by Penny Reid
“I don’t know!” Elizabeth shook her head, her hand dropped to her lap, and I saw she was trying to take the ring off. It wouldn’t come off.
“How did it get there?” I asked, looking between Ashley and Marie. They looked equally confused.
“I don’t know!” Elizabeth shrieked. She was tugging the rings with more force and panicking.
I opened my mouth, closed it, opened it again. “What happened last night?”
“We have no idea.” Ashley’s voice met my ears. “It’s like one minute we’re all toasting your wedding and the next minute we’re standing here with dead rodent breath, looking like hades, and Elizabeth is married to…someone.”
Elizabeth groaned and fell backward onto the bed; she covered her face with her hands and curled into a ball.
“Could it be Nico?” Marie sounded hopeful. “I mean, it could be Nico. I don’t see any strange men wandering around the suite.”
Elizabeth shook her head but kept her face covered. “He’s in New York filming all week. Unless he somehow finished early, flew out here, found us doing…whatever we were doing last night, bought the rings, took me to a wedding chapel, and married me, then it’s not Nico. Besides, we haven’t even set a date yet.”
“Also, if it were Nico, wouldn’t he be here right now?” Ashley asked the room. “In fact, shouldn’t someone be here? I mean, your new husband should be around here someplace.”
Elizabeth groaned again and rolled to her side.
“That’s not helping, Ashley.” Marie shook her head, but she was suppressing a smile.
Ashley exhaled loudly and flopped onto the bed next to Elizabeth, rubbed her back. “I’m sorry. It’ll all work out.”
“Who knows if you’re even really married.” Marie sat on the bed on the other side of Elizabeth. “Maybe someone gave you the rings for safekeeping….”
Elizabeth assumed the fetal position.
“She’s married.” A voice sounded from the door and we all turned toward it. Elizabeth lifted her head and peeked through her fingers.
Sandra was standing there holding a piece of paper; she looked like a redheaded raccoon. “I found the marriage license on the bar.”
There was a pause, and I was pretty sure we were all holding our breath.
Then Ashley blurted, “Don’t keep us in suspense, woman! What does it say?”
Sandra looked down at the license and read the name. “Niccolò Ludvico Manganiello.”
Elizabeth sat up slowly, her eyes wide and unblinking, her mouth open. She looked entirely befuddled. Then she said, “Nico?”
Sandra nodded and held out a second piece of paper. “He left you a note.”
“He left me a note?” Elizabeth breathed; then she repeated, but much louder, “HE LEFT ME A NOTE?!”
I flinched and my eyes darted to Ashley’s. She was covering the bottom half of her face, and I could see she was trying not to laugh.
Elizabeth stood suddenly, swayed a little, and marched over to Sandra. She grabbed the note, unfolded it, and read it with, frankly, wild eyes. Through the back of the paper, I could see that only two or three lines had been written. Elizabeth read it several times before a short hysterical sounding laugh erupted from her mouth.
“Don’t keep us in suspense, woman! What does it say?” Ashley repeated, although I had the feeling this time she was trying to use it for comic relief.
Elizabeth passed me the note then began to pace the room muttering, “I’m going to kill him…I’m going to kill him….”
I glanced from her to the paper, and read the contents out loud.
Dearest Wife,
Now we don’t have to worry about setting a date. You’re welcome.
Your Husband, Nico
***
Sandra wouldn’t stop apologizing.
Soon after discovering that Elizabeth and Nico had gotten married the night before and that none of us had any memory of it, Sandra confessed that the chocolate had been spiked with absinthe. More specifically, a type of absinthe called Amsterdam absinthe.
“I can’t understand it, though.” Sandra held her forehead in her hands, glaring at her coffee cup.
We’d called up for room service and we were all gathered in the large sitting room munching on a buffet of brunch foods.
Marie and Ashley were knitting. Sandra was beating herself up. Dan was by the buffet spooning himself eggs. Elizabeth was zoning out with a dreamy smile on her face. I was sitting on Quinn’s lap eating a plate of fruit.
