“Magnolia Winters.” She brushed her fingers against his forearm for a moment, then shot me a pointed glare. “The other wedding planner.”
“It appears I’ll be in expert hands,” he replied. “Tell me, is it odd for a groom to see the wedding planners before he gets a glimpse of the actual bride?”
Suddenly, a wave of understanding hit me. Dan Nichols was the new groom. The one who was replacing a corpse.
“You’re doing fine,” Mimi said, scanning the room. “Where is Rocco? We need Dan in hair and wardrobe before the big reveal.”
Dan dipped his chin to stare at his black polo shirt and starched jeans. “Wardrobe?” he asked.
Mimi gave his arm a caress disguised as a squeeze before finally letting go. “No worries,” she said. “It’s nothing a good sport coat can’t fix.”
I covered my snort with a cough, then pretended to study my notes. When I looked up again, Dan was still watching me. Before he followed Mimi from the room, he gave me a quick wink.
“Don’t even think about it.” Maggie appraised me, her lips puckered. “You’re not ruining this for us by going all floozy on the new groom. We all know about your poor decisions when it comes to men.”
It was no secret I left Flat Falls the first time to run off and marry a man who turned out to be a thief, but his crimes weren’t my fault.
My fault was loving him to begin with.
But I wouldn’t offer Maggie the satisfaction of seeing my regret. Instead, I donned my sweetest smile. “Let’s not focus on marriages of the past. Why don’t we head over and see if we can catch the first meeting between Dan and Lily? I do love a good happily ever after, don’t you?”
While Dan was in wardrobe, I walked over to the living room set and found Lily seated on an upholstered chair, hands crossed primly in her lap.
Mimi was hovering nearby with her ever-present clipboard. “We’re going to do a voiceover with a quick montage of you and Beau, finishing with the scenes we shot this morning at the cemetery.”
I leaned in to whisper to a production assistant standing near the edge of the set. “They’ve already had Beau’s funeral?”
She chuckled. “Mimi didn’t want to wait for the actual service, so she had them create a fake one so they could film it.”
“And how did that go?”
“She didn’t think Lily looked heartbroken enough, so she brought in somebody to mist her face so her mascara smeared.”
When the director signaled the crew to start filming again, silence fell over the crowd like a soggy afghan. Everyone stared at their feet until the lighting shifted, and the show’s host sat down on the sofa next to Lily.
Javier’s chestnut hair was pulled back in a man bun, but the rest of him looked like a burnt yeast roll from Beverlee’s Thanksgiving table. He was dressed in a rust-colored shirt with ruffles flaring along his wrists. Dark skinny jeans compressed his lower body, and the overflow rose beyond his waistline and strained the buttons all the way up to a white fur bolero jacket that looked an awful lot like mashed potatoes.
“You came here to discover love,” he said, offering Lily a tissue. “And so far, all you’ve found is heartbreak.”
She sniffed and patted the tissue to her nose.
Javier spoke to the camera. “Well, folks, something unusual has happened. Something that has never occurred here at Romance Revival. We lost one groom, but another has gallantly come forward to take his place.”
He paused, no doubt leaving space for the editors to insert gasps and applause from an invisible audience.
Before I could gag from my disgust, a flash of movement from the side of the stage caught my attention. Dan Nichols had moved to the edge of the set, his eyes focused on Lily.
“We know you were falling for Beau, Lily, and we’d never want to belittle those feelings.” After a dramatic pause, Javier continued. “But in the spirit of true love and happiness, we wanted to offer you this second chance at your second chance.”
Lily nodded again, and the corners of her lips turned up slightly. “All right,” she said hesitantly.
Javier raised an arm, and the fake waiter I saw earlier walked out on set and deposited another chair beside Lily’s. “Sometimes the thing that takes us into the future is a person from our past. Lily, I’d like you to welcome Dan Nichols. We approached him after the tragedy, and he offered to step in and take Beau’s place in the competition.”
