A Killer Necklace

by Melodie Campbell

  “No one’s answering,” another man observed.

  “Should we go in anyway?”

  “Do you think it’s dangerous?”

  “Someone might be in trouble.”

  “Wish we could see through the curtains.”

  “Okay, watch yourself, I’m putting the key in the lock.”

  Finally the door flung open and Gina saw two guys backlit in a rectangle of light and staring in at her. They both appeared have taken up a fighting stance with their fists clenched, ready for action of any kind.

  When they saw her, alone, they visibly deflated and rushed in to help.

  One of the guys—he must have been the night manager because he wore a shirt with a logo on his pocket—pulled out a Swiss Army Knife. He slit the tape around her hands first.

  While he was working on her feet, Gina ripped the scarf from around her head and pulled out the gag.

  “Hurry please!” she said, her throat catching.

  “Yes. Doing my best.” The manager addressed the other fellow and said, “Thanks for coming and getting me, man.”

  Gina’s feet broke free and she dashed to the bathroom, duct tape dragging behind her. She slammed the door shut.

  When she came out, she knew the men would be full of questions but she didn’t have time to stand and chat with them. She said, “Call the police. And call a taxi. Today is my wedding day.” Then she demanded, “What time is it?”

  Their eyebrows arched and their mouths fell slightly open. However, no matter how they were feeling, they did as she requested and called the police and a taxi service.

  Afterward, the fellow who had alerted the motel manager offered, “Miss, right now it’s about 9:00 in the morning.”

  “Oh my God! Oh my God!” Gina paced around the very small amount of space in the room. “My wedding is at 10:00 this morning at St. Francis of Assisi, College and Grace intersection, Toronto. Where am I?”

  “Oakville.”

  “I’m a half an hour away! More if there’s a lot of traffic!”

  They nodded in agreement.

  “I’ve got to call Tony. And Mom. And Becki. Where’s my purse? Where’s my purse?”

  To her the two men remained unnervingly static while she raced all over the room looking in all the drawers, under the bed, even behind the shower curtain. “Where’s my purse?”

  When she rounded back on them they were standing with their hands up as if to say, “Don’t look at me!”

  “Will you lend me a phone?” she requested.

  The night manager handed over his cell.

  “Thanks,” she mumbled. Then she froze. “All my important numbers are on speed dial on my own phone.” She tried to punch in a couple numbers manually, by heart. She gave up when, through the still-open door, she saw a taxi driver about to knock.

  “What time is it now?” she asked.

  “9:17.”

  The police hadn’t arrived yet.

  “Tell the police I was kidnapped last night and brought here.” She rounded up her pumps and shoved them on. “Tell them I’ll be available to talk in a few hours but right now I’ve got to run.”

  She rushed past the door and out of her temporary ‘jail’, and as she did so she happened to notice the Do Not Disturb sign still plugged into the door’s card slot.

  Speaking of details, after the taxi had pulled away, she realized the two men she left behind to deal with the police wouldn’t have much to work with. They wouldn’t have the first clue who she was, even, because she hadn’t given them her name. She’d been in such a rush that she also hadn’t told them from where she was kidnapped. Or when.

  Maybe the police would conclude it was a local Fifty Shades of Grey scenario gone wrong.

  Chapter 40

  No Vera Wang wedding dress, no Fiorio hair appointment, no Dior lipstick, no Chanel perfume, no nail file, no toothbrush, no pocket mirror to verify how the hell she looked.

  How do you think you look after a night duct-taped to a motel bed?

  No time.

  It took superhuman willpower for Gina not to pester the driver to death about how much longer he thought it would take now.

  Was she a fool to be hurtling toward the church? Would anyone even be there? How many brides who miss their own wedding rehearsal actually intend to show up at the wedding?

  What was poor Tony going through? To think she’d had reservations about putting her faith in him.

