Newly Wed and Slightly Dead

by Danielle Garrett

  The thoughts circled round and round in my head, the nagging growing louder every time they looped back around, only occasionally interested by a quick check at my own phone. I’d see that there was no word from Caleb, not even a text message, and then that would thread through and join the other worries. Had he found Alice? Was she under arrest? Had she killed Lucinda?

  And, selfishly, was he really serious about going on a second date?

  When it was clear that my mind was far too distracted to accomplish anything of meaning, I gave up trying and clicked off my desk lamp. I stepped back into my discarded heels, slung my purse over my shoulder, and moved to the doorway, careful to keep my shoes from clacking on the marble floor. I leaned out the doorway and peered off in the direction of Hyacinth’s office. She didn’t usually stay late, but I wasn’t risking getting caught in a snare by walking past her office if she was still hanging around.

  Luckily, it appeared I was the last one on the floor. I turned to close the door and spotted the large envelope on my desk. The photos from the Vanguard rehearsal. Something beckoned to me, and I went back inside to grab the envelope. The couple albums were a personal project that I worked on outside of office hours. Mostly because there was no way I had room for the supplies in my office. It was a good size, but lacking on storage options.

  Even witches can never have too many cupboards or drawers.

  It was silly, I told myself as I left the office with the envelope in hand. Alice and Dimitri’s wedding was virtually canceled, and even if by some miracle it got back on track, I doubted either of them would want the rehearsal dinner photos included in their keepsake album. Still, I couldn’t just throw them away, on the off chance they asked for the photos at some point. They’d paid top dollar for them; they should at least have the option. As I headed out into the hallway, my heart sank, realizing that the photos contained in the envelope would also be the last images of Lucinda.

  With that in mind, I clutched them a little tighter as I left the office building. It was already dark outside, but there was a bustle of activity inside my usual coffee shop. I paused outside the window and realized there was someone setting up to play live music.

  For a moment, I considered going inside, ordering some tea and a sandwich, and letting myself get lost in the small crowd gathered there. A Shimmer Bus passed, hissing on its track as it came to an abrupt stop. A handful of people spilled from the bus and made an eager beeline for the coffee house. I stepped out of their way, envying their easy smiles and lively chatter.

  I bypassed the line of people waiting to hop on the next Shimmer Bus and wandered down the street. At first I thought I might get a coffee, but when I reached the cafe, I kept walking, suddenly not in the mood for a latte. Or, maybe the small voice in the back of my head was warning me to keep expenses low with my entire career hanging on the edge of a cliff by its fingernails.

  Caleb called me as I walked, but I let it go to voicemail. I wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone.

  Harmony wasn’t home when I arrived. Not surprising, I thought, considering our nasty spat over the phone earlier in the day. I placed the folder of photos on the entry table along with my purse and then stepped out of my shoes. Looping the backs of the heels with two fingers, I carried them through the condo to my bedroom. As I passed through the living room, I noted that Harmony had indeed cleaned up her overflowing suitcase and all traces of her were…

  Gone.

  She was gone.

  Her suitcase wasn’t just cleaned up, it was missing. With a sinking feeling in my stomach, I dropped the shoes inside my bedroom, not bothering to return them to their rightful space in my closet, and then went to the kitchen. A note was attached to the fridge, pinned under the edge of a magnet I’d bought myself on a trip to Hawaii for a company trip a few years before. The note was in Harmony’s handwriting.

  * * *

  Stace,

  Thanks for letting me stay. I think you’re right, it’s time I found my own place. I’ll be staying with friends from work until I can get my own place. If you find anything of mine, have it sent to Luna. I left some backed rent money on the coffee table. I know it’s not enough, but it’s all I have right now. I can get you more later.

  ~H

  * * *

  With tears in my eyes, I took the note down and placed it on the counter. “Harmony,” I groaned, pinching my eyes closed. The tension and stress from the last few days—weeks, really—all rose to the surface in a giant, overwhelming tidal wave, and swallowed me whole.

