Chapter 17
The sound of laughter drifts over the live band that McKenna and Caleb have hired, and there are already dozens of people on the makeshift dance floor that’s been constructed over the sand.
Night has fallen hard, and the twinkle lights staked up over the expanse allotted for the reception to give the cove an enchanted appeal.
And despite the fact my adrenaline is surging, thoughts of my own wedding reception beg to take over. But I can’t let them. Not now.
After several unfruitful minutes of searching the crowd, I all but give up.
Stop it!
The voice comes in clear—a woman’s voice. That means she’s not far.
Oh my God, he’s going to pay for this. Help!
“Help?” I whisper as my breathing picks up.
Sherlock barks. What do you need, Bizzy? I’m here to help.
Fish mewls. Me too. I just sharpened my claws this morning for the occasion. Let me know who you need me to attack. I’ve been craving a little action all day.
Misty mewls right back. I want to attack! I’ve got sharp teeth. And I can claw with the best of them. I’m a tough girl. I live for danger.
Lucky shudders and a few stray hairs float off his mammoth furry body. I’m a lover, not a fighter. McKenna tells me that every time Misty tries to bait me into chasing her.
Oh, I’m going to kill you for this. The female voice shrills inside my brain, and I gasp because I think I know exactly who this is. You are going to die a slow death at my hands, buddy.
“Sherlock.” I bend over and take his sweet face in my palms. “Go get Jasper. He went back to his cottage to take care of some business. Find him and bring him to the shore. Something tells me I’ll be needing him.”
He takes off like a bullet, and I straighten, taking in the crowd once again. I’d text Jasper myself, but I know he’d tried to stop me from what I’m about to do next. And to be truthful, I don’t think there’s a minute to waste.
“Hey, Lucky.” I give his head a quick scratch and scoop Misty up into my arms. “I need you to find Archie Alden. I need you to take me to him, right now.”
Lucky lets out a riotous bark and bullets out past the reception area and down the beach toward the rocky crags at the end of the cove. The sound of music and laughter quickly fades, replaced by the sound of waves slapping hard over the sand. The moonlight is the only illumination there is, and I can see the faint outline of a man standing near the shoreline.
Lucky runs within feet of him and begins to bark and spin in a circle.
“Stand back!” the man thunders my way, but my feet pay no attention to him.
I run within ten feet of him, only to see the shadow of a woman standing by his side.
That blonde hair, those enraged blue eyes glinting in the night, I know them.
“Macy?” I stumble forward, only to see that her arms are behind her back. A thick ream of duct tape is sealed over her mouth. I look to Archie. “My God, what are you doing?”
The jacket to his suit is missing, his tie askew. The whites of his eyes shine like shards of glass as he glares over at me.
“Dammit,” he growls as he pulls something from the back of his pants, and just like that, I’m staring down the barrel of a gun.
“That escalated quickly,” I mutter to myself.
Misty buries her face in my chest. I can’t look. I lied. I’m not a tough girl. I’m a lap cat who likes to take sun naps. I certainly don’t live for danger.
I set the poor thing down on the sand. Hopefully, she’ll run for cover. This is one madman who is capable of killing the entire lot of us.
“Hands up.” He motions for me to do so with a flash from the gun. “I’m sorry, Bizzy. I didn’t intend on this getting messy, but your sister, she’s a real pistol.”
“Yes,” I pant as my hands float toward my head. I spot Macy working her hands free from behind and strips of duct tape falling to the sand. She bends over covertly and picks up a rock the size of a paperback. “In fact, she’s deadlier than that gun you have pointed my way.”
No sooner do I say the words than Macy wallops him over the forehead and stuns him enough for him to take a few staggering steps back. But with one slick move he swipes the stone from her and knocks her over the temple with it, sending her flopping to the sand like a ragdoll.
“Macy!” I cry out as she lies motionless on the ground, no more than ten feet from me. “My sister.” I take a step forward and he sharpens that gun over me once again.