Lily didn’t bother concealing her shock, and Dan sat down in the empty chair after awkwardly patting her on the shoulder during his grand entrance.
“For those of you just tuning in, Dan might look familiar. Not only is he heir to the Nichols Pickles fortune, he was also the other half of that romantic tryst with our very own Lily Page that set the Internet ablaze.” Javier turned to the camera and fanned himself with a cue card. “The world knows these two have chemistry. But the question is: can they get past their feuding families to find their own happily ever after?”
I scanned the room to see if anyone else was as stunned by this twist as I was, but everyone sat quietly, enraptured by the engineered emotional turmoil they were dragging Lily through.
Javier sauntered toward the camera. “Can Dan and Lily rekindle their oh-so-fiery flame?” Javier sauntered toward the camera. “Join us next week to find out if true love can rise from the ashes of heartbreak.”
The host stepped back and motioned to Mimi, who was bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet and practically salivating.
“Okay, people,” she said with a clap. “Time is money. We have one more challenge to film, then let’s get some B-roll of our new Romeo and Juliet reconnecting on the beach.”
I didn’t want to remind her that somebody died at the end of that one, too.
“Love is in the air,” Mimi said with an overdramatic flourish as she crossed the stage. She came to a stop in front of me and flipped back a couple pieces of paper on her clipboard. “And we have a wedding to plan. Where do we stand on the set for the ceremony?”
I swallowed against the bile that had been building up in my throat all day. “We’ve got everything under control.”
“This is out of control,” I shrieked toward Maggie as we watched the crew set up a pit of green sludge underneath a rotating obstacle course. “Who does something like this?”
“You know I hate to agree with you,” she said. “But this really is next-level weird. Just this morning they were trying to get Jason and Hazel to make out on the sofa where the chandelier fell. The rope that held it was still dangling from the ceiling like a noose, and they didn’t even clean off the bloodstains. They told Hazel to cover them with the fabric of her skirt. Don’t any of these people care a man died here?”
A shudder rolled through my stomach. She was right. Beau Lyons was murdered a few dozen feet from where we stood, and aside from the remnants of police tape that were shoved out of the way for the film crew to resume their work that morning, it was like it never even happened.
“Do you think one of them did it?” Maggie whispered, skimming her gaze across the room, where the set designers were testing a propellor that spun slowly over a giant balance ball.
The film crew scurried around, while Mimi barked instructions. “It’s possible,” I replied. “But I don’t know why anyone would ever kill another human being for a television show.”
Just then, Mimi ushered the four remaining contestants onto the set. Lily walked ten feet in front of Dan, only pausing to glare over her shoulder when Mimi asked them to gather at the starting line.
“Okay, teams,” Mimi said with a chipper clap. “Welcome to Honeymoon Falls, our version of an obstacle course. It shouldn’t be too difficult. You just have to keep from falling in the pit and make it to the end before your opponents. The winning team gets an on-camera spa day and an extra grand. Questions?”
Lily raised her hand. “I’m sorry, but I don’t think—”
“Exactly!” Mimi exclaimed. “That’s the right atti
tude. You don’t need to think. Just feel, trust your partner, and don’t get a concussion. Head bruises are a nightmare to cover with stage makeup.”
As the director lined the contestants up along a pair of narrow beams, I leaned in toward Maggie. “She seems awfully blasé about a dead guy on her set. Do you believe she could be behind Beau’s murder?”
Maggie considered Mimi, then scrunched up her face. “They would shut down production if she were involved, and you’ve seen her schedule. There’s not a single time slot where she’d allow such a disruption.”
“Yes, but—”
“I think it’s much more likely that your friend Josie saw her cheating ex on tv and took the opportunity for revenge,” Maggie whispered. “I can’t blame her. I have yet to meet a man who doesn’t make me want to buy stock in rat poison manufacturers.”
The last I’d heard, Maggie was dating an already-engaged political candidate. “What about—”
“Don’t mention him.” She speared me with a glare that told me she might not even need poison to kill someone.
