by Laura Durham
Dahlia nodded and gave us a weak smile, her eye twitching. Her knuckles were white where she clutched her Lucite clipboard. Kelly’s smile was unnaturally bright and looked almost painful.
“Have more people left?” Kate asked.
Carol Ann started to nod, then paused. “More? Who did you see leave?”
“Stacy and Gwen?” I said, my voice more a question than a statement as I tried to recall the names I’d heard only moments ago. “They said to tell you they got a flight out.”
Dahlia made some scratches on her clipboard, crossing off names, I guessed. Kelly patted her boss’s arm.
“They’re the third pair to leave since last night. Jacob and Katherine were the first.” Carol Ann sighed. “I suppose I don’t blame them, but I’m pretty sure this is the end of my career planning FAM trips.”
“Don’t say that,” Dahlia’s voice cracked, and I wondered if she would burst into tears. The bubbly blonde looked on the verge of a breakdown.
“It’s okay.” Kelly put an arm around Dahlia’s shoulders. “There’s still the wedding planning business.”
“You seem a lot calmer about this than you were yesterday,” Kate said.
Carol Ann winked at us. “The pill Dahlia gave me helped.”
Dahlia blushed and whispered, “Half a Xanax.”
Kate nodded. I knew that she and her millennial friends had a much more thorough awareness of all the anti-anxiety pills on the market as most of them were on at least one. I chalked it up to the stress of DC.
“I’m surprised the police are letting people leave,” I said. I knew from past experience that detectives did not like witnesses to leave town during an investigation. I also knew that the Balinese detective had been very specific the night before when he told me not to leave the country. Of course, I had dozens of witnesses who saw me chase Jeremy across a rice field, so I suspected I was a unique case.
Carol Ann shrugged. “The hotel manager pulled some strings so guests who weren’t material witnesses could leave.”
“Well that doesn’t include us,” Kate muttered and took a long drink of coffee.
“Or us,” Kelly said, her smile flickering. “Although I can’t imagine what else the police could ask us.”
I had to agree with Kelly. We’d all been questioned by the hotel security chief and then, when he had arrived, the police detective. It had been hours before we’d been able to leave the villa pool and return to our rooms, which explained why Richard and Fern had still not emerged from their rooms despite promising to meet us for breakfast. As if my thoughts had produced them, I spotted the two men coming around the elevator bank toward us.
“Do you think he has any clothes on underneath that?” Kate asked, raising one eyebrow as she spotted Fern, wearing a teal-and-gold sarong tied high around his chest, exposing plenty of bare leg.
“I’m sure he does,” I said with a good deal more confidence than I felt. I could only assume that Richard was so worn out from the night before that he hadn’t registered what the man next to him had on. Even though his hair was styled and his tan pants and purple shirt unwrinkled, Richard’s eyes looked weary. For someone who believed in ‘early to bed, early to rise,’ the late-night questioning combined with jet lag seemed to be taking its toll.
“Ta da,” Fern said with a muted flourish of his hands.
“You look like you’re ready for . . .” I paused to find the right word as I glanced at his beaded flip-flops. “Something.”
“We’re getting away from this place,” he said, crossing over to Kate, taking her coffee out of her hands, and taking a swig.
“I don’t think we can leave Bali just yet,” I said. “At least not until the police clear us.”
Fern shook his head. “I meant away from the resort. We’re taking a field trip up to Seminyak.”
Kate’s eyes lit up. “I’ve heard they have great beach bars.”
“Who is?” Richard asked, staring at Fern like he’d just noticed the high man bun and brightly colored sarong worn like a halter dress.
Fern waved a hand at all of us, including Carol Ann, Kelly, and Dahlia. “All of us. Anyone. Everyone. I figured this group needed to get away from all the dead bodies piling up around this joint.”
I cringed at the mental picture, then looked at Carol Ann, expecting a protest of the idea. I knew the day’s itinerary included a walking tour of the resort followed by afternoon tea.
