at eleven, and was escorted off the grounds at exactly eleven-oh-three by the former motorcycle gang member turned security guard. Stacy was beginning to adore her boss, but she didn’t have any time for his attempts at wit today.

  In between overseeing the different stages and signing off on different aspects of the event, Stacy thumbed frantically through her phone. Something ab
out Heaven’s words… mystery solved… still nagged at her. The mystery, one that she knew involved the Barbers and their temporarily restrained family member, still bothered her. She knew she couldn’t rest until she sorted it out, either.

  “Heaven,” she called out softly as the impostor walked past carrying piles of cloth napkins, forgetting to keep the girl’s real name on the down low but realizing that calling the cute brunette “George” sounded just plain stupid, “psst! Come over here!”

  The girl put her stack of linens on a nearby table and looked around for a second before joining Stacy behind a giant topiary. She looked at her questioningly and waited.

  “Tell me what you know about Diana’s sister, Brianna.” Heaven shook her head slightly, barely acknowledging she knew the girl.

  “Not much, sorry. She seemed like a nice enough girl the few times I met her.”

  “When did you meet her?”

  “Here and there. Ben kind of had a thing for her, from what I remember, but there was the little age gap so Diana just must have made more sense in his mind. Besides, with their mother always intervening and keeping Brianna and Ben far apart, they never stood a chance. They probably only went out a couple of months, but I guess she’s pretty nice.”

  Something’s not adding up, Stacy thought, trying not to openly gawk at Heaven. Here this woman is willing to risk breaking the law to get back together with Ben, but didn’t see Brianna as competition? She’d actually called her “nice?” She might as well have been talking about which soft drink she liked better. She thanked Heaven and sent her back to her disguise.

  It was time to call in a favor. Stacy scrolled through her contacts until she reached a number she was hoping she wouldn’t ever need to call again, mostly because he was more pigheaded than Nathan. He made her boss look polite and practically aloof, not in his romantic intentions, but in his absolute certainty that he was right one hundred percent of the time.

  She jabbed at his contact with the end of her manicured index finger and waited with the phone pressed to her ear, moving her company headset out of the way so she could talk more quietly.

  “Hi Rod,” she said sweetly when Detective Sims answered. Just because they’d worked one particularly strange and nasty case together when a celebrity wedding went horribly wrong didn’t mean she was going to put the man on her Christmas card list, but it also didn’t mean she had to be rude, either.

  “Anastasia!” he called through the small speaker, using her full name ever since the day she’d refused to let him call her Stacy. “You calling for relationship advice, or have you finally snapped and killed that boyfriend of yours? ‘Cause I have to tell you that this call is being recorded and anything you say can be used against you in court.”

  “Nice, Rod. Thanks for the reminder. No, I’ve got a whole new problem, and I need to call in a favor.”

  “Oh really? Well, that would be neat if I owed you any favors. Instead, I’m eighty percent sure you owe me the favor since I helped sweep your part in that whole rapper-faked-his-own-death thing under the rug and out of the papers. But, I might be willing to just do you a favor because I’m a nice guy. What’s up?”

  Stacy took a deep, cleansing breath and let the whole story out in a rush. She ended by telling the cop that she needed to talk to Brianna, but that she didn’t have time to try to see her in person.

  “Can you do anything to get them to let her talk to me on the phone?” Stacy asked, trying not to sound so needy that she whined, but still sounding so needy that his “protect and serve” instincts would kick in.

  “I think I can do that, it’ll just depend on who’s on shift today as acting chief. It’s a Saturday, so I can’t be sure. But what do you want to talk to her for?”

  “I don’t even know. But something’s not right, and I’m afraid there are more pranks coming if I don’t find out who’s behind them. I’m hoping Brianna has some insight, and can tell me what’s going on before something really serious happens again.” She decided this might not be the time to mention the stranger who’d camped out in her back seat and ordered her to drive to the wedding. “So can you help me or not?”

  “Let me see what I can do. It sounds like it will work, but remember that it’ll take a little while if she’s in a cell.” They hung up, and Stacy got back to work, trying to put hopeful thoughts about resolving the situation before the bride showed up out of her head. There was no sense in planning for a happy ending, so she’d might as well prepare for the worst.

