“I didn’t plan to kill Beau, honestly,” she said, staring at the blade in her hand. “I just wanted to rough him up so he wouldn’t go through with the wedding. I wanted him to walk out on Lily so she’d be embarrassed on national television.”
Understanding washed over me. “To humiliate her the way she humiliated Jeff.”
She ran her finger over the edge of the blade slowly, like she savored the pinprick of blood that appeared on her skin. “I didn’t even saw all the way through the rope.”
“How did you even get in there that day?” I asked. “There was security all over the place.”
Jeff lifted the camera from a strap around his neck. “Those dollar store guards were easily distracted.”
I swung my head toward Caroline. “And you just… broke in?”
She tore her gaze away from Jeff and leveled me with an annoyed stare. “It wasn’t hard. There are open vents all over the back side of the building.”
Since I had snuck in here dozens of times myself over the years, I knew that piece of information firsthand.
“And nobody saw you on the set?”
She shook her head. “The crew was on a lunch break.”
I jabbed my pointer finger in the air, woozy at the red stain on my sleeve. “So you cut through the rope holding up the chandelier just to scare him?”
“Not all the way through,” she reminded me, scraping the tip of the knife under her fingernail before lifting a shoulder. “The cast returned sooner than I expected. I’m surprised it came down that fast, though. I guess I underestimated how much chandeliers weigh.”
“And then Rocco, the one with the pretentious hair and swoony eyes, went sniffing around my sister,” she continued. “After I got out of the hospital, I went to see him. He told me he had figured out who killed Beau.”
I jerked my head up. “He knew it was you?”
“No, he thought it was Jeff and wanted to ask me to help him keep Lily safe from the ‘evil photographer’ until he could get enough evidence to take to the police. So I dropped some roofies in his water bottle. When I left, he was stripping his clothes off and dancing with a lamp. Guess that party didn’t last long.”
With a snort, she leaned against the wall. “Took my entire stash of pills, actually. Lily’s Italian Stallion had quite a tolerance. I had to ask Jeff to call in a favor so I could pick up a few more at the last minute. Paid a pretty penny for them—the market for GHB is hot in these parts.”
“Why did you drug yourself, then?” I asked, trying to make sense of it all. “You could have died.”
“But I didn’t,” she admonished. “Because I’m not stupid. We calculated the dose carefully. I ingested just enough to get the attention on me for once, but not enough to do any permanent damage. Thank you, science class.”
I got a C in science, but I must have been absent the day they taught the crazy girls how to use poison.
Caroline pointed the tip of her knife at a heavy metal bench mounted on the floor at the far side of the room. “Sit.”
I pushed myself to my feet and stumbled toward it on wobbly legs.
Caroline pulled a section of thick gaffers tape from a cabinet drawer and wound it tightly around my wrists, binding my hands and ankles to the bench’s sturdy supports.
My fingertips tingled, and within seconds, numbness crept up my arms. “I don’t have a sister, but I wouldn’t try to kill her if I did.”
“Oh, I’m not going to kill her,” she replied, turning toward me with an ice-cold stare. “You are.”
She nodded to the tray of plastic cups. “Sweetie, will you grab those for me? Glory asked me to deliver them to the bride before she took off.” She tsked under her breath. “Poor thing, she seemed upset. Said something about her plans not working out the way she wanted.”
“You can’t do that,” I screeched. “Nobody will believe—”
She plucked the drugged cup of champagne off the tray, grabbed my chin between her ice-cold fingers, and emptied the entire thing into my mouth.
“This will all be over soon,” she said, pressing a section of tape to my mouth. “And don’t worry—you’ll be passed out when we dump your body in the water. You won’t feel a thing.”
She linked her arm through Jeff’s. “Sorry to leave you like this, but we have a celebration to attend.”
After Caroline scurried out of the room, I nearly dislocated my shoulder trying to peel the edge of the tape from my mouth.
When I finally got the corner free, champagne gushed down my face and across my shirt.
