Engaged in Trouble (Enchanted Events Book 1)

by Jenny B. Jones

  Zoey reached a hand to her ponytail and combed her nails through. “Yeah, I knew about the blackmail. So what? It was just another day in the life of being Sasha’s stepsister.”

  “And you knew she had no intention of wearing the dress you designed for her.” I reached into my back pocket and gently retrieved my phone, holding it behind my back.

  All warmth left her countenance. “Where did you get an idea like that?”

  “I was at the dress shop yesterday. They’re still holding the Zalinza gown your sister intended to wear. The lady who runs the place heard your argument in the store. I know Sasha told you she wouldn’t wear the dress you’d created.” I pressed a button on my phone, activating the voice recorder. “That must’ve been quite the blow. You’d allowed yourself to trust her one more time, and she stabbed you in the back—again.”

  “I got over it.”

  “Did you? Here was the big opportunity she’d promised you. Your chance for the who’s who of Sasha and Evan’s political circles to see your work. And when you found out she’d ordered a gown from London, you knew she’d never intended to follow through on her vow to help you.”

  Zoey’s lashes fluttered as she rapidly blinked tears.

  “You took a DUI for Sasha. Ruined your record for her. Took the fall for her again and fell for her lies.”

  “Yes! I did! I did all of that. And got burned every time. But I didn’t kill her.”

  Why couldn’t she confess already? This never went so slowly on television! Was I wrong? “Did you know I got access to the sign-in sheets for your yoga studio?”

  Zoey’s left eye twitched. “Pretty sure those are confidential.”

  “They probably are. But a few sort of fell into my possession—including the sign-in from the day of Sasha’s murder.”

  “I signed in to my yoga class. Because that’s where I was when Sasha died.”

  “You mean someone signed in for you. The signature for that day is different from the other days you’d signed in. You didn’t go to yoga, did you, Zoey?”

  She dropped her fancy purse on the ground with a clank. “I guess you think you’ve got this all figured out.” She suddenly seemed much taller than I, as she confidently straightened her shoulders and met my stare, unfiltered hatred flaming in her brown eyes. “I wasn’t feeling especially Zen that day.”

  “What were you feeling? Murderous?”

  “A little.”

  I quickly peeked at my cell phone, my thumb accessing the keypad to dial 911. “Are you going to kill me too?”

  “No.” Zoey’s attention shifted past my shoulder. “She is.”

  A hand wrenched my phone from my grip, and I spun around.

  Anna Grace Fielding stood behind me like a demented fangirl.

  “Hello, Paisley.” She waggled her fingers in a wave with one hand and held a gun in the other. “You really shouldn’t have gone to the police about Zoey. It’s a shame things now have to end like this.” Her fist shot out, connected with my jaw, and spun my body toward the rock floor.

  Blood seeped into my mouth as I struggled to push myself up. The church tilted and spun while black dots swam in my vision.

  Anna Grace leaned over me. “I truly love your music, and I hope you don’t take any of this personally.”

  They were the last words I heard before her fist again smashed into my face.

  And someone turned out the lights.

  Chapter Forty

  My eyelids lifted slowly, as my sluggish brain chugged to life. My face felt like I’d been hit by an anvil, and blood pooled near my mouth on the floor. Where was I?

  Awareness wavered like a bad Wi-Fi connection, until I looked through the curtain of my hair and saw the chapel.

  And it all came back to me. Zoey. Anna Grace. A very pointy gun.

  I struggled to rise, and pain shot through my wrists as I realized they were bound—and with the cord of my own glue gun, no less. I blinked against the pungent aroma that hit my nostrils. Smoke!

  I had to get out of here now—and fast.

  “Look who’s awake.” Anna Grace climbed down from my ladder, a cigarette lighter in one hand, her gun in the other. “Just stay right where you are, okay?”

  My head pounding, I looked up to see the canopy of fabric above us, almost completely engulfed. “Are you insane?”

  “My husband thinks so.” Debris fell from the ceiling. “My counselor thinks with the meds that I’m just fine though.”

  I assumed she was definitely off the meds. “Where’s Zoey?”