“Not so fast,” he pants. “I wouldn’t worry about your sister, Bizzy. You’ll be together soon enough.” Not until I’ve had my fill of her, of course. But I’ll give Bizzy a supernatural sendoff tonight. She can greet her sister upon arrival.
“You did it?” I shake my head in disbelief. “You’re the reason those girls disappeared?”
“What girls?” He cocks his head my way as if he was genuinely interested.
Lucky barks his way. He’s a liar, Bizzy. Don’t believe anything he says.
Archie aims the gun to Lucky for a moment.
“Bark again and I’ll kill you first.” If I were a better shot with a moving target, I would do it right now.
Good to know.
Fish traipses toward him like a cougar on the prowl, slow and determined.
Give me the okay, Bizzy. She roars. And I’ll feed his eyes to the creatures who live in the ocean.
“What did you do with them?” Each word puffs out with its own breath. “Anita Dolman, Embry Knight, and Shelly Grant. Did you kill them?”
My God, she does know. He shakes his head in disbelief.
“It’s not just me who knows,” I shout up over the roar of the ocean. “The Seaview Sheriff’s Department knows as well.”
His eyes flit toward the party for a moment as if he were considering this. We’re so far away, they’re but a speck in the night.
“That’s not true,” he riots back. “If it were true, they would have arrested me by now.”
“They’re coming to do just that. You killed Julian, didn’t you? He knew about the girls and he was going to turn you in after the show that night. That’s why you sabotaged those hinges, isn’t it?”
His weapon dips a notch.
My God, she knows it all.
“So what? All it took was the loosening of a few pins. That lid had jammed before during one of our private rehearsals, and I was the one who was there to rescue him. And it gave me a grand idea, didn’t it, Bizzy? But Julian Fletcher has had a target on his back for quite a while. And here I’ve only wanted him dead for a few simple weeks. Julian had a line of fathers and brothers of those girls he coerced into this den of depravity. He was no saint. And let’s get one thing straight, I didn’t want him dead.”
“No. But you needed him dead to silence him.”
“Was I too late?” He ticks his chin up a notch. “Is that how you put this together?”
“Julian didn’t tell me—not with words from his lips. I found that secret depository behind his bookshelf. That’s where he kept a file on someone he liked to refer to as TBM. That would be you, Archie. Care to guess what TBM stands for?”
“Bizzy!” Jasper’s voice roars from behind, and within a few seconds he’s standing by my side. “Whoa.” His hands float up. “Put the weapon down, Archie,” Jasper pushes out the words as he struggles to take in the scene with Macy lying motionless on the sand.
“Nice try, Detective.” Archie nods his way. “You first. Toss your weapon my way or your fiancée gets it.” She’s going to get it anyway, but why spoil the fun?
“Don’t do it,” I whisper.
Sherlock and Lucky growl as they slowly circle the madman with the gun. They look rabid and feral for the most part, and I’m betting they’re about to prove me right in both of those categories.
Jasper pulls his gun out and tosses it softly to the ground, close to where Macy lies, and the sand it displaces peppers her over the face.
Wake up, Macy.
I want to shout the words.
My God, if he’s killed my sister…
I try not to let my thoughts migrate in that morbid direction, but it’s too late. Grief consumes me, and I want nothing but to drop to my knees and help her.
Jasper takes a deep breath. “You killed Julian. I already know it. And you killed those girls. Where did you put them, Archie? You can do one good thing by giving those families some peace.”
My garden girls. He squeezes his eyes shut tight.
“Wait a minute.” I take a step forward, and Jasper places his hand in front of my chest in an effort to keep me from moving another inch. “Those pots you donated to the inn—the day you delivered them, you said they were your garden girls. You put them in those planters, didn’t you? The night Julian was killed—Zeke heard you arguing with him. Julian said that he didn’t want you adding another blonde to your garden girls collection. He knew. And he knew where you were putting them, too. And that’s why he was headed to the sheriff’s department after the show.” I gasp as another thought comes to me. “Some of the last words Julian spoke before he fell into the water that night—he said, ‘The answers you seek are often buried in your own backyard.’ He was taunting you with your garden girls collection.”