I screamed until my throat burned, but nobody heard me. The entire staff was down at the other end of the warehouse, watching the ceremony.
Shifting my body weight back and forth, I tried to tip the bench over, but it didn’t budge.
A whacked-out murderer was about to kill one of my brides on national television, and I had no way to stop her.
I was stuck.
I could imagine the scathing testimonial. If I lived through the day, nobody would ever hire me again.
My head sagged toward my chest, and I had almost succumbed to the swirling darkness gathering in my skull when I saw movement just inside the door.
Beverlee’s colorful tote bag shimmied forward and backward on the floor, a stream of garbled cackles escaping every time it smacked against the block wall.
Matilda.
A burst of energy surged through me, thankful that Beverlee had picked this room to store her chicken in during the ceremony.
I squealed to get Matilda’s attention. No luck. I tried tapping my toes, but because my ankles were fastened to the chair legs, I didn’t make much of a racket.
Frustrated, I whipped my head from side to side. Was I seriously trying to convince a chicken to help me escape from a killer? It wasn’t like she could hop up on my lap with a tiny switchblade and cut the tape.
With an embarrassed groan, I remembered the noise Beverlee made when she was teaching Matilda to perform tricks. I clucked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. The movement in the bag stilled, but Matilda didn’t appear.
I thrust my chin out, exposed my neck, and forced the loudest click I could summon from the back of my throat.
An excited, high-pitched squawk reverberated inside the bag until Matilda’s black feathered head popped out through the unzipped end. She wiggled free and jumped out of Beverlee’s purse, feathers flying.
I blinked and clicked again.
Matilda ran through the room, releasing an eager buck-buck-buck noise. She hopped on top of a rolled-up velvet Elvis painting before strutting her way across the floor to a ceramic planter shaped like a human nose. She bounced around, pecking the flesh-colored nostril for two solid minutes.
I motioned with my head for her to come closer, oddly disappointed when she didn’t even squint in my direction.
Since Matilda didn’t speak body language, I clicked louder.
The volume of Matilda’s clucks and cackles increased, but she still didn’t acknowledge me.
While Matilda ran around in a frenzy, leaving little footprints in the puddle of blood on the floor, I wagged my head and kept clucking.
Just when I was about to give up or pass out from all the chicken chatter, the door flung open.
Josie stood there, eyes frantically searching the room. When her gaze landed on me, she rushed in. “I should have known you’d be in the middle of all this ruckus. It sounded like somebody was having a farm animal pageant in here.”
She ripped the rest of the tape off my mouth in one quick motion, and I fought not to scream. “Josie, what are you doing here?”
“I figured it out,” she said, rubbing her hands up and down my arms to restore the circulation. “I know who killed my husband. It was—”
“Lily’s sister,” I finished.
Josie nodded and peeled a lingering strip of tape from my wrist. “I spent the morning following the trail from those printouts Rocco had.”
I gaped at her
. Most of us spent our free time knitting or eating entire bags of peanut M&M’s. Josie hacked into other people’s computers.
“What?” She shrugged. “I was bored. But during my digging, I discovered that the guy who runs the Enchanted Tattler is from Lily’s hometown.”
“He had a personal vendetta against her,” I said, bending my fingers to make sure they all still worked. “High school humiliation leaves a deep scar.”
Josie dropped the ball of tape from my wrist onto the ground, and Matilda immediately got it stuck to the outside of her beak.
“But I found something else when I was poking around on the server. I discovered a series of emails leaking information about Lily’s affair to the tabloids.”
“Caroline,” I replied with a nod.
“That’s how Jeff and Caroline reconnected. She was looking to unload the video of Lily and her dirty fling, and he was her inroad to Tabloidville.” She pursed her lips. “Speaking of which, that man really needs to update his firewall. That thing had more holes than my ex-husband’s underwear.”
“But why would she do it? Money?”
Josie shook her head and pressed a folded paper towel onto my arm. “She didn’t ask for money; she only wanted to ruin her sister.”