  On Grace Street in Little Italy, tears pooled in Becki’s eyes and threatened to cascade down both cheeks at the tiniest provocation.

  Gina.

  Dressed in her recovered maid of honour dress—the Toronto police took some serious convincing to let her keep this evidence of Gina’s disappearance—Becki paced back and forth in front of the arched doorways at the top of the steps to St. Francis of Assisi.

  They could have cancelled the wedding of course. The bride was AWOL. But Becki would hear none of it. She believed that Gina would move heaven and Earth to make it to her wedding, if she possibly could.

  Becki prayed as she patrolled the triple church entrances. Above her a cross-and-holy-book-carrying statue gazed out from a niche in the upper wall. St. Francis of Assisi himself she assumed. St. Francis, help Gina make it here.

  Anything else was unthinkable.

  Many of the wedding guests were already seated inside. Most knew nothing of what was going on. They were blissful in their ignorance. The few who did know didn’t let on, just in case a rabbit could be pulled out of a hat.

  As one of the co-conspirators in the charade, did Becki feel guilty about not advising all guests aforehand about Gina’s potential no-show and thereby possibly saving their Saturday morning? Not one bit. Gina was all that mattered.

  In the meantime, Tony had pulled in special favours. Karl too. Everyone was hunting madly for Gina. Judging by Tony’s demeanor, it was the largest, fiercest missing-person investigation ever mounted.

  Just as Becki and Tony had done themselves, Toronto police had interviewed Ilonka and the others at Bella Sposa where Gina was last seen about 7:00 p.m. yesterday. They had searched the store and its surroundings. They had canvassed neighbours.

  Toronto police had gone further than what Becki and Tony and Karl were able to do on their own and broadcast Gina’s description and all other pertinent information to officers in the field. They’d passed on that same information to surrounding police services.

  Tony had shared his favourite cellphone picture of Gina with the Toronto police force, who were holding off printing missing person posters, interviewing family and requesting assistance from the media until after the wedding.

  No one knew if Gina would show up. But they hoped. Now in this last fifteen minutes before the wedding there was a collective holding of breath. Becki identified in the others the same pent-up nervous energy that she felt in herself.

  Every few minutes, she popped back into the church just to check. Bouquets of all-white natural flowers were tied with shimmery white tulle bows to the ends of the polished wooden pews all along the centre aisle. Becki and Gina had picked out the arrangements together.

  In. Out. In. Out. Back and forth at the top of the stairs. Becki imagined Tony pacing in the back of the church just as she was doing in front. And what of Gina’s parents? For now, Gord was sitting with Anna in their pew. How were they coping?

  Outside again, Becki watched birds flit from towering tree branch to towering tree branch on this warm, sunny morning. By all appearances, a heavenly day.

  Which only made things worse.

  Tony and Karl had divulged their earlier plan to replace the real diamond and sapphire necklace set with a bugged fake, and have a couple guys stake out the church vestibule before, during and after the wedding. In these heightened circumstances, the undercovers remained in place, but they were the real jewels that nestled in the small box placed inconspicuously on the far end of the bench in the front entryway.

  If that’s what it took to s
ave Gina.

  Becki figured law enforcement was keeping an eye out for anyone or anything incongruous.

  When she saw a familiar woman in turquoise, her skin prickled.

  Lottie’s mostly white hair was pinned in an up-do.

  As nice as it had been for Lottie, among several of Becki’s friends and acquaintances, to attend Gina’s wedding shower in Black Currant Bay, Becki knew that the wedding guest list had not been revised to include Lottie at the ceremony here in Toronto. Why was she here?

  Becki wanted to hurl herself down the stairs and grab the woman and shake the truth out of her. But she’d been drilled earlier this morning about what to do in a circumstance like this. Gina’s life might be at stake.

  She slipped into the shadows of the church foyer and let Lottie approach in the midst of other tardy guests.

