by Mia Thompson
She understood that Eloise told Vivienne about Sapphire’s “cold feet” and that the two had strategized. But she didn’t care that she was a pawn in their game. Or that the wedding was only hours away.
Wedding schmedding, she smiled. There were more important things. Like the little freckles on her hand.
* * * * *
“I have to pee.”
“Then pick a tree,” Aston said, adjusting the binoculars toward the deck.
“You’re supposed to take me to a bathroom,” Dylan insisted.
With everything in his head, Aston left for the chief’s BBQ early. He needed something to distract him.
The chief had answered the door, still in his underwear, grumpy as fuck. Apparently, it wasn’t okay to show up for a 1 p.m. party before sunrise. Or the Andersons—excluding their hyperactive son—just weren’t morning people. The chief sent Aston and Dylan out to buy more corn, despite a fridge full of it.
Aston somehow drove past the farmer’s market and ended up amongst the brushwood of the foothill above the Dubois Mansion. Since he had accidently grabbed his binoculars from the car, he figured he might as well use them.
“Why are we here?” Dylan asked looking around. “Daddy told you to get corn. Is there corn here? Where’s the corn?”
“Good question,” Aston sighed into the binoculars. It wasn’t the wedding; he knew Sapphire wouldn’t go through with it. So why were they here? For Sapphire? The Serial Catcher? Neither? Both? Corn? Not a clue. “I suppose…I’m looking for some kind of answer.”
“I have to pee,” Dylan whined again, dancing from side to side.
Aston spotted Sapphire on the deck. It wasn’t the face he’d expected on someone who didn’t want to get married. A genuine smile rested on her lips. Her face, her demeanor, was radiating bliss.
Aston’s chest twinged and his heart fell. It fell all the way down his shirt, tumbling against his body, then through his pants and out his leg. He stared down at his major organ pasted in the dirt.
He’d been wrong. Really. Fucking. Wrong.
She wanted to marry Vanderpilt. In some way she must love the guy. Not him, but that guy. It took awhile for Aston’s mind to reboot.
“Alright, kid,” he said, stabilizing his voice. “Let’s get you to a bathroom.”
“I’m okay now,” Dylan shrugged and took the binoculars.
Aston looked down at the kid’s pants. His car was about to smell a lot less pleasant. “How do you feel about small spaces like, let’s say, car trunks?”
“You guys are looking at girls? Yuck.” Dylan grimaced behind the binoculars. “Don’t you know they have cooties?”
“Yes,” Aston agreed, “and that’s why you always want to wrap up your Johnson.”
“Who’s Johnson?”
Aston frowned. “Did you just say ‘you guys’?”
“You and him.”
Aston followed the boy’s finger. There was a man at the bottom of the hill. He had his back to them, staring up at the mansion and playing with something in his hands.
The sun hit the item, and its glare was unmistakable.
A knife.
“Hi!” Dylan shouted, waving.
“Shhh.” It was too late; the man took off into the brushwood. “Stop! BHPD!”
Aston ran until his foot plunged into a rabbit hole and his bad leg snapped. He tried to continue the chase, until he realized he left Dylan alone with a madman running around. He had to go back.
Had it been a month ago, Aston would have assumed the man was just some random maniac, and the knife wasn’t meant for Sapphire. And still, he realized, the knife wasn’t meant for Sapphire, but for the Serial Catcher.
For the second time, Aston realized he’d been really fucking wrong.
He thought that Sapphire as the Serial Catcher made it less essential to bring her in. In reality, it was urgent that he did.
He had to stop her.
Not because it was wrong or illegal. If he didn’t, Sapphire Dubois would be dead.
When he was in the hospital and found out that Sapphire had been safely pulled out of the Golden Mirage, he’d convinced himself she was out of harm’s way.
But Sapphire Dubois would never be out of harm’s way.
As long as she was the Serial Catcher, she would always be in danger and would end up dead. The stranger with the knife proved it.
It wasn’t a matter of if, but when.
Aston loved her, and he would do anything to keep her safe. Even it meant he had to put her in jail.
