Three Weddings and a Murder

by Milan, Courtney

  And there was Charlie.

  After Charlie took her under his wing, no one dared to treat her unkindly. Maybe it was a good thing he left town when he did or she might never have learned to fight her own battles. She fisted her hands, and her nails bit into her palms. No matter how many times she told herself he had every right, every reason, to go, it still felt like a kick in the gut—the same kick in the gut she felt the day her mother officially signed her over to Grandma for her own good.

  Even as she willed them to relax, the muscles in her abdomen tensed. She placed her hand over her belly and exhaled. Her whole body felt restless. She needed to go for a run to clear her head, needed to run until she was spent, needed to run until she’d replaced all her anxieties with total body exhaustion.

  Her eyes fell on Uncle Joe’s .45 Colt she’d retrieved from the safe and placed on the kitchen counter.

  There would be no run for her tonight.

  “Anna?” Charlie called to her from the bedroom.

  After grabbing the Colt, she joined him.

  He waggled his brows at her. “Put that thing down, will you?”

  Carefully, she laid the gun atop a crocheted doily on the nightstand by the bed, wedging it between Grandma’s Bible and a jar of Vicks VapoRub. And then without her realizing he’d crossed the room, he was behind her, pressing his pelvis against her buttocks.

  Reaching his arms around her waist, he took her hands in his. “You’re shaking.”

  “It’s been a wild night,” she replied, even though she knew that wasn’t the reason she trembled. His body was growing full and hard against her, and he turned her around, worked one knee between her legs.

  “Peaches,” he whispered the endearment in her ear, and she could almost believe they were innocent again. She could almost believe that he’d never gone away. Almost believe that he wouldn’t go again just as soon as this nightmare was over.

  Almost.

  And although she had been an innocent back then, Charlie had not been. According to rumor, she was the only girl in Tangleheart Charlie didn’t fool around with.

  “Why did you pull away from me Saturday night?” His voice was hoarse and low and turned her knees to water.

  “Maybe you should try again.” Her heart might be fluttering in her chest like hummingbird wings, but her tone sounded calm, nearly aloof. Good.

  “Anna, I’ll ask you again because I don’t want to hurt you. Why did you put the brakes on that night?”

  “I’m a big girl now, Charlie. I can look out for myself, so you don’t need to worry about it.” She gripped his buttocks with her hands and lowered herself onto his thigh.

  As he pressed his thigh into her crotch, she could feel his erection clamoring against her belly. He slid to his knees in front of her. She was wearing a pair of loose cotton shorts and a barely-there thong. She opened her legs wide and gave him a good look. If he thought she was still some shy flower in need of protection, she’d show him just how very much he misjudged her.

  He pushed her knees open even wider. “You’re so beautiful, Anna,” he said, and then he moved her thong to the side and pushed his thumb inside of her. She made a little noise in her throat because it came naturally, and because she wanted him to know she wanted this. She wanted him.

  Working his thumb exquisitely, he put his mouth over her shorts and sucked her right through the cloth. She writhed against him, needing much much more.

  “Please,” she begged. “Please take them off.”

  And then it was his turn to make a noise in his throat.

  When he yanked her shorts and thong down, she thought her knees would buckle. Then he carried her to the bed. Somehow, they must’ve gotten the rest of their clothing off because his bare skin was slick against hers, and his male scent was mixing with the fragrance of cedar in the air.

  She told herself to slow down. She wanted to savor every moment, note every detail, make every touch, every sigh into a keepsake—but it didn’t happen that way. Her body was too hungry for him. Her need was too great.

  Afterward, she recalled him taking her face in his hands and dotting little kisses on her eyes and lips—but when, she didn’t know. And she did remember grasping at his shoulders, and him groaning with delight—but was that before or after she wrapped her legs around him and watched his expression come undone?