“That’s a wonderful idea,” she said. “To be honest, the hotel might be happy to see the back of us for a while.”
Since nearly every time we’d had an event on hotel property one of the attendees had been murdered, I could see where they’d shy away from activities with our group.
Fern clapped his hands as a large black van swept into the circular drive of the portico. “Our chariot has arrived.”
I eyed the length of the shiny new vehicle and then the size of our group. “I guess we’ll have a lot of room to stretch out.”
Fern shook his head, motioning to a group of people I recognized walking toward us. “I left messages for all the people we like to join us.”
“What about Buster and Mack?” I asked. “Don’t we still like them?”
“Of course.” Fern swatted at me. “The hotel designers were taking them to a Balinese flower market today, so they had to pass.”
“We didn’t get a message.” I gestured to Kate and myself. Luckily we had dressed in bathing suits under our sundresses and had our beach bags packed for a day we’d originally intended to include plenty of time by the hotel pool.
“I might have forgotten to tell you about the message,” Kate said, avoiding my eyes.
“Crikey.” Alan rubbed his eyes as he sidled up next to me. “Very early messages.”
“You know what they say about the early bird,” Kate said, looking much more awake after her coffee, but still avoiding my glare.
Richard gave her a sideways glance. “Do you?”
Kristina ran a hand through her blond hair, resting her sunglasses on top of her head as a headband. “I was told to be downstairs and ready for a trip to a beach with bars.” She raised a hand to her eyes to block the sun as it shone through the windows into the lobby. “You had me at ‘bars.’”
“What about Brett?” I asked.
Kristina shrugged. “He wasn’t feeling so hot.”
Fern gave a knowing nod. “Bali belly. Not the kind of thing you want to experience in a public restroom.”
I wondered if it was really an upset stomach or if it had to do with Jeremy’s death and his earlier argument with the man. Unless I wanted to break down his door, I’d have to wait to find out.
Fern directed everyone to the van, his hands above his head like a flight attendant pointing out exit doors. I hung back as I spotted Cliff and Ted hurrying across the lobby with two women I didn’t know in tow.
“Do you think it’s okay if we add Grace and Sarah to the group?” Ted asked, pushing his sideswept bangs out of his eyes.
One of the women had brown hair pulled back in a neat bun, and the other woman, a brunette with dip-dyed dark blue ends that fell loose around her shoulders, looked to be around Kate’s age. They both had friendly smiles that I recognized from previous events.
“Of course,” I said, hoping I wouldn’t have to sit on Richard’s lap because of my answer. “The more, the merrier.”
Cliff leaned close to my ear as he passed. “You’re a lifesaver. I didn’t want to leave two Editor’s Circle members behind.”
I followed the foursome into the van, taking the last open seat next to Ted as the Balinese driver slid the door closed behind me. Fern was already holding court in the back seat between Carol Ann and Dahlia, recounting some of his wildest tales from our weddings. I hoped he would stop short of mentioning the other murder investigations we’d been involved in.
“So how many members of the Editor’s Circle are on the trip?” I asked Ted, clutching the front passenger’s seat where Richard
sat for balance as the van accelerated up the driveway. We’d recently gone through the application process to become members of the exclusive group, but I hadn’t studied the guest list to see which other members were on the trip with us.
Ted twisted his head to look at the rest of the passengers. “Grace and Sarah, whom you just met. Carol Ann, of course. You and Kate.”
“Were any of the victims in the Circle?” I asked.
Ted’s usually wide smiled faded. “Just Dina.”
“Sasha wasn’t?” I asked. “Then are you close friends with her?”
Ted cocked his head at me. “Why would we be close friends with Sasha?”
Cliff turned his head to join the conversation. “We barely know the woman. She’s not exactly Editor’s Circle material.”
“Then why did you add her name to the guest list?” I asked.
Ted put a hand to his chest like I’d stabbed him. “We did no such thing. The only names we put on the list were Circle members like you.”
“I must have misunderstood. Sorry.” I sat back against the seat.