Aston grabbed Dylan’s hand and hopped back to the car. It would be excruciating to stand by and watch her marry someone else this afternoon, but he had no choice.
If he didn’t go to the wedding, the man whose objective it was to kill her might just succeed.
Chapter 24
Sapphire snapped out of the happy-illusion haze she’d lived in and she found herself at the open French doors, staring down at the white aisle that led up to the altar in the country club’s botanical garden.
She was in her Vera Wang, and John was standing at the end of the aisle in a tux. A crowd of three hundred well-dressed guests sat on the chairs below the stone staircase.
Sapphire turned to Eloise who was fixing her veil.
“You drugged me!”
“Oh darn it.” Eloise checked the time. “I hoped they would last another thirty minutes.”
Sapphire reared back in panic.
“Oh well,” Eloise continued, placing something in Chrissy’s hand. “You’ll be over it by the time you’re in the limo and on your way to your honeymoon.”
Sapphire watched her unwilling bridesmaid, Petunia, pass by Charles at the bottom of the stairs. He was waiting to escort Sapphire to her death, otherwise known as John Vanderpilt.
Eloise and Chrissy placed the veil over her face and Sapphire watched her chest blossom in angry red hives.
“Now remember,” Eloise said. “Gliiiide down the aisle. Gliiiide.” She scurried off in her puffy dress.
Chrissy, her Maid of Honor, looked as sick as Sapphire felt. She squeezed whatever Eloise had given her and stared at the altar. Sapphire followed her gaze and stopped at John.
This was Sapphire’s ultimate face off.
The marriage represented everything she was supposed to be and did not want. Saying “I do” wasn’t an option. But opening her mouth to say no to a Vanderpilt was like screaming, “I’m a witch!” during the Salem Witch Trials.
Chrissy walked out and smiled like a beauty queen. Sapphire was next.
Her mind scrambled backward in frenzy, searching for a memory.
“When you’re on your deathbed, looking back at your life, what do you want to look back on? A life you lived for someone else? Or a life you lived for you?”
Paul Butler may have been a serial killer, but it didn’t make him less right. Sapphire didn’t want to be an old woman named Mrs. John Vanderpilt. She didn’t want to lay on her deathbed and hate the life she looked back on.
Since John went down on his knee, Sapphire had convinced herself that all she needed was a good plan. But she didn’t need a scheme. She needed help. In order to get that she had to do the thing that scared her more than any serial killer.
Speak the truth.
“Come back,” Sapphire whispered and people turned.
“I can’t. I’m already walking,” Chrissy hissed behind her smile.
“Please,” Sapphire begged, lifting her veil.
Chrissy sighed and walked backward up the stairs, nodding and smiling to the confused guests below.
Sapphire closed the French doors and shut the curtains.
“What?”
Sapphire swallowed her fear. “I can’t do it, Chrissy. I don’t love him!” The pressure in her chest eased. “In fact, I hate him a little… Okay, I hate him a lot.”
Sapphire felt the burning hives retreat from her body.
“But he’s a Vanderpilt,” Chrissy said suspicious, like she wa
s being Punk’d. “I mean, seriously, the only worse thing you could do is walk away from a Kraft or a Rockefeller.”
“I know,” Sapphire kept going. “I still hate him, and his family, and his stupid Porsche.”
Here Comes the Bride started playing. Chrissy stared at her. Sapphire’s fear of the follow-up questions surfaced. Why would Sapphire hate a Vanderpilt? Was she abnormal? Did she capture serial killers?
“Well, THANK GOD!” Chrissy erupted.
“What?”
“I slept with John!” she blurted out.
“On purpose?!”
“It was the night after the rehears-rehearsal dinner when we couldn’t find you. We went to a club and got so high that we barely remembered it the morning after. I tried to tell myself that it meant nothing, but I couldn’t stop thinking about him, Sapphire! And I hate myself for it.” Chrissy shook her head. “I tried everything to get my mind off it: avoiding you guys, shopping…well, that’s really it, but it was a lot of effort.”
Sapphire beamed. This was perfect. The Holy Grail of scandals.