Archie gives a long blink. “Yes. And if I’m lucky, I’ll be adding to my garden collection tonight.”
Jasper takes a step forward, and the loud blast of a gun goes off—a third of the sound it would normally make, and that lets me know Archie came with a silencer at the ready.
Jasper flies backward before landing hard on the sand as a dark liquid blooms over his dress shirt.
“Jasper!” I fall next to him in a panic as the blood begins to pool.
So much blood.
So fast.
I set my hands over the wound in an effort to stop it.
“Sherlock!” I scream. “Go find help.” I look back at Archie as he staggers this way just in time to see Fish jump up on his chest. He swipes her off and sends her hurtling toward the waterline.
Bizzy! She cries as she sails through the air.
Misty dives Archie’s way with a primal cry and attaches herself to his leg. But it’s Lucky that jumps over Archie and tries his best to knock him to the ground.
“Jasper?” I turn my full attention back to the love of my life as his face bleaches an eerie shade of blue. “Jasper!” I scream his name at the top of my lungs just as another thunderous clap explodes over the cove, and this one elicits the faint sound of screams from the wedding party at the other end of the beach.
I glance over to see my sister standing with her legs straddled, her arms still outstretched with what I’m guessing is Jasper’s weapon in her hand.
Archie Alden lies motionless over the sand while Lucky runs a lap around him.
“Good shot, Macy,” I pant.
Soon, Leo Granger shows up with his weapon drawn, followed by an entire swarm of sheriff’s deputies.
And Leo quickly confirms what I already suspected—Archie Alden is dead.
A team of deputies begins to administer care to Jasper right away, and if they don’t get him to the hospital soon, there won’t be a wedding in our future.
In fact, there won’t be a future for Jasper Wilder at all.
Chapter 18
Clean shot to the upper chest, right next to his shoulder. Jasper will be forced to miss two weeks of work. Lucky for me, he’s still in great shape for the honeymoon.
Archie Alden won’t be in great shape for anything. Macy took him out with a single bullet to the heart. And the way she’s been touting that information, you’d think she was going to wear it as a badge of honor for the rest of her life.
Who are we kidding? She is most certainly going to wear it as a badge of honor for the rest of her life.
The men of Cider Cove have officially been put on notice. If they were wondering what she was capable of before, they sure as heck know now. Word on the street is, a Kevlar vest is required for all potential suitors.
It’s the last Saturday of September, a beautiful crisp fall morning, the day of the Cider Cove Beautification celebration—and it just so happens to be my wedding day. And in a cruel twist of fate, both are scheduled to begin at precisely one o’clock.
Mackenzie was right. I should have moved my wedding to Sunday. But I couldn’t bring myself to stand down to her. I guess I have an ego, and problem with pride—and the two of them have caused a collision course that’s set to take place in just a few hours.
Fish stretches to life as the early morning sunlight warms the living room floor through a partition in the curtains.
I can’t believe Mayor Woods wouldn’t move her silly beautification reveal. Fish gives a sharp yowl. Who cares about Main Street? The real beauty will be on the bluff in just a few hours and it will be you.
“No, it won’t.” I slump over my coffee. “I’m the only bride on the planet who couldn’t find a wedding dress, so I had to settle for something I was lukewarm about at the Sew Lovely Bridal Boutique. It was the only one that fit that I could remotely afford. Thank God it was on clearance.”
You’ll look beautiful in it. She mewls.
“I’ll look like a sack of potatoes. It has no waist.”
It’ll have you. That’s more than enough for Jasper. She traipses over and jumps up in my lap. Can you believe this is the last morning we have to ourselves before the fuzzball and his human move in?
A laugh bounces through me. “That’s right. Sherlock and Jasper have spent their last night in that cottage. They’re all ours from here on out.”
A knock erupts at the door, and I head over to find not one Baker man, but two.
I swing the door open with my heart pounding against my chest, Fish still in my arms.
“Dad? Huxley?”
