A Wedding to Die For

by Adrianne Lee

  Seth? He peered out from the edge of the booth, his gaze meeting mine, and my pulse seemed to pick up an extra beat as he silently assessed me, asking without words if I was okay. I tilted my head slightly. He grinned that crooked, breath-robbing lift of his sexy mouth. Images and tactile memories of his kiss assaulted me, weakening knees that were already rubbery. But I was still chafing about my mother’s arrest, and one way or the other, these two had had a hand in it. “What are you guys up to this morning? Plotting more ways to convict innocent women of crimes they didn’t commit?”

  Troy raised his hands in surrender. “I had nothing to do with that, Daryl Anne. That was all Sheriff Gooden.”

  “Blessing, turn it down a notch,” Seth said, his voice a low timbre. “We’re on your side. Despite the evidence, we know Susan wouldn’t kill a fly. We were just trying to figure out how to prove it.”

  “Really?” The stranglehold of stress loosened around my chest. I reeled in the anger that lay just below the surface. I couldn’t guarantee it wouldn’t pop up again, and just as quickly, but I realized my emotions were all over the place, that I tended toward reactionary since Mom’s arrest and Gram’s heart attack.

  “Have you found any other leads yet?” I asked in a less volatile tone.

  “Not yet, but we aren’t giving up.” Seth said.

  How had I never noticed until returning home what a knight in shining armor Seth Quinlan was? I swear my heart purred just then. “If Mom would just explain herself, tell the sheriff and D.A. why she and Tanya were arguing…”

  “Do you mean you know why she and Tanya argued like that?” Troy asked, pulling my gaze from Seth.

  Meg answered for me. “She does. Sit down, Daryl Anne, and explain it to them. I have to speak to Ash.”

  I watched as Meg told the waitress to bring me some coffee and a menu and continued on to the end booth. I joined the two men, choosing to sit beside Seth. I waited until my coffee was delivered along with a sugary cinnamon roll—as if I needed more stimulants—then explained what Billie had told us about how the videotaped fight had come about.

  Before I could get another word in, Meg returned to the table, said we had to leave right away, and dragged me out of the booth to the sidewalk. She was as pale as the lone cloud hovering overhead. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh my God, you’re not going to believe this. I just got an e-mail from someone claiming to know why Peter killed my mother.”

  I froze, gaping at her. No wonder she was snow-white. If you say one word about that to Meg, I’ll kill you. Did the e-mailer know the secret Peter was keeping from Meg? The real secret? “Is it the same someone who leaked the video of our mothers’ argument at The Last Fling?”

  “Yes, and he’s threatening to release the information via the same media source.”

  I frowned, considering this. “I don’t get it. What does the e-mailer gain by contacting you? It seems like if he or she had actual proof of motive that Peter would be the one to approach. He’d have the most to lose. He’d be more likely to shell out cash to keep whatever it is hush-hush. Wait. Was money mentioned to suppress the information?”

  “No. He claims he’s doing me a favor.”

  “A favor?” More like a back stab. As we started walking away from the café, I was struck by something she kept saying. “Why are you so sure whoever sent the e-mail is a he?”

  “Because Ash swears she spotted Kramer in the parking lot of the Happy Hearts motel. Apparently, he’s shaved his head and donned heavy, black-framed glasses, but she’d recognize those odd eyes of his anywhere.”

  They were unforgettable. “So he left and returned?”

  “What if he pulled a fast one somehow?”

  “But I thought Troy said he sent proof that he was on his way to L.A. at the time of the murder?”

  “Was he?” Meg lifted a brow.

  “Where are you going with this?”

  “We need to find out if he’s the one who leaked that video of our moms fighting.” She stepped off the curb into the crosswalk with me right at her side.

  “You plan on shaking the truth out of him?”

  “No, he’ll just deny it.” She scowled. “Maybe we should get Troy involved.”

  “He can’t search Kramer’s car or room without cause.”

  “Well, then, there’s only one thing we can do.”

  I didn’t like the direction her mind was going. As I thought this, I realized we had arrived at Happy Hearts, the same place Meg had been staying three days before the wedding. I rounded on her. “Don’t tell me you plan to break into his motel room.”

