“How did you know I served her champagne?”
“It’s a very small town, Paisley. I suggest you remember that. You’ve been gone a very long time, but I’ve never left. I’m one of them in a way you’ll never be.”
His words stomped laps in my head with spiky little cleats. He was right. Aside from my family, these were no longer my people.
I was desperate for every living soul to believe I didn’t commit this crime. “You know me, Evan. I’m still the girl who cries at the sight of roadkill. The one who has to plug her ears when folks talk about their successful day in the deer woods. The one who’s never seen Titanic because they’ve yet to change the ending to include show tunes and floaties for everyone. You know I’m not capable of killing another person.”
“I know you were mad. And Sasha could be . . . difficult.”
Difficult was like saying terrorists were a little moody. “I was not happy to see you, I’ll admit. What you did to me was despicable.” I paused long enough for those words to sink in. “And Sasha was a bit of a challenge. But I swear to you, I’d never dream of harming her.” Okay, maybe I’d dreamed about it. But follow through? No way.
“I want to believe you,” he said. “I’m just not sure I can. You threatened me. You stood outside and threatened me in front of witnesses.”
“Okay, that’s enough.” Henry stood at my shoulder like an imposing bodyguard. “Enchanted Events is terribly sorry for your loss, and we’re all doing everything we can to cooperate with the authorities. But this isn’t the place to have this conversation. Mr. Holbrook. You have our sincerest condolences, sir. Paisley and I have a meeting we must get to, so if I can walk you to the door—”
“This isn’t over,” Evan said. “The truth will come out, and Paisley, if you had anything to do with this, I’ll use all my political powers to make sure you’re locked up for a very, very long time.”
I watched Henry escort Evan out the door, as my former fiancé’s words hovered in the air like angry wasps.
I knew I didn’t kill Sasha.
But what if no one could prove my innocence?
What if I did go to prison?
It was time to put Sylvie and Frannie to work and get to the bottom of this.
Chapter Nine
With the sun still cooking in the six o’clock sky, I drove the hilly road home, my brain numb. Somehow I had gotten through the workday. I’d held it all together because Henry had commanded me to, telling me that the boss had to be a leader, had to wear her game face, and had to convey that it was business as usual. Plus he’d plied me with chocolate by the hour.
But in my head, it was not business as usual. It was a total party of chaos. A drunken college rave of fear and what-ifs smothering every positive thought that happened to pop up. I stopped at a drive-thru on my way, bought two bags of fries, then stuffed them in my mouth as I drove, tears blurring my vision. I’d deprived myself of junk food for so many years in LA, but surely I could take a break from eating all that unholy healthy stuff.
Relief poured through me as I stepped onto my front porch. I had my bra unhooked and my heels kicked off before I’d even shut myself inside. I leaned against the door, a fierce ache pressing against my temple. I sniffed indelicately just as there came a pounding at the door.
Noooo. Couldn’t the world just go away?
Pressing my squinty eye to the peephole, I spied a familiar scowling face. Scowling, but obnoxiously beautiful.
“You okay?” Beau asked when I opened the door.
What did he care? This was the guy who’d spent most of our adolescence making it clear I wasn’t good enough to hang out with his sister. “I’m great.”
“You want to talk?”
“No.” I sniffled. “Thank you.”
He considered this. “Maybe I do.”
“Send me a text. It’s what all the cool kids do.”
“Invite me in, Sutton. I need to change the air filter in your house.”
I frowned in question.
“Part of my rent is doing upkeep on the house. Let me in.”
“Can’t you do it later? I just want to cut myself out of these Spanx, take a warm bath, get into bed, and never come out.”
“Uh-huh,” he said dryly. “I hear the blatant invitation there, but I’m going to hold firm to my morals tonight. How about we talk about what’s going on instead?”
My sigh fluttered my bangs. “Go away, Beau.”
“I got a little visit from a Benton County detective today. Wanted to know about the woman living beside me.”
I shoved open the door. “You could’ve at least brought me something to eat.”