  The phone rang and I jumped. I hurried back through the living room and dug around in my purse to find my phone, hoping to see Harmony’s name on the screen. Instead, it was Caleb. A strange mix of disappointment and excitement clashed together as I answered.

  “Hi,” I said, trying to sound less miserable than I felt.

  “Hey, Anastasia, it’s Caleb,” he said. “Sorry it’s so late. Are you in the middle of dinner?”

  I went back to the kitchen. “No, I just got home, actually.”

  “Oh? Guess you keep the same hours as me,” he said.

  “It’s been a long day,” I replied, pulling open the fridge door, only to remember just how long it had been since my last trip to the market.

  “Everything all right?” he asked.

  Before I could decide whether or not to tell him about Harmony, a knock sounded on the door. I frowned over the fridge door and then let it fall closed.

  “Anastasia?” Caleb said, worry in his voice.

  “Sorry,” I said, moving toward the door. “Someone just knocked on my door.”

  “Probably one of your other boyfriends, waiting to take you out,” he teased with a warm chuckle.

  That drew a slight smile as I went through the living room. “You’re very funny,” I told him. “The agency know you have a stand-up gig on the side?”

  Caleb laughed and I felt some of the tension fade.

  With a wave of my hand, I opened the magic-enhanced security window on the door that allowed me to see through to the other side without the visitor knowing. With a start, I saw Dimitri standing there. “Caleb?” I said. “I’m going to have to call you back.”

  “Who is it?” He asked, suddenly serious.

  I considered asking if his interest was as a concerned friend or as an SPA agent, but I had a feeling I already knew the answer. “It’s Dimitri.”

  Caleb didn’t say anything for a moment.

  “I’ll call you back,” I repeated, then clicked off the call and opened the door. “Dimitri? What are you doing here?”

  Dimitri stepped inside when I beckoned him in. He wore a wool pea coat over what appeared to be one of his impeccably tailored suits. Apparently, his sense of style and bespoke fashion could survive even the worst calamities. If I were in his place, I had no doubt I’d be balled up on the couch in three-day old sweats with tangled hair, presiding over a mess of empty pizza boxes and cookie crumbs.

  “I’m sorry to drop in like this, Ana,” he began, removing the pair of dark leather gloves on his hands.

  “It’s all right. I just got home myself, actually. Do you want something to drink? I have wine.”

  He gave a slight shake of his head. “Thank you, but no. I don’t want to take up too much of your time, but there is something I wanted to discuss with you.”

  “Of course,” I said, gesturing toward the living room. “Would you like to sit?”

  He considered it for a moment and then inclined his head. “That would be nice. Thank you.”

  I took his coat and placed it carefully on the back of one of the living room chairs, again making the note to order a proper coat rack.

  “I would have called,” Dimitri said, taking a seat on the couch, “but I’m afraid my privacy seems to be in short supply.”

  I blinked. “You think they’re listening in on your phone calls?”

  “They think I know where Alice has gone. That I’m protecting her by feigning ignorance on her whe
reabouts.”

  I bit my lip to keep from asking if he indeed was helping her.

  “I haven’t heard from her since last night,” he offered at my unspoken question.

  “What even happened?” I asked, smoothing the back of my skirt before sitting in the chair opposite him. I tucked my stockinged feet under the chair and out of sight, wishing I hadn’t left my shoes in the bedroom. I doubted Dimitri cared, but it felt strange to be virtually barefoot with a client.

  Dimitri ran a hand alongside his jaw, as though debating where to start in the recounting.

  “I heard she got into an argument with your aunt,” I said, careful to leave out the part about being mid-date with the lead detective at the time. I doubted Dimitri would feel safe opening up to me if he knew Caleb and I were … well, whatever we were doing.

  “Rosalinda is a difficult woman,” Dimitri said.

  That was an understatement, I thought, recalling the snappy woman I’d overheard at Lucinda’s funeral.

  “As I believe I told you, she didn’t approve of the wedding,” he continued.

