“We had to wait for Hazel to give her statement,” I told Scoots. “Apparently, Lily’s not the only cast member the paparazzi are hounding. Hazel is worried they’re going to post unflattering pictures of her on one of the tabloid blogs.”
“That’s understandable,” Beverlee agreed. “There’s nothing worse than flipping open a magazine to discover a picture of your favorite celebrity in yesterday’s makeup and hair that looks like a home for unwanted rodents.”
“There are plenty of things worse than a bad photo on the Internet.”
“Name one,” she challenged. “War and starving children don’t count.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “We found a body today. And if that wasn’t awful enough, we also had to sit through a fun round of questioning that resulted in them taking our fingerprints and plucking out strands of our hair.”
Unfortunately, the Flat Falls police station now housed more information about my personal life than the computer system at my gynecologist’s office.
“They took hair samples?” Scoots asked.
“They said it was standard procedure for people caught rutting around in a crime scene.” I glanced at Beverlee, who was busy studying her fingernails.
“Did Hollis tell you what they were doing there to begin with?”
“Not really. Just that they had gotten a call to do a welfare check and jumped into action when they heard Beverlee screaming.”
Scoots grinned. “That would do it. Nobody wants to overhear an old lady caterwauling on a vibrating bed. That’s the stuff nightmares are made of.”
Beverlee threw a pillow across the room, and it clipped Scoots on the arm. “You’re older than me,” she said with a huff.
“Yes, but at least I’m subtle about it.”
I cleared my throat. Scoots was about as subtle as an acute case of chickenpox.
“Focus. Our friend is still in trouble, and the only other person with a solid motive is dead,” I replied. “On one hand, this helps to prove Josie’s innocence.”
“And on the other?” Scoots asked.
“There’s still a killer out there, and any of us could be next.”
The sun hadn’t even come up the next morning when I found myself seated on the bench outside the Grind and Go. I hadn’t slept, and with a to-do list full of show prep ahead of me, getting my hands on the largest coffee Shirley could pour was imperative.
Dew still coated the metal and soaked through my thin cotton pants. I closed my eyes and inhaled, trying to find my center. Unfortunately, my center felt like I had wet myself.
When I heard heavy footsteps on the sidewalk, I jerked my head up, blood rushing through my ears with a deafening roar.
Instead of a barbaric convict with a plan to cut me into bite-sized chunks of bait, Ian jogged to a stop in front of me. He rested his hands on his thighs while he took in a few jagged breaths.
“You scared me,” I said. “I thought you were here to commit another murder.”
He raised a brow. “Another one?”
As I told him about finding Rocco’s half-naked body in the bathtub, not even Ian’s exercise-warmed frame was enough to fend off the chills.
He sat next to me, throwing a steadying arm across the back of the bench. “First, there was Beau. Then somebody attacked Caroline. And now, Rocco.”
Nausea swirled in my chest. I peeked at my phone to check the time, wondering why Shirley picked today to be late. I needed coffee and a biscuit, or I’d dry heave all over the sidewalk, hot man nearby or not.
“Do they have any more suspects?” he asked, his warm hand resting on my upper back.
“I haven’t heard.” I reclined into him like a cat, practically begging him to pet me. His touch was comforting. Strong. And not murdery.
He moved his fingertips in small, mesmerizing circles. “And Josie?”
I held back a groan at his touch. “Hollis still thinks she’s responsible for Beau’s death.”
He leaned in close enough for me to smell the shampoo in his sweat-dampened hair. “And you don’t?”
“No.” I stood up before I started to purr. “But I can’t figure out the missing link between the deaths.”
“Start with the obvious. What’s the one thing they all have in common?”
“They’re dead. Or almost dead.”
“Right. But beyond that.”
I tilted my head toward him. “Lily Page, the Pickle Princess.”
“America’s second-chance sweetheart.”
I studied the water as the first swirls of orange danced in the sky. Lily seemed to have everything going for her. The camera loved her, the show’s fans adored her, and there was no shortage of men lining up to swoon at her feet. “But what if it’s all an act?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t you remember anything from high school history? Pirates used to light lanterns along the beaches here. Ship captains thought they were lighthouses, so they would steer their boats accordingly. By the time they realized the lights weren’t real, they’d run aground, and the pirates would swoop in and steal everything.”
He nodded. “Smart trick. But I don’t see what this has to do with—”
I continued, my pulse thundering in my ears. “They called them false lights. Illusions.”
“Lily does have a way with men,” he said, understanding flashing in his eyes.
“She can have almost anyone, but the men she ends up with all have one thing in common—they have something she wants. When she turns the charm on, they sail right toward her. And then they crash.”
“I hate to admit it, but you might be onto something. Some women just have a way of making men bang into themselves for them.” Ian spoke softly, his gaze focused over the water.
I cleared my throat. “Big boobs and platinum hair?”
He chuckled and waved to Shirley, who was stumbling up the sidewalk balancing a basket of pastries and a box of fresh apples. “Doesn’t hurt, I suppose, although I’m more of a leg man myself.” He took a leisurely glance down my body. “And I like brunettes.”
