by Gina LaManna
“Of course I know, grandmother!” I snapped, knowing she hated the term. “I didn’t come here to discuss romance. I came here to talk about a peculiar talent of yours.”
“Have a seat,” Nora said, her lips twitching into an intrigued smile. “Which talent would you like to discuss?”
“Grass skirts and coconuts,” I said. “You know how to do the hula or whatever, right?”
“Boy howdy, do I!” Nora blushed. “I gave Carlos a private show last night. I got an encore.”
I shut my eyes and wilted at her words. “I need to learn. And then I need your help getting me and Meg into a luau tomorrow.”
“Say no more,” Nora said, clapping her hands. “We’ll learn this evening. Outdoors. By the light of the moon.”
I sighed. “Whatever it takes, I guess.”
“I’m so happy you’ve come around, dear,” Nora said. “What inspired you to take the plunge?”
“Oh, you know,” I said, thinking of Rachel’s knife as it jabbed at me on the floor while I flopped away like a fish. Then I thought of the papayas shattering the windows of our tail as we cruised down the highway at a hundred miles an hour. “Life.”
“Very good,” Nora said. “Very good, dear. I’ll have your coconuts outside after dinner.”
Chapter 13
My next stop was a return visit to Meg’s room. This time, she let me in after a few quick knocks, looking quite fluffy in a camouflage robe with a faux-fur collar. She had a green face mask on and could have blended into a field of grass or a pond of algae.
“Hey there,” I said. “How are you doing?”
“Great!” Meg said. “Isn’t every day you get to fire a gun and save your BFF from a psycho maid. I always knew people who cleaned that much were nuts. Must be all the fumes getting to them.”
“Well,” I said. “It’s probably more to do with the gigantic payout from Coco than it is the cleaning.”
“Sure,” Meg said. “Want some masque?”
“I’d love some,” I lied. But if Meg wanted me to put green goop on my face, I supposed I owed it to her—especially considering the favor I had to ask next. “How are you feeling after the wax?”
“Super smooth,” Meg said. “And very free.”
“I meant after the showdown with Rachel.”
“Oh, that,” Meg said, and then considered. She gave another nod. “Answer’s the same: Super smooth and very free.”
I laughed and sat on the bed as Meg came over to lather up my face.
“What brings you around?” she asked suddenly. “I know you don’t want green crap on your face. You’re either doing it to make me happy or to suck up to me. Which is it?”
“Can’t it be both?”
She smiled down at me as she gently skimmed green goop over my face. “Well isn’t that sweet.”
“Look, Meg, we’ve been friends for a long time. I know you better than anyone, and I can tell when something’s wrong.”
“No, you can’t. I’m hiding my emotions behind a chunky green mask.”
“You know that doesn’t fool me for a minute. Talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say?” Meg pushed the sleeves of her robe up, and an uncharacteristic hint of exhaustion seeped out. “My husband-to-be has run away; I have barely any friends or family at my wedding. Heck—who knows if there will even be a wedding? I’m practically thankful for this murder investigation because at least it’s a distraction.”
“It does tend to keep the mind off things,” I said. “But look, Meg, Clay might not have run away. I was just upstairs talking with Anthony, and we are wondering if he could have been kidnapped. If this guy Coco is really after us, there’s bound to be some innocent people wrapped up in it.”
“Right.” Meg heaped on another layer of goop over my nose. “They kidnapped the unsuspecting computer geek. Even I don’t buy it. I know you’re just saying that to cheer me up. I appreciate it, I really do, but you don’t have to lie.”
“I’m not lying, Meg.” My face felt somewhat like the Sahara as the stuff started to dry. A bit of it crusted over my nostrils and I had to exhale to crack breathing holes. “I think Clay might have been kidnapped.”
“See, I don’t. Why would they kidnap him of all people?” She stared at me, her gaze blank. “It doesn’t make sense.”
