Eve’s Wedding Knight

by Kathleen Creighton

  It seemed that Sergei had been summoned to perform his duties as usher. Although clearly not happy about being forced to abandon his vigil, judging from the way he kept twisting and turning and trying to look back over his shoulder, he had nevertheless been called upon by someone in authority-probably that dragon of a wedding coordinator-to escort the mother of the bride to her seat of honor.

  Tradition to the rescue!

  It was Eve’s moment, and she wasted no time in taking advantage of it. In a flash she was out from behind the row of parked cars, sprinting barefooted down the middle of the side street to the corner, then across to the square. Crouched behind the car that was parked just behind the van, she took a moment to catch her breath while her mind careened wildly through the obstacle course of her options and possibilities. Which by this time, admittedly, could be classified as DWI.

  Which probably explained why she arrived at the conclusion that the van was God’s answer to her prayers. Such a nice big van, the kind with double doors that opened in the back. All she had to do, it seemed to her, was open those doors, get inside that van and close them up after her, and she’d be safe. The best part of it was, she wouldn’t have to commit grand theft auto after all. Unless the doors were locked, and then maybe just a wee bit of breaking and entering… Hey-what was a little thing like a locked door to Evie Waskowitz? Piece a‘cake.

  First, though, just a little bit more champagne to bolster her courage…oops-all gone. C‘est la guerre.

  Her determination freshly primed, Eve tucked the empty bottle under her arm like a swagger stick, marched up to the rear of the van and took firm hold of the handle.

  Chapter 3

  Jake could not believe his eyes. What was this? What in the hell was going on?

  First, Cisneros and a couple of his goons come running around the corner from the back alley, looking like kids with their pockets full of money and they’d just missed the ice cream truck. They look around all over the place for a while, up and down the street, then back they go.

  A few minutes later, one of ‘em takes up a position at the front door, and tuxedo or no, the guy looks more like a bouncer at a biker bar than an usher at a wedding. Now here comes the bride herself, creeping up and down the street, hiding behind parked cars, looking in all the windows, like, if he didn’t know how crazy it was, he’d swear she’s looking to boost one.

  Then the minute Cisneros’s goon turns his back, she’s hotfooting it across the street, looking like she’s got every intention of climbing into his van! What the hell was going on?

  And what in the hell was he going to do about the woman out there right now, tugging and rattling his door handle? This wasn’t exactly a situation covered in the procedure manuals-not that Jake normally paid much attention to things like that-and there wasn’t anybody he could consult, as his partner, Burdell “Birdie” Poole, had gone for coffee about half an hour ago. Not that Jake would have heeded Birdie’s advice in a situation like this anyway. This was strictly his call.

  Something was about to fall into his lap-he could feel it. And Jake wasn’t one to let such an opportunity pass him by.

  He peeled off his headset and dropped it beside the bank of monitors, then rose to his feet and moved stealthily to the back door of the van. For a moment or two he listened to the ambiguously furtive sounds coming from the other side of the door. Then he took hold of the inside handle and gave it a turn.

  He heard a little grunt of surprise and an exclamation of satisfaction as the door flew outward, and then had to dodge backward as the bride came lurching through the opening. An instant later, though, she froze, poised half-in and half-out of the van, resembling nothing so much, in her voluminous white skirts, as a large, extremely agitated swan.

  “Yikes!” she exclaimed under her breath, and then, as her eyes traveled upward from the scuffed tips of Jake’s cap-toe oxfords, along the nonexistent creases of his charcoal-gray cotton coveralls, added a chagrinned and breathy “Busted.”

  To his surprise, Jake found his customary dour demeanor being tested as it had not been in a very long time. Even maintaining a standard Bureau deadpan took every ounce of his will, as he responded with mild sarcasm, “Not at all. Would you like to come in? Do you need a hand?”

  But she was already inside the van, straightening up and looking around-and he got a good clear look at her for the first time. My God, he thought, jolted in a way he’d no longer believed himself capable of. My God. What the hell was going on here?