18
I spent the morning in a flurry of show prep that involved me peeking around every corner in the warehouse to make sure more bodies hadn’t surfaced.
In two days, the winning couple would be announced on live television, immediately presented with a check for half a million dollars, and led down the aisle for their dream wedding. Shows with bigger budgets and more robust staff did that kind of thing all the time, only they had months to pull everything together. Romance Revival didn’t have a hefty budget or a motivated crew.
If the morning meeting was any indication, most team members were one hostile leer away from either quitting or having a total breakdown. Everyone was jumpier than normal, and the lady from the front desk even hissed when the costume designer brushed past the back of her chair.
When Maggie wasn’t scowling from her usual spot at the head of the table, I wondered if she had given up or at least encountered an ax-wielding assassin with a fondness for bad-tempered bottle blondes.
She strode in a few minutes later with a box of hot croissants, though, and I shoved one in my mouth to keep from showing my disappointment.
Not wanting to waste a minute on fresh pastries or homicide-related gossip, Mimi smacked her hand on the table and insisted everybody snap out of their anxiety.
“We don’t have time for you to blather on about the demise of your coworkers,” she said, forcing eye contact with each employee in the room. “We have more important things to deal with, like the mandate from finance to cut our production budget by ten percent. So, who wants an unpaid vacation?”
Several crew members shifted in their seats, clearly considering her offer.
When nobody spoke, Mimi lowered her chin and glanced in my direction. “All right, then. Wedding ladies, how do you propose we reduce our overhead?”
I rubbed my fingertip over a spot on the table until it glistened with croissant greas
e, which I tried to wipe off with my sleeve. “Um…”
“Speak up, Glenda,” Mimi said. “There are no bad ideas.”
Maggie snickered from across the table, and I gave her the stink eye before responding. “It’s Glory. And how about we get rid of the ice sculpture?”
“No,” Mimi exclaimed, slapping the empty chair beside to her with the back of her clipboard. “Bad idea. Next?”
Maggie leaned forward in her seat. “We could nix the doves. Not only are they expensive, but you risk them making a foul-smelling mess all over your pristine set, and I’m sure you don’t want your expensive cameras covered in bird poop.”
Mimi considered the suggestion for a moment before nodding her approval. “Done. Splendid job, Magnolia. Keep it up.”
Croissant remnants roiled in my stomach.
Mimi’s next order of business was to introduce a new stylist she had flown in on a red eye from Hollywood. Where Rocco was a towering fortress of Italian attitude and an impressive mane, the new one was a gangly woman with short purple hair and inch-long sparkly fingernails who clicked her dental appliance in and out of her mouth several times before she started each sentence.
“As you know, we have forty-eight hours until we shoot the ceremony,” Mimi said as she tapped her watch. “That means you do nothing but work for the next two days.”
I raised my hand tentatively. “Rocco was an important part of the Romance Revival family, and the crew is understandably upset about his… passing. Is there anything you’d like us to do to recognize him during the ceremony? A memorial, of sorts?”
Her clipboard clattered to the floor. “He kept me up last night, hollering at his television and banging around. The walls at the Budget Inn are as thin as the sheets. My job requires precision, and his noise level was unacceptable.”
My jaw practically hit the table. “He was being murdered, Mimi. I think noise is part of the process.”
She gave a disdainful grunt. “A memorial will not be necessary. I’m sure he has an actual family somewhere to take care of those details.”
Before she stomped out to harass the stagehands, Mimi scooped up the box of croissants and dumped them in the trash.
By the time I gathered my things to head down to the ceremony set, a carb-starved production editor had slammed a cup of coffee down on the conference room table, splashing it on a keyboard and causing even more of a frenzy, and the new stylist had dashed for the bathroom in tears.
Maggie, however, seemed unaffected. When I stepped up to the stage, she was on her knees placing vinyl planks in a herringbone pattern.
“I thought Mimi wanted actual wood,” I said.
“That was before she saw the price tag. After that, I had to talk her out of slapping down a pile of animal-print bathmats from Walmart and turning this into a safari.”
I dropped my chin into my hands. “Are all weddings this hard?”
“Are you kidding me? Compared to some, this is a walk on the beach.”
Grabbing a stack of vinyl, I sunk down next to her. I hoped the beaches Maggie strolled on were teeming with killer sharks and sinkholes filled with quicksand, because I couldn’t imagine a wedding worse than this one.
Although I was searching for an excuse to sneak out of the warehouse that afternoon, when my pocket vibrated from an incoming voicemail, Beverlee’s message had me fearing the worst.
“I need you, honey,” she said, her breathing heavy and labored. “I’m down by the swings near the docks. Get here as soon as you can, it’s urgent.”
I tossed a shrink-wrapped box of tea lights on a chair and took off at a jog.
The Flat Falls waterfront district was only a few blocks long, but by the time I reached the common area, I was panting. Sweat dripped down my forehead and stung my eyes.
I scanned the clearing where families played on checkered blankets underneath the shade of twisted live oaks and couples sat on old-fashioned porch swings arranged in a semi-circle facing the water.
Beverlee wasn’t hard to spot. With a wide-brimmed pink hat and matching swing dress, she appeared ready for Easter at the dance hall instead of a close call with the morgue. She balanced in the center of a swing, her arms overhead.
