“Paisley Sutton,” she gushed. “I know. I’m Anna Grace. Back in high school I saw the Electric Femmes at least five times. Y’all were so awesome.” I wondered if she knew her voice had risen above a library whisper. “The costume changes, the choreography, the songs that spoke right to my heart.” She laid her hand over the general direction of that heart. “I cried for a month when Jaz broke up the band to go solo.”
“That makes two of us.” Then Jaz went on to be bigger than we ever could have, as if our little band had held her back.
“Any plans for a reunion tour?”
“I don’t think so.” Jaz was a little too busy being an entertainment deity and a billionaire recording artist.
“I was so excited when I heard you were in Sugar Creek. What an honor to live in the town an Electric Femme grew up in.” Anna Grace pushed up a plaid headband that held brunette hair. Her pink tips were in desperate need of a touch-up. “I work here three days a week if you need any help.” She gestured to my computer screen. “I’m an excellent researcher. I’m in my last year of grad school for my info science degree.”
“That’s great. Thank you.”
She covered her mouth as if to shelter the words that followed. “If it’s any consolation, I don’t think you did it. You know—the murder.”
“Thank you.”
“Are you sure there isn’t anything I can help you with?”
“Positive,” I said. “I’m just Googling some things. Trying to reacquaint myself with the town. Get to know some folks so I can be a better business owner.” And find a killer. You know, normal search stuff. “Did you know Sasha?”
“I saw her occasionally.” Her face rippled into a scowl. “Occasionally she’d represent the Chandler family at some of our library charity events. We had a fund-raiser a few weeks ago, and she brought one of her bridesmaids. Sasha was so mean to that poor girl. In fact, the friend left early—in tears. If that’s how Sasha treated a best friend, then there’s no telling how she treated an enemy.”
Unless the best friend was the enemy. “Do you know the bridesmaid who was with her?”
“Sure,” Anna Grace said. “Phoebe Chen.”
Chapter Fifteen
Against my better judgment, I picked Sylvie up that evening on my way to chat with Phoebe.
I found my grandmother and her best friend in the dining room. Or what should’ve been my grandmother’s dining room. Gone were the family photos that had previously decorated the walls. In their place hung giant whiteboards with lists of possible murder suspects, their photos, and info about each. Laptops sat in mini stations with blinking, flashing screens. A television was perched on a Chippendale table, the screen a collage of blurry images.
I squinted harder at the TV and saw one of those images was the exterior of Enchanted Events. Another appeared to be a live-stream of someone’s house. Holy spy cams! “Do you have cameras posted all over town?”
“Quit yelling!” Sylvie hushed me with waving hands. “You never know who’s listening.”
“My gosh, what is all this?” I did a slow turn. “Where are all the family pictures?”
“Meh, who needs ’em?” Sylvie put down her dry erase marker. “I see your faces all the time on the Facebook. Consider this investigation central.”
“Yeah.” Frannie clicked away at her laptop. “And so far you haven’t brought us much intel. Are you Sylvie’s granddaughter or not?”
“I am.” With the minor difference that I had the sanity gene. “Is any of this legal?”
The two women looked at each other. Then burst into raucous laughter.
Sylvie dabbed the moisture away from her eyes. “Okay, enough with the irrelevant stuff. Who have you talked to since Zoey?”
“No one.”
Frannie, wearing a new bobbed haircut, shook her head. “Lord have mercy on this lost soul.”
“Hey, I have a job. I put in ten hours a day at the shop, then come home and—”
“Make out with your neighbor?”
“No, Frannie,” I snipped. “I stay up past midnight reading about floral arrangements, displays, music choices, lighting, budgets, decorating, bridal trends, and everything else I don’t know about running a wedding planning business. And what is this?” I pointed to the headings on one section of a whiteboard. “Bridesmaids, groom, father, sister . . . jilted ex-lovers? Who’s the jilted ex-lover?”
“I dunno.” Sylvie chewed on the end of her marker. “But if there’s anything Sexy Book Club has taught me, it’s that stable hands can be dukes in disguise and everyone has an angry old flame lurking in the shadows.”