  Her face was scraped across one cheekbone and down the side of her face all the way to the jaw; she had a cut over one eye and another smaller one on the bridge of her nose; and either a very lopsided mouth or one helluva fat lip. He was about to say something, ask her what had happened to her, when he noticed the champagne bottle tucked under one arm. That and the bleary way she was looking around her seemed to him to offer one explanation-maybe even an obvious one-but somehow he didn’t think it was the right one. Somehow it didn’t fit.

  She moved slowly past him, her mouth opening in silent awe as she took in the video monitors, the computer, the whole array of state-of-the-art electronic surveillance equipment. Then she rounded on him and exclaimed, “This is a surveillance van!” She leaned forward, eyes narrowed accusingly. “Who are you surveill-llin-watching? Hmm?” And she waited for his answer, breasts heaving and eyes shooting dark fire.

  Even given her battered condition it was a potent combination, and possibly one reason why it took Jake a beat longer than it should have to become aware of the particular… aura she’d brought into the van with her. Once noticed, though, it was hard to ignore the unmistakable aroma of ripening garbage. And he saw now a few other things he’d missed in his preoccupation with the condition of her face: blood spatters, as well as a good many unidentifiable stains and smears on the white satin wedding dress, and something in her hair that looked very much like coffee grounds.

  Though completely mystified as to what could possibly have happened that would explain the woman’s condition, still he began to feel deep within himself the stirrings of a strange excitement. Treading carefully, he ventured, “Ma‘am, would you like to…sit down? I think you’ve had quite a bit to drink-”

  “I’ve had a whole bottle of champagne to drink,” she readily acknowledged, looking mysteriously pleased with herself, and the almost feline satisfaction in her smile sparked unexpected responses in the bottom of Jake’s belly. Then, before he could even wonder about that, she was stern and serious again. “However, I am drunk, not unconscious. This is-these are-video monitors. I’m a TV producer. You think I don’t know a video monitor when I see one? Listen, buster-”

  She gave a soft gasp, then, and crouched down for a closer look at the monitor in question, which at the moment was displaying a fairly wide-angle shot of the front of the church, where a number of people were just emerging through the high-arched, ornately carved double door entrance. Jake reached past her to the remote controls. The grim little knot of men surrounding Sonny Cisneros grew larger. Jake zoomed in tighter still, until Sonny’s face all but filled the screen, until he seemed to be looking right into the camera, right into the eyes of the woman who watched on the monitor screen with the frozen fascination of a bird in the thrall of a snake.

  Without taking her eyes from the screen, she took a step backward, then another. Which was as far as she could go before her back was smack up against Jake’s chest. He could feel the moist heat of her body, hear the rapid, rhythmic whisper of her breathing. Her blond hair, short and tousled as a small boy’s, was just about on a level with his lips, and even through the overriding stench of champagne and garbage he caught a mouth-watering whiff of strawberries. He didn’t think about putting his hands on her shoulders-didn’t even know he had until he felt the crusty texture of lace and pearls beneath his palms. He snatched them away just as she turned, her face chalk-white behind her scrapes and bruises, her eyes enormous and the dark slate-blue of rain clouds.

>   “Why’re you spying on my wedding?” she demanded in a slurred, airless voice. Her hand clutched at the front of Jake’s uniform, gathering in a handful of it. “Who are you? Who’re you watching-Sonny? Are you? Tell me, damn you!” Her breath caught and her hand tightened, twisting in the cotton fabric. “Who-arc-you? It’s important-I need…to know!”

  She was close to losing it. Jake held up his hand-one finger-in front of her taut, battered face, with that simple gesture capturing her attention and pulling her eyes to his. Once he had them, he held them with the sheer force of his will and-tricks he’d learned in interrogation training-focused all his energy into bringing her into his plane…his sphere… his calm.

  Only when her breathing had slowed and quieted, unconsciously timing itself to his rhythms, did he answer her.

  “FBI, ma‘am. Special Agent Jake Redfield-”

  He hadn’t expected her to burst into tears.

  Although it was hard to be sure that’s what she was doing, at first. She kept sobbing, “Thank God, thank God.”

  And then she got the hiccups.