Cliff gave a nervous laugh. “No worries, but let’s nip that rumor in the bud before it spreads.”
I glanced behind me at Carol Ann, who was in the back laughing at one of Fern’s exaggerated stories. Why had she told me Cliff and Ted had added Sasha to the guest list if they hadn’t? And if she’d lied to me about that, what else was the trip organizer lying about?
Chapter 23
I took off my leather flip-flops as I stepped onto the beach, my toes sinking into the gritty sand. Shielding my eyes from the sun that sat high above the ocean, I looked at the wide strip of beige sand stretching in both directions. White-capped waves broke against the shore as children shrieked and chased them back out, while a group of surfers bobbed on their boards further out.
I followed our group as we tramped across the hard-packed sand, passing a series of restaurant bars until we reached one with brightly colored beanbags extending onto the sand and reggae music playing from a pair of speakers. Equally colorful umbrellas adorned with dangling tassels created a canopy over the beanbags.
“This is heaven.” Fern flopped down on a beanbag chair and let his head loll back.
The rest of us followed suit, dragging beanbags over until we’d created an amorphous grouping of the lumpy chairs with small wooden end tables interspersed. I sat on a lime-green chair, trying not to flip over on my back as I sank into the squishy center. I pulled the elastic band out of my hair, shaking it out and letting it spill down my back.
Richard sat down in an orange beanbag next to mine, crossing his legs in what I recognized as an attempt to be dignified. Kristina took a chair across from mine, dropping her beach bag in the sand.
“Is Bali supposed to have that much traffic?” Kristina asked, lowering her oversized tortoise-rimmed sunglasses over her eyes. “What’s amazing is that no one uses their horn. In LA, people would be laying on their horns.”
It had taken us over an hour to reach Seminyak from our resort in Nusa Dua, a distance that a crow could fly in half the time. The roads were surprisingly congested with cars and vans driving bumper-to-bumper and motorbikes swerving in between, yet none of the drivers seemed agitated. It seemed the only people irritated were the Western passengers.
I watched the waves crash and took a breath of the salty air to release the tension of the drive. “It was worth it to get away from the hotel.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Kate said from where she sat between Fern and Alan. “Speaking of drink, they do serve booze here, right?”
Fern held up a brown hard-backed menu. “I’m ordering a La Plancha Breeze. Anyone else?”
One of the women who’d come with Ted and Cliff pointed to an empty pink beanbag next to me. “Do you mind if I sit here?”
I patted it. “Of course not. You’re Grace, right?”
I’d guessed at the name, hoping I’d get lucky with a fifty-fifty shot, but she smiled and nodded.
“That’s right. Grace Goodwin Events from Chicago.” She shifted on the chair as it rolled under her. “You’re Annabelle Archer, right?”
“That’s right,” I said, wondering if Wedding Belles was gaining national exposure or if I was becoming infamous within the group for stumbling onto dead wedding planners. I had a feeling it was the latter, so I didn’t ask.
“You’re new to the Editor’s Circle, aren’t you?” Grace asked, taking the menu as Fern passed it to her.
“We’ve been in it a few months, I think.” I motioned to Kate as she tugged the hem of her sundress. “The other half of Wedding Belles.”
Grace’s eyes widened as she glanced at the menu. “When the price is 90K, that isn’t anywhere close to ninety thousand dollars, is it?”
I pulled up the currency convertor I’d downloaded to my phone and tapped in a few numbers. “It’s about six dollars.”
Grace let out a breath and laughed. “That’s a relief.”
We ordered drinks from a young waiter in denim shorts topped with a yellow-and-red-batik-print shirt. I watched him as he walked to the open-air building behind us that housed the bar and kitchen. The building was two levels and painted a few different shades of green. The ground level held the bar and a few tables against a wooden rail while the upstairs was filled with tables and chairs in a rainbow of colors shaded by bright tasseled umbrellas like the ones around us on the sand. If everything wasn’t so brightly colored, it might have looked dingy and run-down, but instead the vibe was fun and bohemian.