A production assistant shushed us as the cameras rolled. Heavy drumbeats thumped in the background and a spotlight shined on a countdown clock at the pinnacle of the final tower, a monstrosity of ledges and scaffolding that made me dizzy when I looked up.
The contestants ran through the first few obstacles easily, dodging whirling rotors and barbells wrapped in colored foam. At one point, Jason and Hazel took the lead, scampering across a gyrating beam while holding hands.
When Lily and Dan got to that same challenge, though, she swatted his hand away and surged past him.
“Grab onto each other,” Mimi shouted. “It will help your balance, and the viewers love seeing pecs in action.”
Both couples reached the tower simultaneously, but Hazel brushed by Lily to start her ascent first. Dan wasn’t far behind, his muscles bunching as he easily climbed each level.
When they were almost to the top, he reached out to Lily one last time. After a moment’s hesitation, she slipped her palm into his.
He had just started to pull her up to the last platform when Hazel’s hand snaked out and grabbed Lily by the ankle. With a wild screech, she gave a forceful tug, sending Lily plummeting to the airbag-lined pool of goo at the bottom.
Hazel aimed a condescending smirk at Lily, who was sputtering and squeezing green slime from her braids. “Take that, Princess,” she snarled before scurrying up to join Jason on the platform.
Mimi applauded, and I turned to Maggie with wide eyes. “They’re all crazy. Every single one of them is capable of murder.”
7
When I unlocked the door to my apartment that evening, I found Beverlee and Scoots perched on my sofa, feet kicked up on the coffee table and a bag of microwave popcorn between them.
I studied their faces, then gestured toward the door. “I could have sworn I locked that this morning.”
Scoots licked her fingers and held out the bag. “You forget. I own the building.”
“Does that mean you can let yourself in here anytime you want to help yourself to my food?” I took a handful of popcorn, shoved it into my mouth, and plopped down on the chair.
Beverlee chastised me with the shake of her head. “One. This is not food, it’s a snack. An appetizer, at best. Culinary foreplay, but not food. And two. You didn’t answer my calls earlier. I came over here to make sure you weren’t buried knee-deep under some ax murderer’s back porch. Scoots saw me sitting on the steps and assured me we would both be more comfortable if we waited for you inside.”
I groaned. “So, it’s not breaking and entering, it’s—”
“Hospitality. Exactly.” Beverlee sauntered over to the kitchen. “Why don’t I whip us up some dinner and you can explain where you’ve been all day.”
I pushed up from the chair and followed her. “Unless you can make chili from ketchup and onion soup mix, I doubt you’ll find anything to cook in there. I haven’t gotten to the store in a while.”
Beverlee’s eyebrows wrinkled, and she examined me as if I were speaking a foreign language. To her, the idea of having bare pantry shelves was about as absurd as wearing white after Labor Day or going to get the mail without first touching up her lipstick. “Give me the ketchup,” she said and held out her hand.
I dragged her back into the living room. “We’re not making dinner from condiments. I’ll call over to Trolls and order some takeout. Let me ask Josie if she wants anything to eat first.”
Scoots shook her head. “She’s not there.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Where else would she be? It’s not like she gets free rein over the neighborhood or anything.”
“Before we let ourselves in here, we knocked on her door to see if she’d let us wait for you in her place.” Scoots narrowed her eyes. “She usually has cookies over there.”
I ignored her and trudged across the porch.
I rapped my knuckles on Josie’s door. No answer.
I knocked again. “Josie,” I called. “I’m getting food. Do you want anything?”
Still no response.
Alarm prickled along my spine. Josie was always home. By law.
The door was locked, so I reached under the magenta straw mat that said Namaste At Home. My fingers finally hit the cold metal of her key. I slid it into the lock, pounding on the wood again as I pushed it open.
A trickle of light filtered in through the closed curtains, but Josie’s normally bright and sunny apartment was dark. Even the lotus flower table lamp was off, and she kept that thing on all the time because she said it helped keep her centered and warded off mice.
I paused in the doorway, causing Scoots and Beverlee to pile up behind me.