“I know that’s right.” Frannie held up a right hand to testify. “Though most of our old flames have been snuffed out by international espionage or enlarged prostates.”
I had to sit down. “Why isn’t Sasha’s mother on your list?”
“She was at a spa vacation all week,” Frannie said. “Translation: plastic surgery. Lady was totally out of commission.”
“How do you know that?” I asked.
Sylvie smiled. “I sometimes vacation at that same . . . spa. I have sources there.”
Frannie nodded. “They give her discounts, gossip, and plumpy injectables.”
“I try to get Frannie to go, but she won’t have it.”
“The men love this face.” Frannie patted her cheek. “Mess with this God-given gift? Girl, I don’t think so.”
“It’s time to get to work,” Sylvie said. “Let’s move along.”
“Y’all go on.” Frannie plugged in some earphones to a computer that looked a little too military to be from the local tech store. “I’m going to troll around on the internet, peek into some accounts, search some files.”
“It’s best you don’t ask, Paisley.” Sylvie pushed me toward the door. “And I’m driving. Your lack of window tint is just asking for detection from a Soviet satellite.”
* * *
Riding with Sylvie behind the wheel was like driving with a blind Indy 500 racer. On our way to Fayetteville, her sports car zipped and zagged, reaching speed limits that made police officers pull you over and light your license on fire. At multiple points on the half-hour trip, I thought I’d never have to worry about prison because I wasn’t going to survive the car ride.
“Here we are.” Sylvie pulled up to a small brick home, as her British-voiced GPS confirmed we had, indeed, arrived at our destination.
“You let me do the talking.” I jumped ahead of Sylvie on the sidewalk, speed-walking to beat her to the door.
“You have no skill at this yet.” My grandmother tapped her foot in irritation as we stood on the front step. “No instinct to suss out false information. You’re not even packing heat!”
I gasped and turned. “And you are?”
The door opened before my grandmother could respond, but I threw up a prayer to the patron saint of No Bullets just to be safe.
“Paisley, hello.” Phoebe extended her hand and waved us inside. “Come on in. I was just making some tea.” I noticed Phoebe’s smile wavered as much as her voice.
“I hope it’s okay I brought my grandmother with me.” I shot Sylvie a glare, still angry that she was basically a walking WMD. “It was Bingo night at the nursing home, and she has trouble following along.”
Sylvie just grinned.
As we settled into the living room, Phoebe returned in short order bearing a tray of dainty cups and hot tea. It was June. And nearly one hundred degrees. I wanted ice in that stuff.
Phoebe set the tray down on a dark oak coffee table. “You said you wanted to speak to me about . . . Sasha’s death?”
“Yes,” I said, watching the steam rise as she poured. “I have a few questions.”
She set the teapot on the table with a clunk, descended beside me on the sofa, then buried her hands in her face and sobbed.
Sylvie’s eyebrow lifted as she mouthed I’m recording this.
Of course she was. Probably with some gizmo the size of a
Tic Tac dangling from her bra.
“Phoebe, what’s wrong?” I awkwardly patted her back. “I know it’s hard to lose a close friend.” Pat, pat, pat. “I’m sure the absence of Sasha’s friendship is terribly painful.”
She sniffed and blotted her nose with a tissue she pulled from her pocket. “Uh-huh.”
“I find it always helps to talk about the good times,” Sylvie suggested.
“Yes, let’s do that. Good idea.” Phoebe flicked a piece of fuzz from her jeans. She studied the geometric rug on the floor before moving her attention to the fan swirling overhead. Drumming her fingers on her knees, she sighed. “I can’t think of any good times.”
“Not one?” Sylvie asked.
“Well, there was that one time I choked on a cookie at Starbucks, and she slapped me on the back until I coughed it up.”
“She saved your life?” I smiled for encouragement. “That’s very heroic.”
“Actually she just hit me really hard a few times before asking this cute fireman to intervene.”
“So she was thinking of your safety and getting you a handsome guy,” I offered.
“After making sure I was breathing, she left with that handsome guy.”