  Mirabella was pacing furiously on the white runner down the center aisle of the church sanctuary, where the entire Waskowitz family had gathered in stunned indecision.

  “I can’t believe she did this,” she kept muttering, while fear jumped and fluttered beneath her rib cage. “I can not believe it. This is too much-even for Eve. Just too much. This time she’s gone too far.”

  “I can’t believe it, either,” Summer retorted from the front pew, where she was attempting to console the disappointed flower girl, her five-year-old daughter Helen. “That’s the whole point. She wouldn’t do this. She wouldn’t.”

  “Oh, yeah, right,” Mirabella snorted, hoping to convince herself as much as anyone. “Have you forgotten about high school graduation?”

  “That was different! We all knew she thought the whole thing was pointless and stupid! But this was her wedding. She was happy about it. Excited. Why would she-” She choked off something that sounded dangerously like a sob, which prompted her nine-year-old son, David, standing in the pew behind her, to throw his arms around her neck in mute and helpless sympathy.

  “Why? Why does Eve do anything?” Mirabella raged, waving her arms. She was gently corralled by her husband, Jimmy Joe, probably the only person there who understood that the angrier she sounded, the more frightened it meant she was.

  “Something’s happened to her,” Pop Waskowitz rumbled. “Had to.” Beside him, his wife, Ginger, silently squeezed his hand.

  Across the aisle, Charly cleared her throat and said in her dry Alabama drawl, “Anybody thinkin’ about callin’ the police?”

  Her husband, Troy, leaning against the end of the pew at her elbow, shook his head. “That’s probably a little premature. What’re you gonna tell ‘em? I doubt she’s the first bride who ever got cold feet and decided not to show up for her own wedding.”

  “Sonny and his friends are out looking for her,” Ginger Waskowitz offered in a hopeful tone. “Maybe we should wait and see…” Her voice trailed off.

  “When’s the last time anybody saw her?” Troy’s eyes went from person to person, asking each one the question.

  Summer met Mirabella’s eyes and opened her mouth, then snapped it shut again at her sharp sound of warning.

  Which, of course, Jimmy Joe didn’t miss. “Marybell?” he prompted gently, as all eyes turned her way.

  Mirabella fought it for a second or two, drew a reluctant breath and muttered, “Okay, this is really embarrassing. The last I saw her, she had a bottle of champagne and a couple of glasses and was going to the rectory to find Sonny.”

  “But,” Summer quickly put in, “according to him, she never got there. He hasn’t seen her, either.”

  That revelation was met with stunned silence, except for the rhythmic sound of footsteps. All heads turned to follow the elegant figure coming toward them down the long center aisle.

  “One of Sonny’s men found this on the walk beside the rectory,” Summer’s husband, Riley, said quietly, showing them what he held, nested in the folds of a pristine white handkerchief. Shards of broken crystal. “Could be champagne glasses.”

  Someone-Ginger-uttered a small, stricken cry. Her husband, who had once been a chief of police, rose slowly to his feet as Riley carefully rewrapped the glass shards, then put a hand on Summer’s shoulder and gave it a gentle squeeze.

  “I’ve put in a call to Jake Redfield,” Riley said in a low voice, meant for his wife’s ears. “He wasn’t there-out on assignment, they said. I left my beeper number.” Summer swallowed, nodded gratefully and put her hand over his.

  “Jake Redfield?” Mirabella said sharply. “Where have I heard that? I know I‘ve-who’s Jake Redfield?”

  Summer and her husband exchanged a look. “Someone we know,” she said in a shaken voice, “with the FBI.”

  “Oh, God,” her mother whispered.

  Jake was on the phone to his Bureau office, which happened to be located only a few blocks away from the church in downtown Savannah. He, however, was going in the opposite direction, heading southwest on Abercorn as fast as he could go without risking official attention, a course of action he knew was not apt to make either his partner or his superiors happy. He was, in fact, at that very moment holding the phone some distance from his ear in an attempt to lessen the impact of the irate voice on the other end. But Jake had a considerable amount of experience in getting yelled at and had a pretty good ear for when he was nearing the limits of someone’s patience. Right now he was confident he was nowhere near the red zone.