It was painful to see her so lifeless. Meg could be many things: obnoxious, loud, louder, and loudest, but she always had a sense of humor and a positive attitude. She always watched my back. She was always up to lend a helping hand so long as I paid her back in cookies. A small price to pay, considering she’d saved my life on countless occasions.
“Meg, please,” I said. “I hate to see you so down. What can I do to cheer you up?”
“I’m fine,” Meg said. “I’ve always been fine. I’m fine, fine, fine. I’ve always taken care of myself, but then again, you know that.”
“Meg—”
“I knew I wasn’t cut out for marriage,” she said with a quivering lip. “You saw my mom and her rotating door. That sucker would clip your behind on the way out if you didn’t move fast enough. She shuffled men through there like a deck of cards. What sort of example of love is that?”
“The example of everything you’ve never wanted in a man, or in your life,” I said. “You learned what not to do. As much as it sucked for you to go through that at such a young age, you came out stronger. You’re the strongest person I know.”
Meg raised her bicep and gave a weak flex. “Yeah, because you’re a shrimp.”
I rested my hand on her wrist and stared past the flakes of green on her cheeks. “I mean it. You are without a doubt the strongest woman I know.”
“Do you know why I didn’t invite anyone?” Meg blinked, and a hunk of green fell from her forehead. “To the wedding, I mean.”
“You invited me and Anthony and Bella, and Nora and Carlos...”
“Yeah, but think about it. Out of that group, I really only meant to invite you,” Meg said, trying to hide a sniffle unsuccessfully. It ended in a snort. “Nora and Carlos came to spend time with Bella, not me,” she said, raising a hand and ticking off her fingers one by one. “Bella came because she’s pretty useless on her own.”
“Well, she’s a baby.”
“Exactly. Then there’s Anthony, and while I might have invited him separately—only because he’d look nice in pictures—he didn’t come for me either,” Meg said, tick-tick-ticking off her fingers. “That just leaves you. And that still doesn’t answer the question. The reason I didn’t invite anyone else is because I was too embarrassed.”
“What?”
“Look!” Meg stood, tears streaming in sad little rivulets over her green mask. She threw her hands down on either side of her body. “This mess of a wedding week! I don’t care about the investigation or the fact that Bella looks better than me in coconuts and a grass skirt. But it’s freaking embarrassing to have your groom run away from you just days before he’s supposed to marry you!”
“He might not have—”
“Fine. Maybe he was kidnapped,” Meg said. “But the fact is that I sent out invitations a week ago.”
“Two months ago.”
“Whatever,” she said. “I knew even then I didn’t want people here to see this. I had the feeling something would go wrong. Clay would get cold feet, or the engagement would get called off, or I’d screw something up. Why have people around to kick me when I’m down? Sure, they’d be all sympathetic and nice because that’s the way people are to my face. Probably to everyone’s face. Then they turn around and yap, and yap, and gleefully gossip behind my back.”
“I had no clue you were feeling like this,” I said. “I’m so sorry. If I had known—”
“You would have pitied me. Which is exactly what I didn’t want.” Meg reached for a tissue and blew her nose wildly on it. She left green streaks a mile long in the distorted shape of her nose. “I just wanted people to have a nice time. To think I looked pretty.
To see me proving everyone wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“I am not cut out for marriage,” Meg said, her eyes welling with tears of heartbreak. “I get that. I know who I am. I’m loud and proud and beautiful, and there ain’t nothing wrong with any of that. But I know men don’t flock around me like they do you. I don’t get the handsome dudes at the gym asking me out or people leaving me huge tips at the bar. Like I said, it’s all fine. But I thought...”
I grasped Meg’s hands in mine and squeezed. My throat was too tight to speak.
“I thought maybe I’d proved them all wrong,” Meg said with a whimper that threatened to tumble into a full-on waterfall of tears. “I thought I’d found someone who didn’t mind my curves and my hyena sort of laugh. Or my fart jokes and doughnut addiction. Or my sometimes strange but often very clever sense of humor. I thought that person was Clay.”
“It is Clay.”