  I nodded when he paused to look at me for confirmation. “You said she was only in town in hopes of convincing your mother to put an end to the whole thing.”

  “That’s right. She wanted my mother to threaten to cut off my inheritance if I went forward with the wedding.” He leaned back against the couch and folded his hands over the pair of gloves in his lap. “For a moment, I wondered if she’d succeeded. She was so eager for my mother’s will to be read, I thought maybe she would have found a way to convince my mother to leave her estate to her instead of me.”

  “Rosalinda thought she would be the beneficiary if you were cut out of it?” I asked.

  Dimitri nodded slowly. “She was quite upset when my mother’s lawyer announced that the estate had been left in my name. That night, Alice told me that several days before the wedding, my mother dragged her to a meeting with the family lawyer. Rosalinda was there too.”

  My eyes went wide. “I remember her telling me about it. They were having dinner after Alice’s final dress fitting.”

  “That was the first time Alice met Rosalinda,” Dimitri replied. “As you can imagine, it wasn’t a happy introduction.”

  I cringed.

  “After my mother’s will was read, Rosalinda waited until the other family members left, and then in no uncertain terms told me that unless I turned Alice into a vampire, she would turn the rest of the family against me and use her position and connections in the Northwest court to ruin me.”

  I shook my head. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I told her to get out, to leave the Vanguard estate that night, but it was approaching daybreak and she insisted on staying one more day. The next night, last night, she came to my study. I assumed it was to say goodbye, but instead, she had this … this grin. She told me she’d found a witness to the murder who was ready to go to the SPA and tell them everything, that he’d seen Alice walking down the hallway with a wooden staff of some kind.”

  “And, because they don’t have much evidence to work with, they’ll take it as proof,” I said, my stomach sinking.

  “Not to mention they have a strong bias toward Alice,” Dimitri added, looking down. “Not that she’s helped matters much by vanishing.”

  A flicker of pain wavered across his face, and I cast around looking for the right words to say. “I’m guessing Alice overheard Rosalinda’s plan, then?”

  He gave a solemn nod, still looking at the top of the coffee table. “She came in and it all happened so fast. Alice slapped Rosalinda. I’ve never seen either of them so angry. I told Alice to leave because I was afraid of what my aunt might do. A staff member called the SPA and got Alice safely away from the house, but I have no idea where she went and she’s not answering my calls.”

  “I’m so sorry, Dimitri,” I said quietly. “I’ve tried calling her, but she isn’t taking my calls either. Have you been able to reach any of her friends? Her maid of honor?”

  “No one knows anything. Or, if they do, they aren’t saying.” He paused and raked a hand over his angular jaw. “If I would have just let her go early on, none of this would be happening,” he said quietly, speaking down at his own folded hands. “If I hadn’t been so selfish—so hellbent—”

  He broke off and pinched his lips together.

  “Dimitri,” I said, coming around the coffee table to sit beside him on the couch. I rested a hand on his forearm. “You love Alice, and there is no reason the two of you shouldn’t be together and happy.”

  He scoffed lightly. “I appreciate the sentiment, Ana. But we both know there are about a hundred reasons why Alice and I shouldn’t be together.”

  He was right, of course. As much as my heart yearned for true love to always prevail, it simply wasn’t possible, especially in a world like ours. One that Alice didn’t belong in.

  “Where is Rosalinda now?” I asked gently, leaving my hand on his arm.

  “Still at the mansion,” he said, the scorn thick in his tone. “She says she’s not leaving until Alice is behind bars. When the SPA agents arrived, she trotted her so-called witness into the study for them to interview. There wasn’t anything I could do to stop her.”

  “Who was it?” I asked.

  Dimitri’s jaw flexed, anger sparking in his eyes that had gone a shade darker since our conversation began. “According to Rosalinda, he was one of my mother’s friends. She could be lying. Paying him off. I’d never seen him before.” Dimitri gave an irritated flick of his wrist. “He looked like a greasy muscle-head, more suited to repairing cars than dining in five-star restaurants. The idea that he even knew my mother is laughable.”