“How long have you been a part of the Circle?” I asked after I’d turned back and set the menu on one of the low wooden tables.
“Almost as long as Ted and Cliff have had the magazine,” Grace said. “We go way back.”
“So did you know some of the other planners on the list before this trip?” I asked.
Grace crisscrossed her legs in front of her, brushing some sand off the bottom of her white capris. “A few from the list and a few from Inspire.”
I leaned forward, trying not to pitch over into the sand. “So you knew the victims then?”
“I knew Dina and Veronica pretty well.” She wrinkled her nose. “Jeremy, not so much.”
I took the rocks glass filled with a crimson-colored concoction as the waiter handed it to me. The sides of the glass were cold and slick with condensation and felt good against my warm fingers. I took a sip, recognizing the flavors of peach and dragon fruit from the drink description.
“I wouldn’t say that I was friends with Dina or Veronica, though,” Grace added, sipping on her Kir Royale. “And I definitely was not part of that little clique.”
“I’ve heard about the clique,” I said, not wanting to sound judgmental but hoping to get more information out of her. “It sounds interesting.”
“I think you mean awful,” Grace said. “I’m grateful I never got sucked into that scene.” She wiggled a platinum wedding and engagement ring set on her finger. “I’m a happily married woman.”
“Were Dina and Veronica?” I asked, picking up my LaPlancha Breeze, although I was pretty sure neither had been.
Grace shook her head. “They weren’t, and once they got done with Marilyn, she wasn’t either.”
I nearly dropped my cocktail in the sand. “Who is Marilyn?” My mind raced through the names of attendees I’d met. “Is she here?”
Grace took a long drink of her bubbly. “No. She hung out with Dina and Veronica at all the Inspire conferences. And Jeremy for a while, although I don’t remember if Jeremy was part of the crew when everything went south.”
I noticed Richard leaning over so he could eavesdrop on my conversation with Grace, and I shot him a look as he nearly slipped and face planted in the sand.
What? he mouthed as he righted himself and readjusted his beanbag.
I directed my attention back to Grace. “When you say things went south . . .?”
“I thought everyone had heard this story.” Grace shot a look over
her shoulder, giving me the sense that even if everyone knew the story, no one talked about it. “It’s really quite tragic.”
I looked down and realized that I’d drained my glass without noticing, so I set it back on the table. “I’m assuming Marilyn was a wedding planner?”
Grace gave a bob of her head. “From Texas. A really sweet woman, but a bit naive considering that she was married with two kids. But maybe that was part of the problem. She’d gotten married young and been with her husband for something like fifteen years. Not that I’m making excuses, but I really did like Marilyn.”
Our waiter scooped up my empty glass, and I ordered another round. Grace continued to sip from her thick-rimmed champagne flute.
“Did she have an affair?” I asked as Richard scooted closer to me.
Grace gnawed on her lower lip. “I don’t think she even would have considered it if Dina and Veronica hadn’t been encouraging her. I think they thought it was a lark. After all, they’d both messed around at Inspire.”
I remembered the story of Veronica stealing Sasha’s boyfriend, but I wondered whom Dina had been involved with. “So they pushed this Marilyn woman into an affair at an Inspire conference?”
Grace tossed back the rest of her sparkling wine cocktail. “With a photographer from Atlanta who was pretty notorious for making the rounds. I’ll admit that he was a charming guy and definitely knew how to sweep a girl off her feet. Marilyn didn’t stand a chance.”
“And if you ask me, Dina and Veronica set the whole thing up with the photographer.” Grace’s face flushed; I wasn’t sure if it was from the conversation or the bubbly. “I think they wanted to see if he could talk her out of her panties.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Richard shake his head in disapproval.
“They don’t sound like very good friends,” I said, taking my new cocktail from the waiter.
“To be fair, I think they felt bad about it. Afterward. But by then it was too late.”
I felt my stomach tighten. “What do you mean?”
“The affair may have been no more than a one-night stand, but Marilyn’s husband found out.”