“Then why in the world isn’t he here?” Meg asked. “Why was he nervous? Why can’t we seem to get this wedding to work?”
“Listen, honey,” I said, raising my hands and pressing them to Meg’s cheeks. My palms sunk into the green mixture, but I refused to back away. I forced her to look at me. “You’re missing the point.”
“Whaa poiwt?” she grumbled through squished cheeks.
“The whole point is that if Clay is kidnapped, which I’m almost positive that he is, then they took him for a reason. Do you know what that reason was?”
Meg shook her head and my hands went along for the ride because the masque was really starting to stick.
“These numskulls took Clay because they recognized he was loved. By you, Meg,” I said emphatically. “Holding someone hostage doesn’t work well if nobody cares. You love him. He loves you. You’ll do anything to get him back, and he would do the same for you. That’s why they took Clay.”
Meg inhaled a deep, shuddering breath. “Are you just saying that?”
“You know when I’m lying,” I said. “Am I lying?”
Eventually, she shook her head, and I managed to peel my fingers from her cheeks.
“I know this to be true,” I said. “And you deserve to be married, Meg. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. You have the biggest heart of anyone I know, and you’ve found someone who wants to love you and hold you and keep you forever. And he’d better do a dang good job of it because if he doesn’t, I’ll go after him. Cousin or not.”
“I-I shouldn’t doubt Clay. I’m not,” Meg corrected quickly. “I’m doubting myself.”
“Clay’s just as lucky as you are,” I said. “You are two very special, lovely, intelligent—and yes, peculiar—people, and you deserve one another. This isn’t a one-way street. It doesn’t matter what your mom’s love life looked like. This is yours, and you are a wonderful person.”
“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Lacey,” Meg said as another waterfall of tears tipped down her cheeks. “I’m so glad we got shoved together as useless babies so you have to be my friend.”
“Me too. I love you, Meg. You’re family. You always have been. We’re just making things official.”
“Come here,” Meg said. “Bring it in. I need a hug.”
I spread my arms wide. Meg and I shared a squeeze, separating only when my hair got caught on her lip gloss and she sneezed as it tickled her nose.
“Thanks, Lace,” Meg said. “What you said just then...nobody’s ever said anything like that to me before.”
“You deserve to be married,” I said. “And we’ll find Clay. I promise.”
After we spent a good twenty minutes peeling half our faces off, along with the green goop, I left Meg tucked in and watching Frozen, slurping a mimosa through a straw. She seemed happier and content, though there was still a rawness that had me hurting for her as I made my way back to my room.
The second I stepped inside, I snarled at Anthony. “Clay had better be kidnapped.”
“Excuse me?” Anthony glanced up from where he was changing Bella.
“After the pep talk I just gave her,” I said, thumbing over my shoulder toward Meg’s room, “if Coco hasn’t kidnapped my cousin already, I’ll do it myself. And I will show Clay what real pain feels like.”
“Come on, Lace,” Anthony said. “You’re not going to waterboard your cousin or break his limbs. That would be cruel on his wedding week.”
I shrugged. “Maybe not. But I might wax his privates. It wouldn’t show in pictures.”
Anthony’s face went slack.
I took over at the changing table. “That’s what I thought.”
Chapter 14
By the time the moon sat lofted above the resort, I was happy to announce to Anthony that the only tragedy of the evening was a lack of my favorite ice cream flavor at dessert. And I was even happier to report that despite the tragedy, I’d survived.
After my trip to Meg’s room, I spent the afternoon playing with Bella, splashing with her in the baby pool and cuddling her on the bed, while Anthony took some time for himself to do things I had no interest in doing. Things like exercise and work.
As evening rolled around, I put Bella in bed and suffered through a lack of butter pecan ice cream before preparing for my meeting with Nora. I was just getting dressed in my bikini and a cover-up when a knock sounded on my door.
I glanced over at Anthony, who had just stepped out of the shower post-workout, and felt heart palpitations.
I raised an eyebrow. “Any idea who that is?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “But I’m happy to send them away if you keep looking at me like that.”