When she saw me approaching, she climbed down from the seat and waved. “Took you long enough,” she said. “I’m getting too old to balance like that.”
“You told me it was an emergency.”
She pulled out a hand mirror, touching up the edges of her lipstick before folding it closed with a click. “It is an emergency, Glory.”
I pursed my lips as I examined her. “You look fine.”
She stepped back and twirled around, her ruffled skirt flying into the air high enough that a mother nearby covered her toddler’s eyes. “Why, thank you,” Beverlee said with a quick curtsy.
“You called me all the way out here in the middle of a workday so you could go fishing for compliments?” I kicked a patch of sand under the swing, oddly satisfied at the swirl of dirt that settled on Beverlee’s espadrille sandals.
“I don’t need compliments. What I need,” she said, tapping me on the shoulder with the metal selfie stick she had been holding, “is someone to take my picture.”
“Your picture?” I asked, squinting toward the sky for moral support.
“I met a man in an onion chat room online. He’s smart and funny,” she said, a hand resting on the crisp white bow stretched across the bodice of her dress. “And you don’t know how hard it is to find someone who knows the difference between a Vidalia and a hole in the yard. I need you to take my picture so I can send it to him.”
I held out my palm and tried to keep a straight face. “I’m not sure which is worse, a man who hangs out on an onion website, or a woman who dresses like a rockabilly waitress to impress him.”
“All I want is a photograph, Glory Ann,” she said, her hands on her hips and her voice taking the same disappointed tone she’d used when I got caught throwing her good toilet paper into the principal’s trees when I was sixteen.
“You have this.” I thrust the selfie stick toward her like I was trying to spear a hot dog. “Why do you need me?”
Groaning, she grabbed the stick from my hand and maneuvered it to face us. She ordered me to smile seconds before the shutter snapped.
After she unhooked the phone from its clamps, she pivoted the camera screen to face me. “When I hold my arm up to take my own picture,” she said with an annoyed glare, “I get a boob wrinkle right down the center of my chest.”
I took the phone from her outstretched hand and squinted toward the photo. “There’s not a—”
“Nobody wants a boob wrinkle,” she said emphatically, riffling through her oversized bag. “Especially not somebody trying to impress a gentleman.”
“Beverlee, I’m sure the onion guy won’t care about your—”
“Aha!” She wiggled a roll of clear tape in the air like a trophy. “All I need you to do is help me tape my décolleté and take a few snapshots. The lady at the makeup store said this stuff will defy gravity.”
“I’m going back to work,” I said, pointing to a picture of her smiling in front of the water. “Use this one.”
She snatched the phone, slipping reading glasses out from the cleavage of her dress. Maybe if Beverlee stopped keeping household goods in her bra, she wouldn’t have to worry about wrinkles.
She pushed it back toward me. “Not that one. My nostrils are too big.”
I thumbed through several dozen pictures, pausing when I hit the series of shots Beverlee took in the parking lot after Beau died. “Did you ever send these to Hollis?” I asked.
“No, I forgot all about them. Why?”
I pinched my fingers on the screen, blowing up an image of the crowd outside the warehouse. “I once heard that criminals like to hang out near their crime scenes so they can watch the chaos unfold.”
“Makes sense. They want to witness their own power,” Beverlee said, bringing her nose close
to the phone as she squinted at the image. “Who do you see?”
My fingernail clicked as I tapped the picture to point out a familiar face. “Dan Nichols, who wasn’t even supposed to be in town on the night Beau was murdered.”
19
Chaos tailed me like it was attached to my rear end with hot glue for the few days before the wedding, but when I walked into the warehouse on the last morning of filming, everything was eerily calm.
Crew members sat on tufted sofas drinking sodas from glass bottles, their man buns and goatees still neatly groomed and not showing their usual level of anxiety-driven hair-pulling.
Soft rounds of laughter echoed against the faux wood walls that spanned both sides of the set, each one containing elaborate leaded glass windows lit from behind with light boxes. Rustic columns flanked the stage area, and metal buckets overflowed with fresh flowers and strands of twinkle lights along the aisle.
Globes filled with water and floating candles cast a warm glow, and a glittering, multi-tiered chandelier hung from a sturdy beam suspended between two high walls of scaffolding. I eyed it suspiciously and took the long way around, noticing most of the crew also giving it a wide berth.
Despite the drama that continued behind the scenes, it looked like a bridal magazine had come to life right there in Flat Falls, and I rolled my shoulders and felt several weeks of tension melt away.
We did it.
I stepped back to get a panoramic view of the set and almost tripped over Maggie, who was on her knees at the edge of the walkway, rolling a cream-colored raw silk runner down the aisle.
“I wasn’t sure we could pull this off,” I said, a satisfied smile tugging at my lips.
She stood and brushed invisible dust off the front of her gray slacks. “It’s nice of you to join us this morning,” she replied, her lips pinched together in the same mocking line she had flaunted when she won the sixth-grade spelling bee after I got kicked out for misspelling banana in the first round.
Tying the Knot (A Wedding Crashers Mystery Book 2) Page 16