And Kat was not making eye contact with anyone.
“Absinthe shouldn’t have made us lose our memory; it’s supposed to be like getting drunk but without the fogginess. And it’s completely legal! You can even order it online.” Sandra sounded despondent.
“Don’t tear yourself up about it.” Kat reached over and patted Sandra’s back, careful to keep her eyes on her friend. In fact, Kat was being careful to keep her eyes either downcast or mostly lowered.
Abruptly, Ashley growled. “I have a confession to make!” She tossed her knitting to the side and covered her face with her hands. “I am so, so sorry, but I think I might also be to blame.”
We all exchanged wide-eyed glances—well, everyone but Kat, because she was still avoiding looking more than two inches from the floor.
“Spill it, Ashley.” Marie prodded her with her elbow. “What did you do? Spike our drinks?”
Ashley groaned. “Yes! Yes, I spiked the drinks.”
Marie’s mouth fell open. “You didn’t….”
“I did. I asked my brother, Cletus, to send me some hooch. I added it to our drinks.” Her shoulders rose and fell with a large breath, then she mumbled, “I added a lot of it to our drinks….”
“What the hell is hooch?” Dan asked, his hands on his hips.
“Moonshine! White lightning…it’s nasty.” She peeked through her fingers at me. “I’m sorry.”
“You dirty hillbilly!” Sandra wrinkled her nose at Ashley, but didn’t sound very upset. “I wish you’d told me. I wouldn’t have handed out the chocolate.”
“I’ll need a sample of both, what you put in the drink and the chocolate.” Quinn said this between large bites of sausage and eggs benedict.
“Yes, absolutely.” Sandra nodded at Quinn’s request and huffed an unhappy sigh, her gaze shifting to me. “I’m sorry, Janie.”
I shrugged. “No harm done, Sandra.”
As soon as I said the words, two interesting things happened.
Kat and Dan glanced at each other then pointedly looked away, Kat turning bright red and Dan clearing his throat.
The other interesting thing was that Elizabeth nodded at my statement. “Hey, we’ll all get checked out this afternoon, and McHotpants can have his bat-lab do an analysis to see what was actually in that stuff.”
Sandra stared at her, still looking miserable. Ashley was peeking at all of us between her fingers and seemed content to keep silent.
Elizabeth leaned toward Sandra and gave her a small smile. “It’s also our fault; we should have known better than to accept chocolate from you. I’ve never seen you share chocolate.”
“It is not your fault. It’s my fault, and it’s Ashley’s fault. We need to learn how to coordinate our druggings next time.” Sandra folded her arms on the table in front of her and her head dropped.
“Oh, no. There will never be a next time,” Marie teased, turning her work, then asked, “What I want to know is how did Quinn, Nico, and Dan the Man get here?”
Everyone except Sandra, because her face was still buried in her arms, turned their attention to Quinn. He was mid-bite and looked entirely unconcerned.
We waited for him to finish chewing his food before he responded. “We were in the desert shooting machine guns and I got a text from Stan. So we took a helicopter over to Circus, Circus and jogged to the chapel.” Then he took another bite as though this supremely odd explanation answered our questions.
Elizabeth looked at him like he�
��d just sprouted a fin. “Wait—you were in the desert shooting machine guns?”
He nodded.
“With Nico and Dan?”
He nodded.
“How close is this desert where you were shooting machine guns?”
He shrugged, glanced to the left, swallowed, then replied, “About twenty minutes by helicopter.”
“Helicopter? You took a helicopter?” Ashley finally dropped her hands from her face.
He nodded.
“Why were you there anyway?” Elizabeth pressed. “Nico was supposed to be in New York this week.”
“He was. He just came out for the day.”
“To shoot machine guns…?”
He nodded and punctuated it with a “Yep.”
Ashley was studying Quinn intently. After several long moments, she abruptly asked, “Were you there for your bachelor party?”