  It hit me square in the chest and a memory flashed before my eyes, as vivid as if watching it play on the TV.

  I held up a finger. “Wait a second …”

  I jumped up from my seat and went to the envelope of photos by the front door. I tore the package open and removed the stack of glossy prints.

  I flipped through the stack of photos as fast as my fingers could go. Finally, I found a shot with the image I wanted. I held it out to Dimitri. “Was this him?”

  Dimitri’s eyes revealed the answer before he nodded and said, “Yes. How did you—”

  Oh boy. This was going to be awkward.

  Chapter 16

  “An escort?”

  Not even in my wildest, Welcome to Wonderland, type of wedding nightmare-dreams, would I have imagined sitting across from one of my clients—a respected vampire lord, no less—informing him that I believed his mother had a gigolo on the household payroll.

  And yet …

  Dimitri looked as though I’d slapped him across the face with an eight-pound trout.

  “I’m really sorry, but… ” I cringed and gave a quick nod.

  “Harmony and I met him at the funeral. He was at the bar, and Harmony, my little sister, found some reason to strike up a conversation with him,” I hurried to explain, wanting to get out of the conversation as quickly as possible. “Somewhere along the way, he said he was Lucinda’s pool guy and then I pointed out that Lucinda didn’t have a pool. He kinda implied, well, that she’d hired him for other services.”

  Merlin’s beard. Someone, please, hex me and put me out of my misery.

  “I swear, I haven’t told a soul!” I added, holding up my hand in some unofficial pledge of honesty.

  Dimitri shook his head, the gesture reminding me of a kid trying to knock the water from his ears following a swim. It was as though he couldn’t quite believe he was hearing a word I said, at least, not correctly.

  “And who knows,” I continued, “maybe he was lying. Trying to show off or something.”

  Though, on second thought, that really wouldn’t make it any better.

  “What—what is his name?” Dimitri asked, still clutching the photograph.

  “Connor,” I said, scraping the corners of my memory in an effort to provide a last name. “I don’t think he ga
ve us his last name. But maybe it’s in your mother’s records? If she was, um”—my cheeks warmed—“compensating him.”

  “But why would he go along with Rosalinda’s insane plan to frame Alice?” Dimitri wondered aloud, staring at the photo, his jet-black brows knitted together.

  “Maybe she’s paying him to say he saw Alice,” I said. “From what I remember, he seemed very into money.”

  Dimitri glanced up at me. “What do you mean?”

  “Oh, just that someone almost spilled their drink on him, and he was worried about his suit. He kept going on about how expensive it was.”

  “I don’t understand,” Dimitri said, more to the photograph than me. When he looked up at me, his dark eyes searched mine. “My mother was a beautiful woman. She’s had dozens of suitors trying to sway her into marriage over the years. Why would she want … this?”

  I drew in a slow breath. “Well, I wouldn’t want to speculate, of course, but it might not have been about the physical side. Maybe there was something else, something different, about their relationship that was the thing she wanted.”

  He looked baffled, possibly more than before he’d asked the question and I sighed. “Look, Dimitri, I don’t think we’ll ever know what took place between your mother and this man, but right now, we need to find Alice. Did you tell the SPA agents about your aunt’s threats? She was blackmailing you, essentially. That has to be something they take into consideration during the investigation.”

  “I tried to tell them,” he said. “I’m not sure they took me seriously though.”

  My heart sank. They likely hadn’t. Their sights were trained on Alice, and it would take something concrete to change that.

  “Will you come with me, Ana? You can tell them about this man.”

  I hesitated, wondering how he might react if I told him that I’d already passed the information off to Caleb. There wasn’t a way to tell him without admitting that I was also dating the man. I doubted Dimitri cared about my love life, but I couldn’t imagine him being thrilled to find out I was seeing the lead investigator, and right now, he was already out of allies. I didn’t want to make him feel even more alone than he already was. “I don’t know, Dimitri. I’m really not sure I should get involved.”