“What if it’s Coco here to finish me off?”
“You’re on your own,” Anthony said as he retreated into the bathroom and clicked the lock shut while calling through the door. “Though I suspect it’s Meg. Which means you’re still on your own.”
I headed to find out and, after a quick peek through the peephole, realized Anthony was right. Which meant I was on my own as I pulled open the door and found Meg standing there.
I tried for cheerful as I spotted her dressed in a string bikini, but when Meg showed that much skin, it never led to good things. “Hey, Meg. What are you doing here?”
“Nora called! I’m here to accompany you to your dance lessons. I mean, I’m a great body guard and an even better hula dancer. Just wait until you see me doing both at one time.”
“That’s really not necessary,” I said. “You must be worried about Clay being missing. Plus, you’re supposed to be relaxing and preparing for your wedding—which is definitely happening.”
“Oh, I know. I’m feeling okay about things after we talked.” Meg gave me an almost bashful smile. “Thanks again for that.”
“Is your face okay?” I asked, inspecting it for signs of green goop. “It took forever to peel that junk off.”
“My face is always perfect,” she huffed. “As if you even have to ask. Anyway, shall we sashay down to meet Nora? She said we’ll learn under the moonlight. As if there’s any other way to learn how to dance.”
“Well,” I said. “I’m sure there are plenty of other ways, but it’s your lucky day. I’m not arguing with you or Nora because this might be important. If it leads us to Coco, we’ll find May’s murderer along with Clay. I’m sure of it.”
“Me too,” Meg said, hooking her arm through mine. “That’s why I’m here. I’m a bridezilla, and it will only last for two more days. So, take advantage of all this pent-up rage in here to find my fiancé and the killer. I’m going with you.”
“Are you sure?”
In answer, she gave me a slap on the rump that had me tumbling into the hallway.
“Okay,” I said, dusting off my hips and pulling myself up straighter. “Well, thanks, Meg. I appreciate not having to go alone.”
“Chickadee, with me as your best friend, you don’t have to do anything alone. And I mean anything,” Meg said. “I mean, we had a bikini wax together. How much closer can two gals g
et?”
“Fair point.”
“Anthony, I’m taking your bride to learn how to hula dance,” Meg said. “I know you’re hiding that cute tush in the bathroom, and I appreciate your restraint! After all, I’m a taken woman, you know!”
Anthony grunted something from the bathroom. I checked on Bella one last time, bid my husband a quick goodbye through a crack in the bathroom door no bigger than the width of my pinky finger as he cowered inside, and then rejoined Meg in the hallway.
“You know, my husband-to-be is a taken man,” Meg said with a laugh. “Literally.”
“Glad you see the humor in this,” I said, feeling the blood drain from my face as we made it outside of the resort. “Other women would be freaking out about their kidnapped groom, but not you.”
“We’ll get him back,” Meg said. “Lacey Luzzi never fails at a job.”
I spotted my grandmother quickly. Too much of my grandmother, as a matter of fact, which saved me from having to respond to Meg. Her statement about my services had been full of optimism... and a lot of pressure. I didn’t want to think about the consequences of not finding Clay.
It was quite sad that I preferred to focus my attention on Nora who, true to form, had taken the grass skirt and coconuts theme a little too seriously. It appeared she hadn’t felt the need to wear anything underneath.
Maybe Coco would just show up and end things for me before I had to deal with my half-naked grandmother. If it was inevitable he was going to kill me, then this would be a good time for him to make good on his word.
“Nora...” I hesitated. “You do know that a grass skirt is sort of...permeable? See-thru? It’s not exactly solid.”
“Oh, I know,” she said. “That’s why I’m wearing these fantastic nudie bikini bottoms. Check it out! I got all three of us a pair. People will think you’re not wearing a thing underneath!”
I blanched as she handed out the bikini bottoms. Never did I want to match with my grandmother, especially not in a bathing suit, but I didn’t feel I had much of a choice except to accept her gift.