He nodded. “Yep.”
I looked at Ashley, she looked at me, then we both looked at Marie and Elizabeth.
But it was Sandra who spoke our thoughts. “Can we go out to the desert and shoot machine guns?”
Quinn frowned, glanced at Dan. I saw Dan lift his eyebrows then look to the ceiling and sigh. I had come to understand that, for Dan, this was his silent way of communicating that he was dumbfounded.
Some people say, “I can’t—I can’t even….”
Some people say, “Bitch, you crazy.”
Some people say, “I have no words.”
Dan just glances at the ceiling and takes a deep breath.
Quinn turned his gaze to me, his eyes searching. “Do you want to go?”
“YES,” I said immediately and maybe a little too loud. “YES I WANT TO GO TO THE DESERT AND SHOOT MACHINE GUNS.”
His expression softened and his eyes turned dreamy and adoring as they moved over my features. Then he leaned forward and whispered, “Whatever you want, Kitten. Whatever you want is yours.”
Part 6: The Wedding
CHAPTER 24
Ten days before the wedding, my father finally committed to coming. I had Quinn’s secretary, Betty, make the arrangements and reminded Dan to have a tux arranged. I was shocked that he agreed to have dinner with Quinn, me, Katherine, Desmond, Dan, Elizabeth, and Nico on the Thursday before the wedding.
He’d been my mother’s doormat, and now he was giving me away at my wedding.
But first, I had to make it through dinner with my dad, Quinn, his parents, Elizabeth, and Nico.
A part of me wondered if my dad only agreed to come because he found out Nico would be there.
Shelly, on the other hand, still wouldn’t return any of my phone calls. Against every fiber of my being, I’d even texted her. Still no response.
I had no choice but to take a day off work and drive down to the farmhouse. If this didn’t work, I was going to sic Nico on her. No one, it seemed, could resist him.
I told Quinn about my plan to drive to her farmhouse. He didn’t protest, but he didn’t want to go with me, either. He said we should wait until after the wedding when things settled down to normal, then work on her about starting up Saturday breakfast again.
His plan was unsatisfactory.
If Quinn and I had opted to elope or just go to the courthouse, I don’t know that I would have minded her absence. But her mother had put a lot of work into the wedding. All of Quinn’s family was going to be there as well as my knitting group, and I wanted Shelly to be there, too.
We would be flying out on Monday and staying in Boston for the week leading up to the wedding day. I didn’t expect her to come and stay the entire time if she didn’t want to. At the very least, I just wanted her there on the day, to share it with us and be a part of it.
It was important to me.
So I sat next to Stan in the front seat on the drive to Shelly’s farm and practiced my speech.
I glanced over at him at one point; he was nodding his head along with The Cars song “Good Times Roll.” I discovered The Cars when Nico made a mix-tape for Elizabeth. I then downloaded their greatest hits to my phone.
Admittedly, one thing I didn’t hate about the phone was that I could listen to music on it.
Anyway, I soon discovered that all my guards really, really liked The Cars, and Quinn did too. Therefore, when Quinn and I had our own private panty dance parties, they usually started with “Shake It Up” and usually ended with “Drive.”
Stan, now bobbing his head along with the music, seemed completely at ease. Therefore, I figured it was a good time to apologize for what happened in Vegas.
“So…Stan.”
His eyes flickered to me then back to the road. “Yeah?”
“I wanted to just say…I just wanted to say….” I twisted my hands on my lap. “On behalf of everyone, I am really sorry about what happened, what we did to you in Vegas.”
His gaze slid back to mine, held for a beat, then went to the windshield. He cleared his throat. “Don’t worry about it.”
But I did, and I was going to worry about it. Even though I had no memory of it, it was going to bother me.
According to Stan, Marie had stolen his phone while he tried to stop us from taking off our clothes. She then threw it out the door of whatever chapel we were in—the chapel where Elizabeth and Nico apparently got married. He tried to grab the phone, but Marie told a police officer standing nearby that Stan was harassing us and wouldn’t leave us alone.