  “She had a date.” Anna Grace did a swooping circle toward me with her weapon. “This sort of thing isn’t her speed.”

  “But it’s yours?” I pushed myself to a seated position, spitting blood to the floor. Running my tongue across my teeth, I was grateful to not find any gaps.

  “Don’t move another inch. I like you and all, but I won’t hesitate to use my gun.” She sighed heavily. “You were supposed to stay unconscious. Now I’m going to feel bad.”

  I regarded her through one very swollen eye. “And why is that?”

  “Being trapped in a burning building is not something you want to be awake for.”

  It hurt to talk. “You don’t think people are going to be suspicious when they find my body in a burned wedding chapel?”

  “Not really.” Anna Grace sidestepped a fireball of tulle that fell, barely missing her. “You were lighting the candelabra, and one fell and lit the building on fire. In your haste to get out, you slipped and hit your head.” She tsk-tsked. “Darn that stone floor. Pretty, but not sensible. It could trip anyone up. Especially someone who wears such impractical shoes.”

  Right now I wanted to stab the heel of my impractical shoe right through Anna Grace’s forehead. “I still don’t understand your connection here. Did your husband have anything to do with Sasha’s murder?”

  “Not a thing. He loves the ladies. You think he’d purposely kill one off?” Her hyena-cackle didn’t slow her down from lighting the first candle. “Lots of fabric you have there.” She pointed her gun to the dropped ceiling above us. “Highly flammable—and highly convenient. Thank you.”

  I was desperate to stall Anna Grace or at least distract her. My phone rested a few feet away, and if I could grab it, I could call for help. I prayed feverishly for divine intervention—or at least some participating sprinklers. “Humor me as I fill in the blanks before I die.” My fingers tugged on the knotted cord at my wrists. “Zoey was the master planner, and you’re just the hired help?” One thing I had in my favor was that Anna Grace loved to talk.

  She admired her fiery handiwork. “Zoey and I met at a university art event a few months ago. We had a few too many cocktails and traded Sasha Chandler sob stories. Zoey was torqued over her sister’s lies and abuse, and I was sick of my husband handing that witch every dime we made. That gal lived like a queen, while I had to sell my house and car? I was done.” She lit two more candles with one hand, the gun still trained on me. “Then Zoey offered me a sum of money I couldn’t refuse.”

  “To do her dirty work?”

  “It wasn’t that hard. I started following Sasha around, carrying a few options for her death—poison, a bullet, a setup for a fake a suicide. But when I saw Carson go into your shop after her, I lost it. How dare he still talk to her? It was as though he couldn’t stay away. ”

  “He said he told Sasha he was done paying her,” I said.

  “Do you think I’d believe a word he says after all this time?” Anna Grace yelled. “After all his infidelities?” She shook her head and mumbled to herself. “You and your employees were so busy that no one noticed me coming in with the florist’s crew. I found them in that little room. He left, and she got up to go fix her makeup. As if her tears were even real! When she came back in, she was delightfully tipsy. We swapped a few insults, and when I swung that champagne bottle, she didn’t even have the reflexes to move.”

  “And Zoey’s role?”

  “I call
ed her after the fact, and she was my getaway car.”

  Something loosened in the cording, and I continued to pull and jerk every time Anna Grace took her eyes off me. “Is this really worth your going to prison?”

  Anna grace grabbed a fat ivory candle and dropped it in the fabric seat of a pew, then walked toward me, hatred punching her every word. “I put my dreams on hold for eight years while he went to school, and I paid the bills. And what do I get in return? Just when we finally start making some bank on his art, this bimbo comes along and tears him away from me. Then has the nerve to charge us for it?”

  “You couldn’t just divorce the man?”

  “I didn’t intend to set him up for Sasha’s murder. I’m not that good at this.” Her words were so dry, so droll. “It just happened. And it worked perfectly in my favor. My husband rots in a cold cell while I cash in on all his stupid artwork. He’s got a whole basement of those paintings, and I’m unloading every one of them and taking a long European vacation.”

  “It’s not too late. You can still make things right and let me go.”