  “Get her in here,” the distant voice of his supervisor, Don Coffee, was bellowing in tinny impotence. “Right now! You hear me, Agent Redfield? Now.”

  Jake waited for a break, then calmly drawled, “That’s… not a good idea, Don. At the moment she’s in no shape to talk to anybody. I’m gonna need to get her cleaned up and-” he flicked a glance in his rearview mirror and wryly offered “-calmed down,” as a euphemism for “sobered up.” “I’ll bring her in as soon as she’s up to it. Hey-do me a favor, would you? When you hear from Birdie, tell him I’m sorry I had to leave him stranded. Tell him something came up. Tell him-” Then he had to hold the instrument away from his ear again.

  “Redfield! Where are you taking her? Dammit, Red-”

  “Someplace safe,” Jake growled, and broke the connection. In the ensuing quiet he heard a distinct hiccup from the interior of the van, and then a musical little ripple of sound he realized must be laughter.

  “Someplace… safe,” his passenger murmured with mocking solemnity as her head with its tousled cap of sun-shot hair pushed past his shoulder and into his line of vision. She gave that delightful giggle again, followed by another hiccup.

  “Hey!” Jake barked as he threw out his arm just in time to bar her way to the front passenger seat, “where do you think you’re going? Get back inside and keep down out of sight.”

  At that order she sort of reared back in surprise, and he watched in the mirror as she stuck out her lopsided lower lip, then winced and gave it an exploratory poke with her finger, while a frown darkened her eyes. But only briefly-so briefly, it was like the shadow of a bird flying between him and the sun. The pout became a quirky, fat-lip smile, and she muttered,…, “Okeydokey,” and sank to the floor of the van right where she was, all but disappearing into the billowy cloud of her skirts.

  “Oh, Lord,” Jake sighed under his breath. But his mind retained the image of her lower lip, and he felt a sensation at the back of his jaws like the feeling he got walking past a bakery on a cool early morning.

  A sharp hiccup and some exasperated swearing brought him back to the here and now.

  “I can’t… stop hiccuping,” she said in a disgruntled voice. “An’ you know why? I can’t… get a deep breath. This dress is… too tight, that’s why. I really, really wish I could get out of this…stoo-oopid dress. Hey!” Jake felt a tug on his arm and glanced dow
n at fingers tipped with virginal pink nail polish, several of the nails chipped and broken now. “How’m I gonna get out of this… dress, hmm? It has a million little buttons down the back. Who’s gonna help me unbutton ’em-you?”

  “If necessary,” he grunted, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “Ha,” she said, and then was silent for a moment. Thinking about it? he wondered. That mouth-watering feeling was back-with a vengeance.

  But when her voice came again it was low and whispery with regret, and it appeared she’d stopped hiccuping. “Boy, I sure messed up, didn’t I? Messed up my dress, too. Damn thing cost a fortune. And you know what? It’s all wasted. Whssht-down the drain. But-” she heaved a little sigh “-I guess it’s a good thing I found out… when I did. Otherwise, I’d be married to a mobster right now…”

  A shiver rippled down Jake’s spine. The stirring of excitement he’d felt before became a stiff breeze. “And what was it you found out?” he asked softly.

  But the only answer he got was a murmur and some rustling sounds. Casting a quick glance over his shoulder, he discovered that the battered bride had curled herself down in the nest of her skirts and was softly snoring-passed out with her head uncomfortably pillowed on her pearl-encrusted arms.

  Patience, he told himself, willing his heart to resume its normal rhythm. Patience… She’s here, she’s safe and she’s yours. Whatever it is, you’ll find out in due time.

  But it was hard-damned hard. How many months had it been since he’d allowed himself to believe that victory might actually be within his grasp? How many nights since he’d slept without having nightmares about the goal that had already cost him five years out of his life, a good bit of his professional reputation and the wife he’d adored?

  Not since last summer when he’d watched Hal Robey’s body being pulled from that hurricane-swollen river near Charleston had he felt this close to the end. So close. But now…now.