He slipped by me, an air filter tucked beneath his arm. He stepped so close his chest brushed my shoulder. Pausing right in front of me, Beau lifted his hand toward my face and brushed a tear from my cheek. His voice went low and soft. “One of the last times I saw you cry, you were ten and I’d accidentally decapitated your Barbie doll in the lawn mower.”
“Accidentally?” I swiped at my damp cheeks, all too aware of his nearness, the light scent of his cologne teasing my senses. “Your sister and I always wondered how our favorite dolls got into the yard.”
“The dog must’ve carried them out there.”
“You didn’t have a dog.”
His cheek dimpled with a lopsided grin. “Details.” Beau lowered his long legs onto the leather couch and rested his arms on his knees as if we were about to huddle. “Talk to me, Sutton.”
I slid into a chair and clutched an afghan to my chest. “Basically the whole town thinks I killed Sasha Chandler.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Okay then.”
“Just like that? You believe me? You could be in a room with a dangerous murderer right now.”
“I’ve known you since you were five. You didn’t kill anyone. Besides, if you try anything funny, I’m pretty sure I can take you.”
I found myself returning his smile. His faith in me meant a lot. I needed all the support I could get.
“I’m sorry I nearly got your sister arrested in tenth grade.” I’d snuck her backstage at a boy band concert, and when they’d invited us on their tour bus and broken out the booze, things had gotten wild. As acting head of the family, Beau had banned her from associating with me.
“She turned out okay anyway,” he said. “Though she’s married to a dope of a guy.”
I left that one alone. “What did the detective ask you?”
“Wanted to know our history, what I knew about you and your ex-fiancé, if I’d ever seen you sticking needles into Sasha Chandler–shaped voodoo dolls. That sort of thing.”
“And what did you tell them?”
“That we’d grown up together, and I had every confidence you wouldn’t harm anyone.”
“Thank you.”
His eyes softened, and I was suddenly regretting ditching my bra.
“So.” I cleared my throat and pulled the blanket to my chest like a shield. “We know I didn’t kill Sasha, but the police probably think I’m the most likely candidate. How am I supposed to sleep at night knowing there’s a killer on the loose and the Sugar Creek PD is helping with the case? They have zero experience with a crime of this level.”
“They’ve turned it over to Benton County. Sugar Creek police are just helping. If it makes you feel better, Chief O’Hara is pretty good at giving speeding tickets and tracking down kids who egg houses on Halloween.”
“That doesn’t make me feel better. The last time someone was murdered in this town, Andrew Jackson was president, electricity hadn’t been thought of, and moonshine was the drink of choice.”
“I think you should trust the authorities to do their job.”
“Beau, I publicly threatened Evan, I’m the one who initiated champagne service at Enchanted Events and delivered it to Sasha, and I was the last person to see her alive. Do you know what those things add up to? Me, as a jailbird. I can’t stand stil
l and let this happen. I have too much of my grandmother in me to let others take sole charge of my innocence.”
“You could make things worse,” Beau said.
“What would you do if you were me?”
“Offer me a beer?”
“You’d get out there and get to the bottom of it. That’s what you’d do.”
“Paisley—”
“It wouldn’t hurt to talk to a few people. A girl as difficult as Sasha must’ve had an enemy or two.” I startled at yet another knock at the door. “Now what?”
Flinging open the door, I found my grandmother and her partner in crime standing beneath the glow of the porch light.
“Hello!” Sylvie and Frannie stood there like a geriatric Lucy and Ethel. “We’re here to console you, dear,” Sylvie said, shoving her way inside. “Frannie brought pie.”
I was never getting that hot bath. But I also wasn’t going to turn away Frannie’s coconut cream.
Sylvie rushed to Beau, her arms open wide. “Hello there, sweet thing.”
“Sylvie, good to see you.” As Beau hugged my grandmother, she gave me a sly wink.
He then bestowed a hug, a kiss, and a hair compliment on Frannie. Hearts and lovebirds frolicked around the ladies’ heads.