I jerked my chin up with a hiss, grabbing the bench to steady my wobbly vision. “But what other reason could there be for Caroline to do that to her sister?”
“Jealousy?” Josie suggested, lifting the towel to peek underneath. “Lily was a small-town princess. Men loved her, and she was Daddy’s favorite. If I had a real-life Cinderella for a sister, I’d probably hate her, too. Maybe Caroline wanted some attention all to herself for a change.”
“And she’s about to get it. She was on her way to the ceremony.” I jumped up and staggered toward the door, fighting the wooziness that threatened to bring me crashing to the ground. Just before I stepped into the hallway, I turned back. “I thought you couldn’t leave the house,” I said, gesturing to her leg. “How did you—”
She hiked up her long floral skirt to display a ring of raw, red skin around her ankle. “YouTube—you wouldn’t believe the things you can learn to do with plastic bags and quality hand lotion.”
I jerked the tape from Matilda’s beak and scooped her up. Once I got her safely zipped inside Beverlee’s tote, I thrust the bag out to Josie. “Come on,” I said. “You take the chicken. I have to save my bride.”
We raced down the hallway as Javier’s voice boomed over the loudspeaker. “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”
Cheers erupted through the crowd.
As we wove past cameras and people, nearly falling into the cake table set up along the back wall, Caroline stepped toward the microphone. “Let’s have a toast. Does anyone need a refill? The wedding planner left us an extra bottle.” She held up the champagne. “It’s not the good stuff, but it will have to do.”
I grunted. That champagne cost more than my car.
“Here’s to forever,” Caroline said, a smile creeping across her face.
“Cheers,” Lily replied, lifting the glass to her mouth.
“No!” I screamed and raced down the aisle toward the couple, launching myself at Lily and knocking the cup out of her hand. It splashed to the wood floor, soaking the silk runner Maggie had laid down with such precision under Mimi’s watchful glower.
Maggie glared at me from the other side of the room. “Sorry,” I said, stumbling to my feet. “But you can’t drink that.”
“Why not?” Caroline lifted her own cup and took a healthy swig, turning to me with a satisfied smirk. “There’s nothing wrong with it. And every bride needs champagne on her wedding day.”
I stepped across the stage toward Lily, who was watching me with a combination of fear and surprise. “I don’t want to be the one who ruins your ceremony,” I whispered, my stomach rocking as I surveyed the piles of broken furniture and debris littering the set. “Although surely I’m not at the top of that list today.”
Josie cleared her throat from the front row.
“Right,” I said, shaking the cobwebs from my head. I pointed toward Caroline. “It was your sister. She killed Beau and Rocco.”
“Me?” Caroline gasped and placed a hand across her stomach. “That doesn’t even make sense. Don’t forget, somebody tried to kill me, too.”
I hesitated, my chest tightening. I’d always wanted a sister, and ruining their relationship was more difficult than I had imagined. “She’s jealous of you, Lily. You have everything she wants. Love. Happiness. Your father’s attention. She slipped the drug in her own drink that night so everybody would focus on her for a change.”
Caroline’s eyes darted toward the exit. “It’s not true, Lily. Who are you going to believe, your only sister or the woman who can’t even pull together a real wedding cake?”
Bewildered, Lily lifted the hem of her dress and took two steps backward. “I don’t…”
Dan put his arm around his new wife’s back, pulling her close to his chest.
When Jimbo strode out on the stage, his security badge firmly in hand, Caroline leaped off the front of the platform, stumbling to a stop in the middle of the aisle. “You had it coming to you,” she said.
Lily gasped. Her voice shook, and tears spilled down her washed-out cheeks. “But… why? What did I ever do to you?”
“Everything,” she replied, backing toward the exit with measured steps. “You were the beautiful one. The smart one. Mama’s favorite. And the only one Daddy paid attention to.”
I ventured in front of her with outstretched hands. “Caroline, put the knife down.”