“Bizzy Bizzy.” My father pulls me in for a warm embrace. All my life he’s greeted me that way, doubling my name while shedding his boyish dimpled grin.
“Did someone die?” I suck in a quick breath as I look to my brother. “It’s Mom, isn’t it? Is she in the hospital? Is there still time to see her?”
Huxley shakes his head. “No need to go dark, Biz. We come bearing good news. I got Mack to move the beautification reveal to ten o’clock. If you put some shoes on, you can see Georgie get all the accolades she deserves.”
“What?” I shriek with delight as I run in a circle doing just that before Fish and I run out the door. Lucky for me, Main Street is just up the way.
“There’s something else I think you should know,” Hux says as he and my father struggle to keep up with me.
A part of me wants to text Jasper the good news, but a part of me says maybe I should think about that whole it’s-bad-luck-to-see-your-groom-before-the-wedding thing. We’re not exactly dancing on a four-leaf clover here. We’ve got more dead bodies between us than most small-town morgues. I don’t think I should push my luck.
Dad jogs up next to me. “You might see Jasper there. Gwyneth asked if he could help carry a few things she picked up at the boutique.”
“Oh”—a breath hitches in my throat—“well, that’s fine. I don’t subscribe to that whole bad luck thing anyhow.”
Drats.
Fish taps her paw against my chest. I bet he’ll have Sherlock with him. I plan on giving him a proper Baker welcome to the family. Will we still be Bakers?
I lean into her ear. “It’s a surprise. But I have a feeling you’ll approve.”
Hux takes up my hand and my mouth falls open at the sweet gesture.
“Huxley? You haven’t held my hand since I was three,” I say as we come upon Main Street with the crowds as thick as a den of thieves.
It seems as if all of Cider Cove has turned out for the festivities. A huge banner is draped from one side of the street to the other and it reads Welcome to the Cider Cove Beautification Reveal!
He shrugs. “Yeah, well. I figure I’d better hold it one last time before J
asper takes you away from us.” There’s a genuine touch of sadness in his eyes as if he actually believed it.
“That will never happen, Hux. You’re stuck with me forever.”
“Good.” He gives a slow blink. “I love you, Biz.” He takes a deep breath. “And if you’re wondering where your sister is, she said to tell you that she’s at Georgie’s reveal with someone by the name of Alex Fox. She said you’d know what it meant if you heard his name.”
“Alex Fox?” I stop dead in my tracks.
A rush of adrenaline runs through me like never before.
Does that mean Pancake and Waffles are here? Fish twitches her head every which way inspecting the crowd.
And then I see them standing right in front of Georgie’s veiled mural.
Lottie Lemon stands holding her gorgeous Himalayan cats, Pancake and Waffles, while flanked with her husband, Judge Everett Baxter, on one side, and her boyfriend, Detective Noah Fox, on the other side. Their love life is sort of a long and sordid story. Standing next to them is Lottie’s biological mother, Carlotta, holding tight to Georgie, while the two of them sport matching pink kaftans. And smooching off to the side are Macy and her long-distance part-time lover, Noah’s brother, Alex Fox.
“Lottie Lemon!” I scream as I lunge at her and pull her into an aggressive hug that only true friendship can sponsor.
“Bizzy Baker.” She laughs as she pulls away. Lottie has caramel-colored curls and hazel eyes with a mischievous gleam in them. She happens to share my transmundane status, but her gift is referred to as supersensual—as in, she can see the dead. “You didn’t think we’d miss your big day, did you?”
“If it isn’t the bippity boppity brood.” Carlotta leans in—an exact duplicate of Lottie, adding about twenty years. “Can’t wait to see you dance your way down that aisle.”
“Thanks, Carlotta,” I say. “And thank you all so much for coming!”
I glance up at Everett and Noah. Both have dark hair, but Noah’s is red around the tips. Everett has caustic blue eyes and a sharp level of handsome that puts all the women on high alert. Noah has dimples and green eyes, and Macy is counting her lucky stars that he has a look-alike brother who just so happens to be available.
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