  She most certainly recalled him driving into her hard and fast and slow and gentle, unrelenting—showing the same determination he’d used to spark the fire in the hearth, and she could not forget the feel of her muscles coiling and uncoiling around him until she was spent. But in the end, the whole experience was a hazy dream of pleasure that her mind rearranged into out-of-sequence bits and pieces.

  Such was her keepsake, and she would have to make do.

  ANNA HAD TURNED AWAY from his kiss when they finished making love. Blinking away the moisture in his eyes, he shut down the emotion that made it hard to swallow, hard to breathe. Now was not the time.

  A quick splash of water to his face, an even quicker glance in the mirror and comb of his fingers through disheveled hair, and Charlie was ready to join Anna in the main room of the cabin and get to work on sorting through those clippings. If nothing else, concentrating on the puzzle of Simone’s mysterious trip to the library would provide temporary respite from all the what-ifs running through his head.

  What if Boots had somehow tracked them to the cabin?

  What if they didn’t find Simone in time to warn her about Boots?

  What if he never got another chance to tell Anna what was in his heart?

  What if…

  Moondrops dribbled in through the bathroom window and pinged off an object on the shelf above the sink. Curiosity jarred him out of his reverie. Right away, his gut told him whatever it might be, it didn’t belong on a dusty old shelf in Uncle Joe’s cabin. He grabbed the shiny object, took one look, and a current of excitement shot through him. True, the gleaming silver charm bracelet in his grasp might belong to Anna, but he didn’t recall seeing it on her wrist.

  Accelerated by the hope in his heart, his pulse picked up its pace. This might very well belong to Simone, and if Simone had, in fact, been at the cabin earlier in the day, she might still be hiding somewhere in the vicinity. If the charm bracelet was Simone’s, Anna would recognize it.

  Slipping his secret hope into his pocket, he stepped out of the bathroom and found Anna working at a picnic-style table in the cabin’s main room. Well, perhaps she was doing more frowning than actual working. There was a piece of old poster board laid on the tabletop, and Anna had removed the clippings from the file and stacked them atop the folder, but it didn’t look like she’d even begun to sort through them yet.

  Instead, her attention was fixed on the Tangleheart Gazette, which lay splayed open in front of her. It had to be the paper he’d bought yesterday—before all hell broke loose. He’d been reading an article about that TCU coed they’d seen on the Saturday night news.

  Sally McMahon.

  That was her name. Somehow knowing her name made her death all the more poignant.

  “You reading about Sally?” He inhaled a deep breath and let it out slowly. He didn’t know why Anna catching him with that particular edition of the paper in his car should make him uncomfortable. He also didn’t know why Anna had brought the paper inside the cabin…unless the eerie similarities between Megan O’Neal and Sally McMahon made Anna uneasy too.

  Two beautiful girls who had the world by the tail.

  Two beautiful girls who hanged themselves in their rooms with no warning, no cry for help, no note left behind—and hanging was an unusual choice for female suicides. He’d learned most women opted for less violent methods, such as pills.

  But the mode of death wasn’t the similarity that made his skin prickle and his palms sweat.

  That visceral response had much more to do with the fact that the two women were look-alikes.

  They could’ve been sisters, maybe even passed f
or twins—the resemblance was that pronounced.

  Anna seemed as lost in thought as he was. “Are you reading about Sally?” he tried again.

  Her shoulders jumped. “I was just waiting for you. I’m in the planning phase, and here’s what I’m thinking.” She pointed to the warped piece of poster board. “I thought we’d make a murder board.”

  Uncomprehending, he turned his palms up.

  “You know, like the one Beckett uses on Castle. I mean I know there hasn’t been an actual murder, but it’s good to get organized, and I want to—”

  “Get our ducks in a row.” He didn’t have a damn clue what Anna was talking about, but he was in for a penny already. Apparently, he and Anna were going to find Simone and Bobby and stop a killer all on their own, using state-of the-art tools like water-logged poster board and Anna’s knowledge of television crime shows.