  “Nah.” She coughed and covered her mouth with the collar of her shirt. “This is probably my cue to leave.”

  “Do you really want to be the one person responsible for making a future Electric Femmes reunion tour impossible?”

  A beam above our heads buckled. “Don’t think I don’t feel contrite,” she said as she moved out of range. “I do. Just as I felt bad about slashing your tires and trashing your house. But the good news is, rock stars and authors are often more famous after their death. Maybe they’ll name a flavor of Ben and Jerry’s ice cream after you.”

  Wasn’t that just a comforting thought?

  “You can quit waiting for the fire alarms to turn on, by the way. I’ve disabled them. Heaven knows we don’t want the police to join our party too soon.”

  Smoke filled the space as surely as it filled my lungs. “Can I make”—a violent cough seized my lungs—“one dying request?”

  She lit two more pews. “I guess.”

  “I’m going to need you to coldcock me again so I’m not conscious when the fire gets me.”

  Her eyes narrowed, but she relented. “That seems fair.”

  Anna Grace strolled toward me with all the confidence of one getting away with murder. Her gun barrel close to my head, she leaned down and drew back her fist. A loud groan sounded above us, and as the fire-drenched ceiling beam wrenched free of its steel shackles and catapulted toward us, I knew this was my moment.

  I launched my body into Anna Grace, my head plowing into her gut. We both went tumbling to the floor, and her gun skidded beneath a pew as the beam crashed to the ground—an explosion of wood and flame, shaking us like an earthquake. I cried out as a piece splintered and struck my leg.

  “Get off me!” she yelled. “It’s over!”

  “Not for me!” I shouted aloud for the sake of my own ears. It couldn’t be over for me. I kicked and thrashed with my legs while jerking on my restraints. A relentless scream sounded over the roar of the fire, and I realized it was coming from my lips.

  Anna Grace had a good twenty-five pounds on me and used that advantage to heave me up by the arms. “I never liked the song ‘Band Boys Make Better Boyfriends’!” Her right hook connected with my cheek.

  Pain seared my bones, and I fought for consciousness. “That song bought me my first BMW.” Fabric from the ceiling fell in hot licks of fire at our feet, and I kicked out to drive my heel into Anna Grace’s thigh.

  “Ow!” Coughing and sputtering, she pulled my left arm, angling my body for her next blow.

  And loosening the cord that held me captive.

  Freedom!

  As smoke threatened to swallow us, Beau’s self-defense lesson became a spasm of images in my brain. Elbow down? Twist an arm? Grab her head? What was I supposed to do?

  The pew beside us exploded into a fireball, as Anna Grace clutched my shoulder. Muscle memory and panic fused, energizing my hand to slap over hers. With a mighty yell, I bent her wrist toward her body, thrilling at the sound of her scream. Taking advantage of her pause, I yanked her toward the ground. As her crazy head passed my waist, I lifted my knee and plowed it right into her nose.

  Use your elbows! Use your elbows! Beau’s instructions became a litany in my frenzied thoughts, and I swung madly, making wild arcs with my pointy elbows, pummeling Anna Grace’s face, her ear, her throat—until she collapsed into a heap to the floor.

  I leapt away from her, grabbed my cell phone, shoved it down my shirt, and began to run, dodging debris and particles dripping from the portal of hell above me that was the ceiling. Anna Grace called out, but I kept moving, my eyes nearly swollen shut from abuse and smoke. As I made my way toward the front doors, the air became too thick, too heavy to breathe. Dropping to all fours, I crawled, coughed, and prayed.

  Please, God, let me get out of here alive. I have so much to live for.

  Images of my time here floated before me. My grandmother, Frannie, even Beau.

  I thought of all I’d miss, all I had yet to do. Emma’s wedding. Enchanted Events. The beauty that was Sugar Creek, Arkansas.

  Coughs racked my body, and tears burned dirty trails down my cheeks.

  Almost there.

  Not much further.

  Visibility down to nothing, I used my hands to feel for the path. I had to be near the door.

  Behind me the fire roared like a demented monster, and he was consuming everything in his path as he came to get me.