  Lottie was slower than the rest, who dashed up the stairs and into the main part of the church to find a seat. She paused, as if for air, during her ascent. Was she truly huffing and puffing or was she stalling for reasons of her own?

  Becki continued to observe.

  Lottie took one final look behind and around her before she passed the threshold of the church. Because it is generally expected that guests should be seated a good several minutes before the bride is due at the church, it would seem that Lottie was going to be the last of the arrivals.

  When she turned right instead of heading down the aisle, Becki looked about frantically for the undercover cops. Where were they?

  When Lottie sat down next to the package, Becki couldn’t hold herself back. With lightning speed she got right into Lottie’s face and with barely concealed venom, which she didn’t realize she possessed, she ripped into her. “Tell me where Gina is!”

  She wanted to physically rattle Lottie’s bones, but she had been raised not to manhandle old ladies, or anyone else for that matter.

  “Oh, Becki dear, isn’t this a lovely church?”

  Becki was not frightened of Lottie, who must not be aware that every element of her very proper attire was radically askew. Like Queen Elizabeth, only demented.

  “Why did you choose to sit down here?” Becki demanded.

  “Catching my breath, hon.” Lottie looked up with woeful eyes. “Getting old is not for sissies.”

  Lottie was playing her part well. Convincingly. Non-threateningly. Now if Lottie clicked open her old-fashioned and therefore roomy handbag, and reached in, then maybe Becki should start to worry in a hurry.

  Except she was sure the undercovers were watching and listening in the wings. And she could summon Tony anytime from the back of the church using the wireless connection he had rigged up to help catch the blackmailer, and much more importantly so she could alert him of any first glimpse of Gina.

  She was about to commence accusing Lottie of killing her friend Louisa for the jewels to fund that crazy trip to Cornwall she blabbed about—of not finding the jewelry in the house after the murder, and somehow thinking that Gina had the pieces—of threatening Gina into bringing the jewels to her wedding—and of hiring someone to kidnap Gina—

  Becki was getting a little confused.

  Then Lottie hauled herself up. “Will you walk me down the aisle, Becki dear? Gina will be here any minute now and I certainly don’t want to be back here making a nuisance of myself. You heard about those young men being arrested for the fire?” she continued.

  Becki’s thoughts were far away. “What?”

  “Louisa’s house. They found the nasty boys who did it.”

  This confrontation is not going at all the way I imagined, Becki thought.

  “Hurry, hurry now dear.” Lottie looked back through the open church doors and cried, “Gina’s here!”

  Chapter 41

  Why didn’t taxis have wings?

  So much damned traffic on a Saturday. Who would have thought it?

  Gina was free. She was elated. She was exhausted. She was beyond exhausted.

  She was on her way to her own wedding.

  Tony would be there. Tony would damn well be there. If he wasn’t, she’d kill him.

  No doubts now.

  “Can you go any faster?” she begged the taxi.

  Silly. Silly how you get caught up in the little things, squabbling and second-guessing each other.

  Sometimes it takes a big thing to set everything all straight in your mind.

  She and Tony were getting married today, and she wasn’t waiting for anything, no change of clothes—no wedding ring, to delay it a minute.

  As the cab driver swerved along city streets, Gina wondered where Cathy and Garry had gone. Would they ever be brought to justice? Probably not. Garry would have all the connections to make a clean disappearance.

  Could she feel sympathy for Cathy? Maybe. Perhaps it had been an accident with Louisa. Perhaps they had quarrelled, and it got a little physical.

  She certainly would feel that way about Tony, if some woman got in the way of them being together. She knew that feeling. It would be easy to get physical.

  I must be going crazy here. There’s absolutely no excuse for physical violence, except in a life-and-death case of self-defence.

  The church was up ahead. Gina could see well-dressed people hurrying up the steps to the double doors. Lots of people. Too many people.

  And then she saw Tony.

  “Stop here,” she yelled to the cab driver. “I’ll be back in a minute with your fare.”