  “Of course I do.”

  “I said don’t tell me.”

  She punched my arm. “How else will we discover what that weasel knows about my mother’s murder? He’s not going to hand it to us on a silver platter.”

  Or any other way. I had a bad feeling this wasn’t going to end well—as in, Meg and I sharing a cell with Mom. But I found myself trotting eagerly alongside her the same way Seth had followed Sonny. I prayed I wouldn’t need rescuing too.

  The motel consisted of ten cottage-style cabins set in a horseshoe grid, each separated by a couple of feet, with its own small wooden porch. The doors all bore large red hearts with a number in the center.

  “We have a one out of ten chance of guessing his cabin number,” I said.

  “One out of nine.”

  “Nine?”

  “Ash moved into my cottage when she got here for the bachelorette party. It’s still booked in my name. She gave me the key so I can check out.”

  “Okay. What’s the plan then? Are we going to stand around the parking lot or office lobby waiting for someone who might be Kramer to show?”

  Meg chuckled. “We’re going to go in, and while I’m checking out, we’ll finagle some information from the desk clerk, like a cottage number for you know who.”

  “It might be smarter for you to chat up the desk clerk while I stay out in the parking lot in case you know who shows up,” I said, my clear-headed thinking returning like a welcome long-lost friend.

  “Ooh, that is better,” Meg said. “I’ll be right back.”

  I managed to stand outside the motel office without looking like a vagrant and without spotting Kramer or his doppelganger. Meg was back, grinning slyly, and waggling a hunk of plastic with a brass key hooked to one end. No electronic keys for Happy Hearts. Security be damned. “I thought you were checking out?”

  “Not yet. I sort of exchanged keys by mistake. This is to you know who’s cabin.”

  “So no breaking, just entering?” I was sure the police would consider that a minor technicality if we were caught, but why fret about that now? We beelined for cabin 5. I hesitated at the porch. My pulse and my mind were doing the mile-in-a-minute race, leaving me breathless. I might be a willing participant in this crime, but I wasn’t a complete idiot. “What if he’s in there?”

  “Oh. Well, I don’t know. We’ll say the office gave us the wrong key.”

  That seemed logical. Didn’t it? I held my breath as she opened the door. No big scary man yelled at us. We scrambled inside. The curtains were drawn, and it took a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust to the dim interior. I was immediately sorry. The décor suggested a piñata full of paper hearts and flowers had exploded, tossing its contents onto every surface.

  Meg said, “We need to look for something that verifies it’s Kramer staying here.”

  I headed to the bathroom while she pulled open the closet to check his suitcases.

  “Nothing in the medicine cabinet with his name on it,” I called. “But there’s a razor with a lot of brown hair in the wastebasket.”

  “Nothing in the closet either,” she said with a disappointed tone. “Just a duffel bag with no initials. No camera equipment either.”

  She’d moved over to the desk as I was exiting the bathroom. I glanced toward the open closet door. Deciding we should leave the room as we’d found it, I went to shut that do
or, my gaze raking over the few items hanging haphazardly on the cheap metal hangers. My hand stilled, and a first prick of excitement poked me. “Meg, these are the same clothes Kramer was wearing the day we met.”

  “Really?” I could hear her opening and closing drawers. “He must have his camera stuff with him, either in his car or on his person…” her voice trailed off strangely.

  I jerked around to find her peering at an electronic tablet. Light danced across her face indicating movement on the screen. “Did you find the video of Mom and Tanya fighting?”

  Her voice had taken on a singsong tone. “This is my mother’s tablet.”

  “Are you sure?” I stepped up next to her.

  She pointed to the initials etched into the top. TRJ. “It’s the one she carried in her purse.”

  “No wonder the police couldn’t find it.”

  She turned it on, and it booted up. “Look, there’s another video. Oh my God,” she laughed. “It’s a digital sex tape.”

  I laughed too, moving toward her. This I had to see for myself. “Like the kind that made Kim Kardashian famous? Kramer doesn’t seem like the type who’d record himself in the act.”