“Please Chrissy, take the blame for me. I’ll go out there, pretend that I’m going to marry him, and then when the minister asks ‘does anyone object?’ you say that you guys slept together. You’re a Kraft, the gossip won’t even last a month.”
Chrissy was pulled between wanting to help her friend and social humiliation.
“Chrissy, I wouldn’t ask you to do this, but it’s my only way out. Also, you kind of owe me one for sleeping with my fiancé…slut.”
Chrissy rolled her eyes. “Fine, but please tell me none of this is because you slept with that guy again. I mean, you’re not giving up billions to get serious with a cop instead, are you? ‘Cause seriously, Saph…ew.”
“Well, I did sleep with him again, but that’s not why.” Sapphire drew a breath. “Though trust me, if I could be with Aston, I would.”
They held hands and took a breath together, then opened the doors.
They were faced by a stunned crowd. John stared at them in shock. Everyone gawked at them, especially Sapphire. Vivienne looked like she wanted to kill Sapphire…and herself. Julia’s thumb motioned over to the large speakers.
Sapphire looked at Chrissy. “What did Eloise put in your hand?” She already knew. Her own words bounced back to her.
“It’s the mosquito microphone. I was supposed to attach it to your dress when you got to the altar.” Chrissy looked around at the echo of her voice. “What is that annoying sound?”
The crowd had heard everything.
Sapphire’s eyes landed on Mr. and Mrs. Vanderpilt who were searing with hatred. She’d humiliated them in front of Beverly Hills’ most superb. From this day on, the powerful pair would blacklist Sapphire from high society.
Though the botanical garden was hauntingly silent, Sapphire knew what was happening. The crowd was pointing at her, shouting: “Witch! Witch! Witch!”
By Beverly Hills standards, Sapphire Dubois was dead, and she knew it.
Then someone stepped closer to the crowd. He watched Sapphire differently than everybody else.
Aston.
Sapphire was socially bleeding to death and his presence was healing.
A smile grew on her face as she looked down on him. She hoped he’d heard her words. He smiled back, and in that moment, Sapphire felt as though everything was going to be fine. She didn’t care about how the other 300 guests were looking at her, only this one. She wanted to run to him but, of course, she couldn’t.
Or…could she?
Yes, she was still the Serial Catcher, but did she even care anymore? Wasn’t being without Aston ten times harder than the complication of being with him?
Sapphire took the first step toward him, but whoever had kept them all on pause pushed play and all hell broke loose.
“You bastard!” John yelled and attacked Aston, who seemed delighted to fight him. They broke into a battle, tossing each other over dining tables, the six foot wedding cake, and finally into the fountain.
Chrissy was sniffing cocaine. Eloise sat in the puddle of her puffy dress, crying hysterically. Petunia laughed every time Aston dunked John’s head in the fountain. The rest of the crowd divided themselves up by family association and started screaming at one another. Even the ancient ones got into it, jabbing walkers at each other.
Charles was nowhere to be found. He’d probably escaped the mayhem.
Sapphire’s eyes landed on Angelica Moore, who was pushing through the crowd, looking up at her with sympathy. She came up the stairs and grabbed Sapphire’s hand. “Let’s get you away from here. You look like you’re about to cry.”
They moved inside the club, leaving the chaos behind them.
“Did you come with Aston?” Sapphire asked, a bit out of it.
“Oh, no,” Angelica said, rubbing her eye. “I didn’t even know he was going to be here. I came with a mutual friend.”
They walked through the hallway leading up to the Cigar Lounge. Sapphire glanced at Angelica.
“I have a weird question. You don’t own a white Audi, do you?”
“What?” Angelica laughed. “No, I don’t own a white Audi.”
“Okay,” Sapphire said, brushing away the thought.
Angelica’s smile dropped. “I borrowed it.”
Sapphire saw the punch coming, but the dress’s off-the-shoulder straps kept her arm down and she couldn’t block it. Angelica clocked her then shoved her against the door, locking Sapphire’s arms in a cop grip.