  The car stopped. The right rear door swung open and she bolted out of the back seat.

  Then Gina ran. She ran, and Tony turned, and she ran right up and threw herself into his arms. He held her tight and she clung to him like she was never going to let go, not ever.

  The first words out of her mouth were, “Have you got fifty bucks for the cab?”

  Tony must have caught sight of Gina before overhearing Lottie say, “She’s here!”

  So there’s no way he’d been in the back of the church as planned.

  They had thought it would alarm guests to see a panicked groom pacing in front of the church so Becki was designated lookout. But it didn’t surprise her that Tony was not where he said he would be. Of course he was skulking in the shadows at the side of the church with a view to the front.

  Thank goodness Gina appeared to be okay!

  Thank you, St. Francis. Although not a religious person, Becki clasped her hands and glanced upwards even as the most romantic scene she had ever witnessed played itself out on the steps of St. Francis of Assisi.

  She gave Gina and Tony more than a few moments to themselves, while Lottie tottered off to find a seat.

  Then she descended the stairs herself.

  “Gina, I’m so glad you’re here!” She opened her arms, and Gina let go of Tony and melted into her.

  “God, I’m glad I’m here too.”

  Then Gina grabbed hold of Tony again, like she couldn’t stop touching him, as if he might disappear in a puff of smoke.

  Becki could only imagine what had happened to terrify Gina so.

  And to delay her for fourteen hours. She had come close to missing her wedding, to losing the future she dreamed of.

  But now she was safe, and things could be made perfect.

  “I brought your dress,” Becki offered. “And a bag filled with a whole bunch of stuff you might need. Say the word and I’ll advise your guests that the ceremony will be delayed 15, 30 minutes. Whatever you need.”

  “What? I don’t look like a bride?”

  “Uh, you always look beautiful, Gina, but—”

  “I thought I was the fashionista!”

  Did Gina get hit on the head?

  “Becki, I’m a changed woman. Nothing matters, nothing at all, except that I walk down the aisle right this minute and that Tony is waiting for me at the other end.

  “Hand me my bouquet!”

  Chapter 42

  LIFE SECTION THE TORONTO HERALD

  The Bride wore…Prada??

  Deana Philpott, S
ociety Maven

  Last Saturday, in a daring switcheroo, fashion forward Gina Monroe ditched her Vera Wang original, and became Mrs. Tony Ferraro in a short Prada day dress.

  Always the epitome of glam, everyone’s favorite weather girl was expected to hit the church runway in full wedding frou-frou. Instead, our girl shocked the crowd with her simple look. Rumour has it that the bride went into hiding before the wedding to ensure she could pull off her plan.

  Yesterday, I caught up with her by phone, dear readers, and here is what she had to say:

  “For ages, I’ve worried about being too shallow, too obsessed with looks. Tony teases me about it. At one time, he said he would marry me if I were wearing a paper bag. So I decided to take him up on it. Not that a Prada dress is a paper bag, but I wanted to make a fashion statement.

  “If you love someone, you don’t need the finery and the fuss. It shouldn’t matter what you look like on your wedding day.”

  Of course, our girl could never be anything but beautiful. But did you know she is also generous?

  As for the Vera Wang, Gina Monroe—now Ferrero—is donating her pristine wedding dress to a charity auction soon to be announced.

  We love our weather gal in Toronto.

  Chapter 43

  It was a sunny Sunday afternoon one month after their wedding, and they were lounging in her—their—condo, nearly falling off the too narrow couch.

  “I never should have doubted you, Tony,” Gina said.

  “Shush,” he replied. He smoothed strands of her hair back behind her left ear. Her head was tucked in close to his chest and his strong fingers caressed as if he were stroking a cat.

  “Seriously, who else would dress up in a tux and wait at the church for his fiancée to show up after she stood him up at the wedding rehearsal?”

  “Takes one hell of a fine man,” Tony agreed.

  So she punched him. A love tap, really.