  My hands slapped at the floor, and my head bumped into a pew.

  Keep going, Paisley. You can do this. You have to.

  Breaking every rule of fire survival, I opened my mouth and began to sing, something I hadn’t done in nearly a year. It was a silly little tune from my total flop of a solo album. A song that had helped tank my career, but I warbled out its words of love and hope, of power and freedom.

  My fingers finally hit smooth wood, and I knew I’d reached the doors.

  Still singing, I stood on wobbly legs and swayed.

  Then peeled one of the giant doors open.

  The fresh air rushed to greet me, but it couldn’t hold me, and my body lurched.

  As darkness swam around me, I stumbled onto the pavement, music still on my lips.

  I had made it.

  I had escaped.

  Death had not won.

  Chapter Forty-One

  I awoke to sirens. And pain.

  “Just breathe, ma’am.” From the one bleary eye that seemed to be working, I saw an attractive man in a navy uniform holding an oxygen mask over my face. “Don’t try to move.”

  Move? I wanted to sleep for a hundred years.

  “Stay with us.” He shined a light in my face. “Can you tell us your name?”

  I mumbled something I hoped was coherent, then let my eyelids drift closed. “Too bright.”

  “We’re taking you to Mercy Hospital. We’ll be there soon. You’re going to be okay.”

  You’re going to be okay.

  Tears slipped down my cheeks.

  I was safe. I was alive. With my whole life ahead of me.

  “Phone. In my bra.”

  “Ma’am?”

  “Please. Get phone. Play voice memo.”

  “That was some fire,” his female partner said as she took a hesitant peek down my shirt. “You’re lucky to have made it out.”

  I nodded as best as I could with the brace around my neck. “Someone else in the church,” I managed.

  The cute EMT shook his head. “As far as I know, you’re the only one who made it out.”

  * * *

  Time slipped away from me like fog in my hand.

  When I roused again, I found myself in a pale green hospital room with an oxygen tube rudely stuck up my nostrils and three anxious faces nearby.

  “Hey, shug.” Sylvie lightly patted my bruised hand. “How you feeling? You’ve got quite the shiner.”

  “I took a picture
of it,” Frannie told her. “That’s one for the wall of fame.”

  Emma rose from her chair beside the bed. “You gave us quite a scare.”

  “I heard it all on my scanner,” Sylvie said. “It’s the reason we got here with the ambulance.”

  “That and Sylvie driving fast enough to break the sound barrier.” Frannie brushed a strand of hair from my forehead. “Saw you hoisted out of that ambulance like a champ.”

  I licked my busted lip and tasted copper. “How long have I been out?”

  “About four hours.” Sylvie held my hand. “Your face looks like pulverized meat, sweet thing, and once the swelling goes down, they want to check for a break in your nose and jaw. But you’re alive.” She lightly kissed the top of my head. “Thank the good Lord you’re alive.”

  “Not much left of the chapel,” Frannie said.

  “Emma.” I rested a moment and breathed. “Your wedding.”

  She gave a lopsided grin. “It’s fine. We’ll postpone it and find a new location. The important thing is you’re safe.”

  “Zoey Chandler.” I started to rise, but Sylvie held me down.

  “You stay put. The police took Zoey into custody.” Gratitude shone in her blue eyes. “I’m so proud of you.”

  Frannie grinned. “You cracked the case.”

  “Barely.” The sludge in my brain started to clear. “Just throwing darts at a hunch.”

  “Well, it worked,” Sylvie said. “Because you’re one of us. You’ve got a nose for trouble.”

  Frannie tilted her head. “I hope the fact that it’s now a little crooked doesn’t affect that.”

  Sylvie walked to the door and stuck her head out. “She’s awake now,” I heard her say.

  Moments later Beau walked in, wearing faded jeans and a face of concern.

  “Why don’t we go get some coffee and talk about alternate wedding locations?” Sylvie reached for her purse.

  “Great idea,” Emma said, following Sylvie and Frannie outside.

  The man sure knew how to fill a room. I was sure I looked like a train had mowed me down—yet he was a sight for my very sore eyes.