“You greedy whore,” Angelica roared. “You were engaged, but you just had to go after Aston. I watched you seduce him against his will at his father’s house. He’s mine.”
Gross. Aston’s father had seen someone.
“That’s not what I heard,” Sapphire said and brought her knee up to push Angelica back. She jumped to the side, keeping Sapphire’s arms locked.
“You don’t understand Aston the way I do,” Angelica said. “He doesn’t mean to reject me. He’s only lying to himself. When he makes love to me, his body tells the truth of how much he loves me.”
Wow. Sapphire’s eyes widened.
“I know exactly what you’re thinking,” Angelica said studying her face. “Aston is lucky to marry her.”
“Actually, it was more along the lines of: ‘yikes, somebody should be medicated’.” Sapphire struggled to get out of the grip.
“I’m not crazy! I don’t need those pills any…” Angelica’s eye twitched out of control. “…more.” She let go of Sapphire to rub it.
Sapphire went to grab her and the dress’s straps ripped. Angelica caught her and locked Sapphire’s arm around her neck. She kicked open the doors to the Cigar Lounge and shoved Sapphire inside.
She tumbled to the ground and turned to face the doorway.
“She’s all yours,” Angelica smiled, closing the door.
* * * * *
Richard Martin stood with his back to the door facing the antique clock on top of the fireplace, feeling right at home in the midst of the luxury he’d grown up around.
He watched the Serial Catcher in the mirror above the fireplace, scrambling to lift her dress and get up.
The woman Richard ran into at the bar was a cop. She knew who he was and assumed by his sketch that she knew who he wanted to kill. She was right.
The cop offered him a deal. She wouldn’t arrest him if he got her out of the way. He wasn’t sure what the cop’s thing was, but it seemed to involve someone named Ashton or Astein, the guy she said she was marrying. The deal would appear to be a win-win, but there was something the cop should have known. Never trust a killer.
The Serial Catcher stood and stared at him as if she’d seen a ghost. In a sense, she had.
“Hello, Sapphire Dubois.” Richard smiled, tasting her name. “Remember me?”
Her white dress spread out as she leaned her back against the door. She could’ve run, but she was unable to shy away from the challenge like he knew she would be.
“Yes. We’ve already played this game,” she said. “And if I recall correctly, you lost.”
“Broken.” Richard tapped the standstill clock. “Isn’t it funny? All these places consider themselves crème de la crème, butthere’s always imperfection to be found.” He turned to face her. “Here, I would say it’s you; you’re the imperfection.”
He paced, respecting the invisible line she had drawn. “I grew up like this, too, you know. On Park Avenue, surrounded by ignorant human beings.”
“How did you find me?” Her face was straight.
“Destiny.” Richard grinned. She was falling into his trap this time.
“Can we speed this up? I have a failed wedding to go back to, so tell me what you want? My head on a platter, I’m presuming?”
“At first, yes. But I’ve come to realize differently.” Richard reached behind the couch and pulled the old man up. Gagged and bound, he moaned from the wound on the side of his head where Richard hit him. “I’m taking something from you since you took everything from me. I want you to watch your father die.” He pulled his knife out and held it to the old man’s chest.
Her eyes drew to the old man but revealed no emotion. She looked back at Richard, almost amused.
“Except that’s not my father. I can see how you were confused since we have the same last name. That’s my mother’s husband.” Her voice was icy, disconnected. “If you grew up like this, then I’m sure you know that relationships between stepfathers and stepdaughters are nonexistent.”
Doubt hit Richard. He looked between Sapphire Dubois and the man he held by knife. “You’re lying.”
She shrugged. “Go ahead if you want to, but I studied you. I know you only take satisfaction in killing young women. I’m right here, so come get me instead. Unless you’re…sca-wed?”
She was mocking him and he couldn’t stand it. She was right. Killing men made him feel disgusting. He wanted to take the knife away from the old man and go after her. But, he realized, it was exactly what she wanted and would destroy his plan.
He pushed the blade to the old man’s chest, piercing the skin. The old man screamed behind his gag and she launched two steps forward.
“NO!” Her hand shot up.