  There was enough to do to keep her mind well off Brianna and her family, so Stacy jumped when her phone buzzed in her blazer pocket. She didn’t recognize the number, and it only took her a few seconds to realize that an unknown number could be the answer to her questions. After all, she counted it as a source of pride that she didn’t know the number to the county jail by heart.

  “Hello?” Stacy asked quietly, stepping away from the flurry of activity to the relative privacy of a fountain.

  “Um, this is Brianna Barber. Someone from this number wanted to talk to me?” the girl said in a squeaky voice, nothing like the confident bellow Stacy had heard as the girl was shoved into a squad car. That protesting person was long gone, replaced by someone who’d just spent a few days in jail making all kinds of new friends.

  “Brianna? This is Sta— I mean, Anastasia East, the head of Events by Design. I’m staging your sister’s wedding today.” Stacy heard sniffles through the phone, sniffles which threatened to become all out sobs if she didn’t hurry up and get the girl talking. It had to be hard, she realized, not just being in jail for a crime Stacy didn’t think she’d committed, but also missing her only sister’s wedding for a wrongful accusation. “I have some questions, and I was hoping you could answer them.”

  “Did my mother put you up to this?” Brianna demanded through her tears. “Is she trying to get a confession out of me, or something?”

  “No, I assure you, my only goal here is to figure out what exactly is going on, and clear up a lot of misunderstandings. If it serves to get you out of jail, and solve Sandrique’s murder at the same time, then all the better.”

  “Fine. What do you want to know?”

  Stacy breathed quietly for a second as she collected her thoughts. There was a part of her brain that hadn’t been sure Detective Sims could come through for her, so truthfully, she didn’t have all of her questions prepared. She decided to start at the beginning and work her way up to the present, giving the younger sister a chance to explain her side of the story.

  By the time the girl had finished, Stacy was ready to kill herself a mother of the bride.

  Chapter 11

  “You do realize you will lose your job if you do this,” Jeremiah whispered in Stacy’s ear. She nodded stoically, aware that justice had to be served at all costs, even if those costs included her income, her expense account, her company car, and the tidy little IRA she’d been tucking money into every month.

  “And you realize we won’t get to sneak you bottles of chardonnay at your desk at lunch anymore since you’ll be working at the title pawn place on the highway,” Tori said. Stacy nodded again.

  “This isn’t about you and Nathan not getting to be together because you’re too stubborn to date someone who technically owns the company, is it?” Stacy started to shake her head, but instead gave up and shrugged.

  The day had gone well enough, up until the point where Stacy was about to intentionally destroy her own career. The preparations had been made, the wedding party had arrived, the families had brought a gorgeous bride and a stunning groom to the venue, and everything was going so well.

  Until Heaven disappeared, that is.

  Stacy thought back to the look of pure determination on the girl’s face—granted, it was in the pre-dawn dark of an unlit backseat, but in Stacy’s memory it was really determined—and had done her best to stay out of Heaven’s way all day. If the girl just “happened” to arrive on the property and stop the wedding, that was
n’t Stacy’s fault… after all, the announcement had been made in every newspaper in the southeastern United States. How could Stacy be expected to run interference for crazy, jealous ex-girlfriends?

  Only Heaven was nowhere to be found. She must have gotten to have her say with Ben, and ended up jilted again. She’d already said that if he was happy with his choice despite the truth she had to share, she would step back and let him make his own mistakes. She must have had her say and left before she could embarrass herself. And Stacy’s heart broke just a little bit at the realization that true love sometimes wasn’t enough.

  After all, it certainly wasn’t enough for her and Nathan. No matter what she thought of him and how playfully devoted he seemed to be to her, somebody had to be the adult and keep work and romance separate.

  Which is probably why Stacy was about to destroy her job, this wedding, and the company’s entire reputation.

  There were magical words that were spoken at every wedding, just a formality really, that magical part where the officiate asks the assembled onlookers if anyone knows any reason why these two shouldn’t be joined in holy matrimony. No one ever said anything, as it would be the height of low-class behavior to say something, even as a joke. But Stacy was prepared to. There had been something convincing about both Heaven and Brianna’s stories, something that made Stacy wonder what was really going on behind the scenes of this wedding of the century. It just wasn’t adding up…

  Here goes, she thought to herself ruefully and with a touch of sadness. Here’s the part where he’s gonna open the door for me to ruin my life.