Sylvie handed Phoebe another tissue. “I’m struggling to see why you’d be best friends with her.”
“I think best friends is probably not an accurate description,” Phoebe said.
“You were only one of three bridesmaids.” I waited for a response, but got none. “Phoebe, I’m sure no matter how Sasha treated you, you can at least take comfort in knowing you were a great friend to her.”
A pitiful wail burst from Phoebe’s lips, and she clutched her stomach. Ugly Cry overtook her once again. “I killed her. Paisley, I killed Sasha!”
My whole body froze. Five minutes and fifteen seconds into this conversation, and I already had a confession? My word, I was amazing at this sleuthing business! I did a mental victory dance involving great skill and impressive hip pops. “Tell me all about it.”
“I can’t. It’s too awful.”
“It will make you feel better.” I gave her hand a bolstering squeeze. “I can’t imagine carrying that burden around another moment longer.”
She blew her nose and looked at my blank-faced grandmother, then at me. “You’re so right. This has been eating me alive.”
“Go on,” I said.
Phoebe took a deep, shuddering breath, her eyes sparkling with tortured tears. “I . . . I’d been giving Sasha my anxiety meds for weeks. She was driving us all nuts, and I’d tried to talk to her about getting a prescription to help her stress level. But she refused. So I just . . . slipped her some of mine. I’d crush them up and put them in her food when we’d go out, slip them in her drink. And it helped. It really did.”
Sylvie and I exchanged confused looks.
“So you drugged her and then knocked her over the head?” Sylvie asked.
“Of course not!” A frown marred Phoebe’s ivory skin. “I didn’t even see Sasha the day of her death. The last time I’d given her a little happy pill was three days earlier when I met her for coffee. But what if it was still in her system? One of the side effects is grogginess. Maybe she was so out of it from the meds that she fell, hit her head, and died. And I’m responsible!”
My confessional victory dance wasn’t going to warrant anything more than a few finger snaps and awkward head bobs. “How much did you slip her?”
“One pill. I was running low.”
“And what was this prescription?” Sylvie asked.
“Prescription?”
“Yes.” Sylvie was losing patience. “What did you give her?”
“ZoCalm.”
“That’s it? That’s all?” My volume rose in an off-key quiver. “That couldn’t harm anyone.”
“Maybe it caused an allergic reaction! A freak response. One time I took a sinus pill and burped for three days straight. ”
I pinched the bridge of my nose and huffed my deep disappointment. “Sasha died of a blow to the head.”
Phoebe covered her gaping mouth with a hand. “I . . . I didn’t do that.” Her volume rose like a squeaky cartoon character. “I didn’t do that!”
“I know.” Disappointment spiraled with the velocity of a crashing jet.
Sylvie uncrossed her legs and leaned toward Phoebe. “Do you know of anyone who wanted to hurt Sasha?”
Phoebe glanced about and lowered her voice, as if she were in danger of being overheard. “It would be easier to tell you who wouldn’t want to hurt her. She had a list of enemies longer than a North Korean dictator’s. She was an angel to me compared to how she treated others.”
“I can’t understand why any of you put up with her,” I said.
“Why hang around someone like that?” Sylvie asked. “Did she have something on you?”
Phoebe picked up a terribly ugly couch pillow and ran her finger over the wavy green pattern. “Sasha . . . Sasha was the nosiest person ever.”
Phoebe clearly didn’t know my grandmother.
“She made it her life’s work to acquire dirt on everyone in her life,” she continued. “Not only did she thoroughly enjoy it, but she used it to her advantage. She kept your secret in return for favors.”
“Like being in her wedding?” I asked.
“That was the least of it.”
Sylvie’s voice went grandmother soft. “And what was she holding over your head, dear?”
Phoebe again made a lengthy study of the carpet beneath her feet.
I looked to Sylvie for help, but she chose that moment to get up and do a slow walk around the room, checking out photographs and knickknacks on the shelves. I could only hope she wasn’t planting a bug.
“We can’t bring her real killer to justice if you don’t speak up,” I said.