Frannie sat down on the couch, her kitty cat socks peeping out from her brown Birkenstocks. While my grandmother was still fashionable and fighting age with every weapon in her arsenal, Frannie had taken to dressing as though she selected her outfits at a thrift store while blindfolded.
“Did we interrupt anything?” Frannie glanced at my sagging bra strap.
“Yeah.” Sylvie plopped down beside her. “Like something hot and tawdry?”
“Nothing going on here,” I said.
“What a waste.” Frannie gave us the side-eye.
Beau threw his arm around me and gave my shoulder a squeeze. “Paisley was just telling me how she’s going to leave Sasha’s murder investigation to the professionals.”
“And that’s why we’re here.” Sylvie reached into her purse and withdrew her iPad. “It doesn’t get more professional than us.”
Frannie nodded. “We’re here to talk strategy.”
“I don’t even want to know.” Beau gave my shoulder another squeeze before releasing me. “I’m just gonna check a few things upstairs.”
“Stay out of my underwear drawer,” I called.
“Woo, isn’t he a little cupcake with sprinkles?” Frannie fanned herself.
“You two are supposed to be finding a hobby,” I said, watching Beau walk away.
“Meh.” Frannie flopped a dismissive hand. “We’ve tried. Yesterday it was yoga, which apparently makes Frannie gassy.”
Frannie nodded. “The things you learn about yourself.”
“And last week it was throwing pottery,” I said.
“Apparently you don’t literally throw it,” Frannie said. “We thought it was a new form of target practice.”
“Yeah,” Sylvie said. “FYI—Glocks are not welcome at that meeting.”
Frannie harrumphed. “Artsy snobs.”
“So once again we have nothing to do,” my grandmother said. “We can devote all of our attention to clearing your good name. Well, your mostly good name. It’s a tiny bit tarnished thanks to your years of wearing booty shorts. And that rat fink ex-fiancé Evan. But we know the real you, and the real you does not murder people.”
“At least not in that tacky, cliché way.” Frannie’s lip curled as though she was smelling an amateur. “Girl. Tell me you’d have more ingenuity than that.”
I couldn’t even find the words to respond.
“So Sasha’s memorial has been set for Wednesday.” Sylvie typed on her tablet. “The three of us ladies will attend and work the crowd, if you know what I mean. See what we can learn and observe.”
“They’ll never let me in the door,” I said.
“It’s like she’s not even related to you,” Frannie said to Sylvie. “Where’s your imagination? Between the two of us, we have enough wigs, costumes, and stage makeup to serve a drag queen convention. You’ll go incognito.”
That sounded like a terrible idea. “A simple hat will be enough.”
“We could bug their phones.”
“We’re not doing that.”
“We could install hidden cameras.”
“Also not going to happen.”
Sylvie was just getting warmed up. “Satellites? Drones? Tap into their smart TVs?”
“That all sounds completely frightening,” I said.
Sylvie stood with a wide grin. “This case is exactly what I need. I feel invigorated already.”
“Could be those burritos we just had at the Taco Hut.” Frannie rubbed her stomach. “I know they’re invigorating something in me.”
“Toodle-oo, shug.” Sylvie pressed a kiss to my cheek. “It’s going to be okay.”
Frannie gave me a parting pat on the bum. “We’ll make sure of it.”
I was still standing at the door a few minutes later when Beau reappeared.
“Are Boris and Natasha gone?”
I almost had the energy to smile. “They mean well.”
“Your grandmother’s right, you know.”
“About hacking people’s emails?”
“No.” Beau stepped onto the porch as the crickets serenaded. “That everything’s going to be okay.”
“I hope so.”
“Get some sleep, Paisley. Tomorrow will be a better day.”
It would. A brand-new day to take my life back. Clear my name.
And find a murderer.
Chapter Ten
“Not one bag or body search to get in the door.” Frannie shook her head in disgust as she crossed her legs beside me in the church pew at the Sugar Creek Community Church. “There’s a murderer running loose, and nobody thinks to pat us all down?”
“I was looking forward to it.” Sylvie used her compact mirror to check out her lipstick as well as the row behind her.