  He hoped like hell Nate had lit a fire under the police, and they were apprehending the bad guy right this minute. He’d been trying to check in with Nate for a while now. Pulling his cell out of his pocket, he glanced at the bars one more time.

  No service. “Sorry. What’d you say?”

  “I said I’d like to make a timeline, and then we can see if we can fit any of the pieces of the puzzle together. We’ll add any clippings that stand out to the board, too.” She picked up a handful of clippings and fanned them out on the board. Glancing up, she caught him staring. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  His chin came up. “I was thinking how pretty you look when you worry your bottom lip between your teeth like that.”

  Sweet Jesus, Charlie. Never say anything like that out loud again.

  A happy smile stretched across her face.

  Maybe just once more…

  But she was all business again. “Let’s begin the timeline with your welcome home party on Saturday night.”

  “Yep.” His face was still warm from that worrying your lip remark.

  “What do you remember happening at the dinner party?”

  Anna was serious about this, and he didn’t really have a better idea as to how to proceed. Wanting to do justice to his role in this simulated Castle-Beckett crime-fighting exercise, he conjured an answer by rubbing his forehead. “Nate and Simone were happy as clams. He gave her an emerald necklace, and then that picture of Sally McMahon came on the news. I tossed back a few drinks.”

  He looked at her pointedly. He was tired of pretending nothing was going on between them. “And then we went to my place and we kissed. It was a great kiss, Anna. And you still haven’t told me why you called it off that night, or for that matter, why you’re sitting here right now acting like ten minutes ago we weren’t making passionate love to each other.”

  “Because right now I’m kind of busy making a murder board.”

  “Bullshit. You’re kind of busy avoiding your feelings.”

  “We had adrenaline sex, Charlie. That’s all it was.” Her eyes fell away from his and wandered around the room.

  His throat was closing up. He’d left her alone too damn long to expect anything from her but exactly what she’d given him. Adrenaline sex. They were both glad to be alive, they were alone together, so they fucked each other. Whatever worked for her was fine by him.

  He leaned over the table and jabbed his finger on the poster. From now on, he was sticking to the murder board. “I think you should start the timeline earlier. At dinner, Simone said she’d been to see her doctor last week. So I’d put that doctor visit last week as the start of the timeline.”

  She tilted her head, considering. “I’m not sure anyone but a physician would start the timeline there, but we’re brainstorming so it won’t hurt to include it. First rule of brainstorming is no censorship. Anything else you want to add to our murder board?”

  “Yeah.” Two could play this game. “Put down that Simone called my office on Friday to set up an appointment for Bobby even though she swears she didn’t find any bruises until Saturday night after the party.”

  The crestfallen look on Anna’s face told him she caught the point he was trying to drive home.

  “Doesn’t make sense, does it?” He continued, “Write down that Simone lied.” There was no way to put this diplomatically. “Anna, I’m sorry, but I think we have to consider the possibility that Simone might actually have abused Bobby.”

  She shook her head. “That doesn’t add up. Let’s go back to your timeline. Simone saw her doctor last week. We think she discovered Bobby’s bruises on Friday, even though she denies it, because that’s when she called your office. Does Von Willebrand run in families?”

  Anna was handling his accusation about Simone well. She was thinking objectively, not defensively. “Yes. And Von Willebrand is often associated with anemia. And we know for a fact Simone’s anemic.”

  Anna started scribbling on the board. “What if Simone suspected Bobby has Von Willebrand, because her doctor told her she has Von Willebrand, and that’s why she called your office on Friday?”

  “It’s possible, I suppose, but if that’s true, all she had to do was say so and we could have avoided this whole mess. If Simone hadn’t been so evasive, if she hadn’t lied to me about those bruises, I never would have called in social services.”

  Anna spread more of the clippings and skimmed her fingers over their headlines. The color drained from her face, and she let out a soft gasp. “I think I may have found what Simone was looking for in the vertical file.”