  A gasp escaped Meg, and she recoiled. “No. No. No. No.” She shoved the tablet onto the chest of drawers, backing up until her knees struck the edge of the mattress. She dropped to the bed like someone who’d been poleaxed, making a retching noise. Her hand flew to her mouth.

  I stepped to the chest of drawers, my gaze glued to the tablet screen. A couple going at it, Foreplay 101. The camera zoomed in on the woman, her mouth over the guy’s family jewels. Tanya lifted her head, licking her lips and grinning. The lens went wide angle again, showing her partner. Peter. My stomach turned. My eyes burned as if I’d been standing inches from a blowtorch. “Holy shit.”

  “I’m gonna be—” Too late. Meg hurled on the bedspread.

  I ran to the bathroom, dampened a hand towel, and returned. She snatched it from me, wiping her face and hands. I said, “We have to get out of here.”

  Meg was trembling. I helped her to her feet. She pulled free and grabbed the tablet, turning it off. “I’m not leaving this here. Kramer might delete it. Or sell it to that online tabloid.”

  “This doesn’t prove that Peter murdered your mother. It only proves they had sex.” Why was I being so fair to Peter? Giving him the benefit of the doubt? Probably because I didn’t want him railroaded on circumstantial evidence as my mother had been.

  “If the date on the file is correct, they hooked up shortly after my mother reached out to connect with me which, at the least, makes him a cheat and makes my mother something even worse.”

  I had no words. I couldn’t imagine what was going through her head. Her fiancé and her mother—ewww. Bile climbed my throat. Oh, sure. Now I was going to vomit.

  We heard a car pull into the slot in front of the cottage. Meg hurried to the window. Fear raced through me. She said, “It’s Kramer. Is there another way out?”

  I grabbed Meg’s hand and tugged her into the bathroom.

  The window was open.

  “It’s not big enough,” Meg whispered.

  “It’ll have to be.” I hoisted her up, and she squeezed out feet first. Her hair snagged on the latch, and she gave a muted cry. I froze. Kramer entered the cottage, whistling. The main door banged shut. My heart thudded. Meg kept squealing in pain. “Shhhh,” I said as I freed her hair.

  “Okay, your turn. Hurry.”

  I stepped onto the commode and maneuvered my upper body through the opening. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might burst my ribcage and fly out the window before me.

  Bedsprings squawked, followed by a yell from Kramer. “What the hell?”

  Uh, oh. He’d either spied the puke, smelled it, or sat in it. I hoped it was the latter. With Meg’s help, I didn’t face plant on the ground beneath the window, but my shimmy over the sill netted me a bunch of slivers. I swear the clatter I made could’ve awakened the dead. The second I gained solid footing, I was running. I didn’t stop to catch my breath. We jogged to the next street over. I slid to a standstill, panting like a racehorse after a derby, my side on fire with pain.

  Meg’s nose wrinkled, her mouth pursing. “I think I wet my pants.”

  “I’m sweating too much to tell one way or the other.”

  “I’m going to be sick again.” And she was.

  Once we got back to the bridal shop, I did my best to console Meg. But how did you comfort a woman who’d just watched her fiancé boinking her mother? I couldn’t get the image out of my head. I couldn’t even imagine how much more worse it was for her. Peter was lucky he was somewhere in Texas.

  Meg found her phone in the little makeup case she’d used to transform me today. She immediately called Peter, It went to voice mail. She tried calling again and again with the same results, but left only one message, “As soon as you get this, call me.”

  I hadn’t ever had a serious beau. However, I had over the years visualized my ideal man. I was starting to realize that perfect Mr. Right might exist only in my head. Real men were flawed. Imperfect. They made mistakes. They cheated. It was enough to make a woman give up on finding true love.

  “Do you think Peter killed my mother?” Meg asked.

  “I don’t know. But if she was blackmailing him, the tape does give him motive.” And now that I knew what Peter was trying to hide, he was my prime suspect. I didn’t, however, mention this to Meg. But I would discuss it with Seth the first chance I got.

  “Nothing I knew about Peter or Tanya was real,” Meg said, sounding lost. “Is it nuts that I just need to hear him tell me himself?”