Phoebe nibbled her bottom lip. “You promise you won’t repeat what I’m about to tell you?”
I had to level with the girl. “I could be charged with a murder I didn’t commit. I won’t abuse your information, but I also can’t assure you I won’t share it with the authorities if I need to.”
She quietly took a sip of tea, then returned her cup to her saucer. “My parents own Herbal Remedies Clinic. They’re two very successful naturopathic doctors. Surely you’ve seen our ads on TV? My brothers and I have been in them since we were babies.” At my head-shake of no, Phoebe sang, “You don’t need drugs to get rid of those bugs! Can you trust Herbal Remedies to heal you? Naturally!”
“Catchy.”
“If it got out that they couldn’t heal their own daughter’s anxiety, they’d be humiliated. And lose the confidence of their clientele. People come from all over the country to see them.”
“So Sasha knew you had a prescription for ZoCalm?” Big deal.
“I would do anything to not bring shame on my family. My parents have worked so hard for their practice. They don’t even know I take medicine.”
This had gotten me nowhere. I just wanted to slither away and go eat my feelings. “You didn’t kill Sasha, Phoebe. And now your big secret is buried with her.”
“Is it wrong to say I feel relieved?”
“No.” Sylvie returned to her seat. “Quite normal. What about Zoey and Raven?”
“What about them?” Phoebe sat up straighter, as if her burden had been lifted. “I hope the other bridesmaids can find some peace as well.”
“For what?” Sylvie asked.
“Everyone has secrets,” Phoebe said. “Sasha held them over us all like a ransom we couldn’t pay.”
And just how far, I wondered, would those people have gone to keep Sasha quiet?
Chapter Sixteen
“Darn it, Sylvie. I do not have time for dinner and book talk.” I let my grandmother give me a gentle shove inside the doors of the Bayonet, a restaurant housed in a Union blue clapboard building that had served as a hospital during the Civil War. The original floors and light fixtures remained, as reportedly did the ghosts who were known t
o roam the halls late at night.
Sylvie waved toward Emma and Frannie, who sat at a large table enjoying a platter of fries. “If you can’t make time for steak and smut novels, then your priorities are seriously out of whack.”
“Your brain is whack.” Fatigue pinched and punched every muscle in my body.
Sylvie grabbed me and pressed a loud kiss to my cheek. “But you love me anyway.” She slid into her seat across from Frannie and Emma and slapped the empty chair next to her. “Every other week we meet here. The three of us eat the first hour, then book talk with the whole crew the second. You’ll love it.”
“I’m sure.”
“Oh, got a call from your mother. They’re in DC all week before moving on to Seattle. Sold-out shows every night. Said you weren’t returning their calls.”
“I’ve been really busy.” Of course the shows were sold out. When were they not? Everyone clamored for my dad’s message of living your dream, setting goals, and becoming super-achievers. If I were smart, I’d buy tickets and go myself.
“They’re really worried about you, shug.”
“But I’ve got you to keep an eye on me.”
She leaned back in her seat. “Pretty sure that’s the part they’re concerned about.”
“We have intel.” Emma turned to Frannie. “Is that what I call it?”
“Sure, hon.” Frannie handed me a menu. “Our waiter’s Cal Patton’s son.”
Sylvie squeezed a lemon into her water. “The one who quit high school to do acrobatics off the backs of cows?”
“That’s the one. It’s not very profitable, so he needs a side gig.”
“I’m sure the cows are relieved,” Sylvie said.
I turned to my cousin. “Did you say you guys had information or just a livestock report?”
“Tell her, Frannie,” Emma said.
“Jordie Patton says he was waiting tables in here the night before Sasha died.” Frannie leaned in to weave her story. “According to him, the whole Chandler family came in to dine. He says he took a break to call home about Betsy, his prized Holstein who had the sniffles, and who did he see in the lobby arguing?” She paused so long for effect that I wondered if I was expected to raise my hand with a guess. “Mr. Chandler and Sasha. Jordie said they were arguing something fierce.”
Engaged in Trouble (Enchanted Events Book 1) Page 10