Beverlee’s forehead creased as she examined the empty apartment. “Well, this is odd.”
“Maybe she’s napping,” I whispered, then pointed toward Josie’s closed bedroom door.
Scoots barreled past me and wrenched open the door to Josie’s room. “Not here,” she shouted.
We checked the bathroom, and I peeled back the shower curtain to make sure she wasn’t lurking in there.
I rounded the corner to the kitchen and found Beverlee assessing the cabinet beneath the sink. “What are you doing?” I asked. “She’s not hiding under the garbage disposal.”
Beverlee straightened. “I seem to remember that under the sink was your favorite hiding place when you were a child.”
She had a point. After I lost my parents, I used to sneak away and cry. Since Beverlee’s closets were always stuffed with knick-knacks, I picked one of the kitchen cabinets to hide in, instead. I didn’t think Beverlee had ever figured out my secret spot, though. “It’s where you hid the Oreos.”
She shrugged. “You would sit in there for hours. I didn’t want you to get hungry.”
I felt my stomach rumble and motioned toward the cabinet. “Does she—”
Beverlee shook her head. “No Oreos.”
“But there’s this,” Scoots said from the living room. She held up a small black box with a plastic strap attached to it.
“Josie’s ankle monitor?” I asked.
“It appears so.”
Beverlee let out a slow puff of air. “Well, that can’t be good.”
“What if something happened to her? Should we call the police?”
“And what if she did it on purpose?” Scoots asked. “Maybe we should sit tight and wait for her to return. She’ll be able to explain what’s going on, and we don’t want to bring the authorities in until we know she’s in trouble.”
Since Scoots was a lawyer before she opened the pawnshop, she was close to a legal wizard in my eyes. I settled myself on the edge of the sofa. “So we just wait?”
Beverlee returned to the living room and set down a plate of scones covered in plastic wrap. “Might as well have a snack to help pass the time,” she said before plucking off a pastry and taking a big bite.
We polished off the scones and were worki
ng on a block of gouda from her fridge when Josie’s door opened.
She burst through the door, laughing. Gage was right behind her, carrying bags of takeout food from the Chinese diner down the street.
Her eyes widened when she saw us.
“Guess we don’t need to call the police,” Scoots said with a pointed look at Gabe’s badge.
Josie stared at us in confusion. “Why would you call the police?” she asked, her forehead wrinkling. “And why are you here?”
“We were just leaving,” I blurted.
“No, we weren’t,” Scoots said as she cut off another slice of cheese. “We were trying to figure out where you were.” She cleared her throat and motioned toward the table with her eyes like she was enduring a painful muscle spasm.
“Are you okay?” Josie asked, her brows drawn together as she studied us.
Scoots stopped twitching and snuck a glance at Gage. “Aren’t you supposed to be… you know.” She picked up the ankle monitor and then dangled it from her fingertips.
Josie shrugged. “Oh, that. The old one was having some issues. We took it off and tried to replace it, but the new unit wasn’t working right, either. Gage drove me down to the station to get me fixed up.”
“By the look on your face, I’d say he did a pretty good job of that.” Scoots chuckled over a mouthful of cheese.
Gage’s tan skin had turned an endearing shade of pink, and he was studying his shoes.
An airy smile darted across Josie’s lips before she grabbed the takeout bag from Gage’s grip. “As much as I’d love to hear why you’re camping out in my living room, it has been a long day, and I’m hungry.”
She focused pointedly on the door. “So, if you’ll excuse us, Gage and I are going to eat our dim sum in peace.”
Scoots stood and sauntered toward the kitchen. “You have Chinese food? You didn’t happen to get those dumplings I like so much, did you? The steamed ones with the pork filling?”
Josie gave Scoots a playful shove. “You’ve already eaten my cheese,” she said, with a longing gaze across the room at the empty plate resting on the coffee table. “And apparently my white chocolate cranberry scones, too.”
Tying the Knot (A Wedding Crashers Mystery Book 2) Page 7