He was then detained, and must’ve just missed us when we left the chapel with Quinn, Dan, and Nico.
I shook my head. “I am going to worry about it. I am so, so sorry. I have no excuse for our behavior, and I hope you will accept my apology.”
He gave me a small smile. “Nah, it’s fine. Things always get a little crazy during that kind of sh- uh, stuff.”
“Thank you for being so gracious about it, and please let me know if there is anything I can do to make it up to you.”
He shrugged and I thought he looked happy, which I felt was a little strange. Regardless, better that he was happy than upset.
We spent the rest of the journey in mostly companionable quiet listening to The Cars. I watched the scenery change from city to urban sprawl to farmland. Other than mentally rehearsing my speech for Shelly, I let my brain wander.
Surprisingly, my mind meanderings were mostly about my life and about Quinn, almost like a normal person.
I thought about the private accounts and all the details I’d learned directly from Quinn some weeks ago as well as from the files I’d reviewed at the office. The Monday after returning from Vegas, I finally looked over the account documents he’d set aside.
I understood now that Quinn’s assertion that he blackmailed people was a gross oversimplification of the issue. It reminded me of how he kept saying things like “I’m responsible for my brother’s death” when he wasn’t responsible, or how he said, “I’m good at using people,” when he didn’t precisely use people.
I was coming to understand that Quinn actually, truly saw himself as a bad guy. He was a defeatist; things were black and white, right and wrong, and he’d decided that he was firmly in the not-a-good-guy column.
There was no doubt that he blackmailed people, especially early on in his business life. He’d blackmailed gangsters and criminals, and had been focused solely on taking down those people who most contributed to his brother’s death.
But now, from what I’d pieced together, he used information gathered from private accounts to steer his business. He would find out about a plan to open a new club from one of his private clients and then be aggressive about going after the corporate account to provide security. This was especially true if one account—i.e. the club—would eventually lead to a larger account—i.e. casinos in Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and Monaco.
Providing security for clubs led to providing security for hotels, which led to providing security for casinos, which led to providing security for banks. That was the security business food chain.
I found corroboration for his assertion that all crimes involving exploitation of individuals were immediately passed through to the FBI, CIA, or police. Anything mentioning drugs, rape, human trafficking, fraud, corruption, or the like had a plan attached to it where the client relationship was severed and the evidence was anonymously delivered to what Quinn had called the right people.
I did see that he also used people’s secrets to push them, but it wasn’t precisely using.
One of the files I’d reviewed detailed how a private client was stepping out on her husband. I listened to a recording of Quinn as he showed the client the pictures, confirmed that he wouldn’t be sharing the information, then suggested she put pressure on a Senator Watterson to hand down a maximum sentence to a crooked CEO.
Most of the blackmail examples were of this type. He would show the evidence to the clients then make a suggestion—like suggest an alternative business practice, one that wasn’t corrupt—or he would request a meeting with a high-ranking official in the government, or ask for a meeting with a corporate security liaison for a casino or bank.
He was using people’s secrets, but not in the way he thought. He showed them their files, said he wouldn’t betray them, then asked for a favor.
These people trusted him.
And that was probably why they were so reluctant to lose his services.
I’d put off reviewing the private account files because a big part of me was afraid of what I would find, especially after Quinn’s description of his behavior. But now, I saw the humor in it, the irony. He was talented at using people. He was so talented, they had no idea that they were being used; they trusted him, and they thanked him for it.
I hadn’t had a chance to discuss my findings with Quinn since reviewing the files two days ago; I was still marinating in all the details and looking for holes in my theory. But I was finding none.
After I finished talking some sense into Shelly, I would have to talk some sense into Quinn. Somehow, I would have to reason with him, get him to see that he was already one of the good guys.
The SUV rocked as we pulled into the dirt driveway leading to Shelly’s farm, and the jarring movement pulled me from my thoughts.