From our uncomfortable seats in a side wing, I watched the crowd filter in for Sasha Chandler’s memorial. My gray pencil skirt pinched in all the wrong places, and there was an inkblot of a coffee stain beneath my fitted jacket. A black hat with a demure bit of veil perched sideways on my head, with the goal of covering part of my face and giving me a British fascinator appeal. But the hat made my head itch, the lace tickled my nose, and as I’d borrowed the thing from Sylvie, I was pretty sure there was an extra compartment underneath it for a small pistol. I assumed I wasn’t packing heat, but my hat could’ve easily been locked and loaded.
As a string quartet began to play a hymn, the family walked in together, with Evan right there with them. A heaviness settled around my heart at the sight of Sasha’s mother crying into her tissue, leaning into her husband. Brat or not, Sasha left behind a family who loved her. At least, I think they did. I peered through the netting hanging from my hat and studied them all. Her mother wore her highlighted blonde hair in a tight French twist, and judging from her taut face, she was quite familiar with the words nip and tuck. Mr. Chandler wore a dark suit and a cranberry red tie. He still had a head full of brown hair, though it was peppered with gray.
“What does Sasha’s dad do?” I asked Sylvie.
“That’s actually her stepfather.” Sylvie fanned her face with a program. “Owns some big construction business. Obviously has done very well at it, but lately there’s been rumblings of money troubles. Zoey is his daughter. She occasionally goes to my church.”
To Mr. Chandler’s left sat Zoey. She wore a sleeveless black sheath dress that showed off her enviable toned arms, and I couldn’t help but notice she wasn’t crying. I wasn’t much of a cryer myself, unless it involved animals, Hallmark commercials, or being accused of murder. So maybe her lack of tears meant nothing.
I filed these observations away as Pastor Mulroney took to the pulpit and began the service. As he spoke about Sasha’s accomplishments and better qualities, I let my eyes
roam the church. With a quick glance at Frannie and Sylvie, I noticed they were doing the same. We pretty much looked like a row of socially inept weirdos.
Sylvie nudged me with her elbow. “I do not get a good vibe about that one.” She subtly pointed across the way to a pew near the front. “The girl in the pink dress.”
“It’s Phoebe Chen, one of her bridesmaids,” I whispered. “She’s nicer than all of us put together.” But Sylvie was right. Phoebe’s face was as white as the Chantilly lace gown hanging in the Sugar Creek Formals display window. Her eyes were wide, and her brow furrowed as she worried her bottom lip with her teeth.
“That’s not grief,” Sylvie said. “That’s guilt. I can smell it from here.”
I lowered my volume. “Phoebe did not kill anyone.” But she did look quite uncomfortable. “I’ll talk to her first.”
Pastor Mulroney spoke for an additional fifteen minutes on the virtues of Sasha before moving on to a brief sermon on getting one’s key to the Pearly Gates. The string quartet played a final song, a family member spoke a moving prayer, then we were dismissed to the melody of “Amazing Grace.”
“Let’s divide and conquer,” Sylvie said as we emptied into the courtyard.
“I’ll take Phoebe,” I said.
“I’ll talk to that man in the navy suit.” Frannie pointed two aisles over.
“What’s he got to do with this?” I asked.
“Nothing.” Frannie adjusted her skirt and gave her boobs a little boost. “But if he’s lucky, he could be my next Friday night date.”
Weaving through the crowd, I kept one eye on Phoebe and one on Evan. I definitely didn’t want to run into him and get chased away. Plus he was at the bottom of my suspect list, right next to a vagrant bum or a rabid raccoon who could make evil use of his opposable thumbs.
Phoebe joined her fellow bridesmaid Raven Arnett, and the two exchanged a brief hug. By the time I got to them, I could hear their frantic whispers, and I immediately went on alert. Sylvie probably had some listening device in her purse that would’ve come in handy.
I slowly moved toward them, praying they wouldn’t call me out. “Hi, ladies. Lovely service, wasn’t it?”
Engaged in Trouble (Enchanted Events Book 1) Page 6