“No,” she sneered, the metal glinting under the bright studio lights as she waved it in the air. “I’m done with you, Lily. When Mama died, it broke Daddy’s heart, and he decided he had to fix you. So anything pretty Lily wanted, pretty Lily got. All I got was the leftovers. Isn’t that right?”
Lily gave a mirthless chuckle. “No. You seem to forget it hasn’t been all sunshine and roses for me either.”
Caroline threw her head back and made an odd squealing sound. When her chin bobbled up and down, I realized it was laughter. She gestured toward Dan. “Are you talking about getting busted playing with the devil’s toadstool at the pickle factory? Who do you think sent those pictures to the tabloids, sister dearest?”
Lily recoiled like Caroline had slapped her. “That was you?”
“It’s about time you learned you can’t have everything you want.”
Just then, Dan groaned and slumped to the floor, his empty cup of champagne clattering to the floor.
“What have you done?” Lily screamed, falling to the ground next to Dan.
“Call 911,” I yelled. As the flustered crowd rushed around, I turned to Josie. “You need to go. If you get caught here, you’ll be in even more trouble.”
She nodded, then sprinted to the back exit.
I glanced up to find Caroline taking slow steps toward Lily, the knife in her hand still sticky with my blood. “Look out!” I cried.
Just before Caroline got within arm’s reach of her sister, I saw a streak of pink out of the corner of my eye. I turned to see Beverlee, arms outstretched, launching the top tier of the Styrofoam wedding cake at Caroline’s back.
Icing roses flew around the room like miniature torpedoes, landing in colorful mounds on the first few rows of guests. Mimi used her clipboard to deflect one when she saw it hurtling toward her face.
Caroline fell to the ground with a thud, and the knife clattered to the floor next to her. I kicked it away with my foot.
Beverlee flashed a toothy grin. “I was afraid she was going to stab the bride. And you can’t get blood out of a wedding gown. Trust me, I know.”
Jimbo stepped between them with a plastic bag of cable ties. As he was removing one, he screeched and jumped on a bench in the front row, pointing down the aisle at Matilda, who had escaped from the handbag and was pecking at a pile of fondant that was stu
ck on Caroline’s shoe.
Beverlee clicked her tongue once, and Matilda hopped onto her thigh, turning to face me with a high-pitched squawk.
I scowled at the chicken. “Why couldn’t you do that earlier?”
The day’s events had not left a surface untouched. Glass fish bowls sat in broken piles under dangling strings of long-extinguished twinkle lights. Fabric curtains sagged in tattered shreds. Cracks lined the fake windows, and the ice sculpture Eiffel Tower rested on its side, a trail of melted water seeping out of it like blood. I broke off the top platform and held it against my cut.
Hollis stepped in from the back of the set and cocked his head to the side as he examined the carnage, letting out a knowing grunt when his gaze locked with mine. He pulled out a pad of paper and started questioning the guests, while Lily rested her forehead against Dan’s chest and watched in silence as Gage carted her sister off to the police station.
“I don’t have enough room in my jail for all of your colleagues, Glory,” Hollis said, scrubbing his fingers across his scalp.
I lifted a shoulder. I couldn’t have predicted this kind of ending. I had never seen a wedding filled with that much chaos end with the bride and groom holding hands. Not even on TV.
As I turned to start the clean-up process, I passed by Mimi, who stood next to the podium with her clipboard, a smear of frosting across its center. “That was wild,” she said to the cameraman at her side. “I hope you caught every ridiculous minute of it.”
23
Two weeks later, I sat on the sofa in Josie’s living room, squished between Beverlee and Scoots. Snacks filled the coffee table in front of us and spilled over onto trays on the floor.
In true Beverlee fashion, she had spent the day cooking, and because she wasn’t sure if we were celebrating or weeping, she’d brought enough food for both.
From thick slabs of homemade sourdough smeared with fresh goat cheese and sprigs of dill to gooey caramel brownies, no food group had gone ignored in her quest to meet my every emotional need.
Tying the Knot (A Wedding Crashers Mystery Book 2) Page 20