  He took a look at where she was pointing, and what he saw knocked him back a step. A photo of Megan—from her obituary. Nervously, he jangled the bracelet in his pocket, and then pulled it out. He’d almost forgotten about finding it in the bathroom. Turning the bracelet over in his hand, he inspected it carefully this time. His fingers slid over one of the charms—a misshapen key. He touched the bend in the shaft of the key a second time and closed his eyes.

  No way this could be what he thought it was.

  Holding his breath, he ran the pads of his fingers over the bow of the key and just about came out of his skin.

  When he opened his eyes, Anna was staring at the bracelet, her mouth gaping. “Where did you get that?”

  “Bathroom.” He could barely choke out the word. “Simone’s?”

  She nodded. “She was here, Charlie. We have to call Nate.”

  “I tried earlier, no signal. Anna, how long has Simone had this bracelet?” His palm tingled everywhere the silver links touched his skin. He reached a hand out and braced himself against the table.

  “Since high school. You should sit down Charlie, I think you may be getting dehydrated.”

  He shook his head. “See this charm, this little key? I made this key for Megan.”

  “Come on Charlie, that’s not likely. There are millions of key charms on sale at fine jewelers everywhere. It’s just a coincidence.”

  Picking up Megan’s obituary from the murder board, he pointed to her photograph and handed it to Anna. Megan was wearing a chain with a misshapen key around her neck. “Take a good look. I made that charm in shop class. I got a C because I screwed it up. It’s all bent, and it has three little holes in the bow of the key.”

  Anna turned back to the murder board with determination. She crumpled the obituary in her fist, and then dropped it. “It isn’t the same key.” She spread the remaining clippings with her hands, desperately seeking an alternative explanation to the one that was forming over their heads like thunderclouds ready to rain down poison gas.

  “I’m sorry, Anna.” He could see how distressed she was, and he was sick to his stomach himself, but however horrible the implication, Charlie knew that key. It was the same key he gave to Megan when they first started dating. She always wore it around her neck. Zero doubt about it. “Why was Simone looking at Megan’s obituary on Sunday, and how did she get hold of the charm that I made for Megan in high school?”

  Anna fussed with the clippings again, and then picked up the Tangleheart Gazette. Her hands star
ted to tremble, and her eyes filled with tears. “Charlie,” she whispered. “Look at Sally.”

  “You’re avoiding again.”

  “Look at Sally.” She shook the newspaper at him. “Please.”

  Nodding, he took the paper from her hand. He’d seen that picture of Sally McMahon several times, but because of her resemblance to Megan, his attention had always been drawn to her face. He’d never even noticed the emerald around her neck—the one that looked an awful lot like the stunner Nate had given Simone last Saturday night.

  Tuesday Late Night

  ANNA WAS HALFWAY OUT of the Camaro when she felt a hand clamp onto her shoulder and jerk her backward. Her head slammed against Charlie’s collarbone with a tooth-rattling thwack that vibrated through her skull. She could practically feel her brain shimmy. The spare keys to the neighbor’s lake house always hung on a giant brass ring above the hearth at her Uncle Joe’s place. She should have noticed that key ring was missing as soon as they’d entered the cabin. She should have realized the lake house down the road would be far more comfortable for a mother and child than her uncle’s rustic cabin. But she hadn’t noticed. She hadn’t realized. And now they’d lost precious time that could possibly cost Simone and Bobby their lives. She lunged forward, and Charlie pulled her back again, and this time he pinned her to his chest beneath his arm.

  “Let me go,” she demanded, wriggling like a puppy who’d been swooped into the safety of its master’s arms just as it was making ready to corner a venomous snake.

  “No can do, Peaches. You know how to fire that pistol?” Easily controlling her with his one-armed hold, Charlie used his free hand to pat the butt of Uncle Joe’s .45, which gleamed on the dash.

  “Better than you, I’m sure.” She relaxed into his arms. Physically, she was no match for Charlie. Might as well pretend to cooperate rather than waste time arguing with her pigheaded protector. “Let me go, and I promise to sit tight until we both agree on a plan.”