  “No. Not at all.”

  Meg waited by her cell phone until her eyes were so heavy that she dropped off to sleep. I figured it was for the best. She’d be thinking more clearly in the morning and would know what she wanted to do. I shouldn’t have underestimated Kramer. He’d already sold the video to the highest-bidding tabloid. By morning, it had gone viral.

  Meg tried Peter the moment we heard the news. The call went straight to voice mail.

  He finally called about four hours later. I expected he was using filming as an excuse, but what he said was worse than that. Meg relayed the gist of the call afterward. “He’s been on the phone all night and morning with his handlers, coming up with ways to spin this.”

  I listened, letting her fume, waiting until she choked down some coffee laced with brandy and found her second wind. She set the cup aside, pacing again. “Bottom line is, he lied, even when I gave him the chance to do otherwise. He called his team as soon as he knew the tape had leaked. Not me. I’m not his number-one priority. I never will be.”

  I was on the edge of my seat. “What did he say to that?”

  “He didn’t have an answer. Apparently he’ll need to meet with his handlers again to figure out how to spin it.”

  Tears filled her eyes, but the fury issuing off her was palpable. Her shoulders slumped as if she wanted to shrink to invisibility or slip into a closet and hide. “Meg, I’m so sorry.”

  “No. Don’t be. He’s finally shown his true colors. I just have really lousy taste in men. Thank God I didn’t marry that ass.” She glanced down at the huge diamond engagement ring and recoiled. She tugged it off. A strangled laugh slipped from her throat. “He said I could keep it. As if. I might toss it into the sound.”

  “Use it to start your own salon instead.”

  She took another hit off the brandy-laced coffee. “He’s not the man I thought he was.”

  No. Sadly, he was the man I thought he was. I kept that to myself. My heart ached for my BFF. She deserved happiness, but he was never the man for her. I hugged her, letting her cry on my shoulder.

  Troy showed up to offer his shoulder too, and though I thought his motives were self-serving, I could tell by his gentleness that he cared more about Meg than I gave him credit for. “It’s going to take you some time to heal, sweetheart,” he told her. “I’l
l be here for you, if you want me to be.”

  No pressure. She needed that kind of understanding now. She needed time to grieve the loss of her mother and the loss of the future she’d planned. Time to realize the humiliation of this breakup was not her doing. Or her embarrassment.

  As Troy spoke with Meg, I confessed to Seth. “We got into Kramer’s cottage at Happy Hearts yesterday and found Tanya’s tablet. The police have it now, but Meg and I both saw the video—or at least enough to recognize the participants.”

  Seth grimaced. “I’m sorry.”

  “So are we.”

  Seth said, “According to Troy, there were e-mails between Tanya and Walter Fields. Apparently, she was dating him when she first moved to Hollywood. From what the police have pieced together, she offered Walter a chance to buy the tape. He told her to go to hell. A sex tape might cause an uproar, but it would just boost Peter’s fan base.”

  My eyebrows shot skyward. “How would sleeping with the mother of your fiancée boost your fan base?”

  “It wouldn’t. Tanya didn’t mention she was Meg’s mother. Once Walter and Peter learned that, they were more than willing to open their wallets.”

  “Then they’d have had no reason to kill her.”

  “It turns out, Tanya didn’t just want to be paid off. She wanted Peter to make room for her at the house he and Meg would share, to give her a generous monthly allowance, and to treat her like an adored family member. Or else she’d sell the tape to the highest bidder.”

  “She was a piece of work,” I murmured. “And Peter definitely had motive to kill her.”

  “As did Walter. Peter is his highest-earning client. Walter’s father-in-law wouldn’t appreciate a sex scandal touching the agency. I’m sure Walter would do just about anything to prevent that.”

  “Then the police suspect it was Walter whom Jade spotted in Peter’s Jaguar at The Last Fling the night Tanya died?”

  “He admits it, swearing that he talked Tanya into being reasonable, since she really did want a relationship with her daughter.”

  “Ha,” I said, feeling as if Meg had been spared a horrible future. “So, if Tanya agreed to make sure the tape never came to light, who killed her?”