Wed or Alive

by Laura Durham

  Sherry leaned forward. “That’s the problem. Those rich kids run wild. Not to mention, none of the Hamilton children can stand each other.”

  I thought back to the brief interactions I’d had with Veronica’s younger brother and sister. Had there been any bickering?

  “The two younger ones think Veronica is the golden child, and they’re jealous of all the attention she gets,” Sherry said. “The wedding hasn’t helped. Then there’s the issue with the father’s company.”

  “What issue?”

  She refilled her cup. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this.”

  “This is between us,” I said. “If anyone understands tough clients, it’s me.”

  Sherry shuddered. “After dealing with Veronica during the wedding planning, I don’t know how anyone can do what you do.”

  “Some days neither can I,” I said, being completely honest.

  “The bride’s brother, Victor, was supposed to take over the company. Mr. Hamilton has talked for years about handing it down to his son, and Victor seemed eager to take over. That is, until Veronica graduated from college and couldn’t find a job. She started working for her father and seems to have a knack for business. Now the old man’s talking about handing the reins over to her or splitting it between the two.”

  “I take it Victor isn’t thrilled about this?”

  “Not by a long shot. He’s accused Veronica of stealing the business from him. There have been some pretty big blowouts about it.”

  Could anger over a business translate to having your sister kidnapped?

  “What about the youngest sister?”

  “Val,” Sherry said. “The one who gets overlooked the most. Mr. Hamilton never even considered giving her a part in the business. She isn’t as power hungry as the other two, which means they sometimes forget about her and that makes her bitter, although she hasn’t gotten in nearly as much trouble as the older two.”

  “I have a hard time imagining Veronica getting in trouble,” I said. The bride struck me as type A.

  Sherry laughed. “Remember how I mentioned the rough rich-kid crowd? Well, Veronica got in a little too deep with them and had to get straightened out. To give her credit, the stint in rehab really got her to clean up her act.”

  I nearly slipped off the edge of the chair. “The bride’s been in rehab?”

  “Where do you think she met the groom?”

  Chapter 12

  “The bride and groom met in a rehab facility?” I knew this was not the story they gave me when we first met, not that I would be eager to share that tidbit either.

  “More of a rehab spa,” Sherry said. “The bride went for alcohol, but I think the groom went for drugs, although nothing heavy.”

  This explained why the parents of the bride weren’t crazy about their daughter’s choice of fiancé. It also explained why an intense woman like Veronica would have selected a guy so different from herself. “So were the Hamiltons happy when their oldest daughter brought back a fiancé as a souvenir from rehab?”

  Sherry snorted. “You should have heard the fights. Of course, that only made Veronica dig her heels in harder. She was always headstrong, and being told no never went over well with her.”

  “But her parents finally gave in or we wouldn’t be here,” I said. “I wonder if the bride had second thoughts earlier today.”

  Sherry tapped her paper cup on the desk. “What do you mean?”

  I gave a shake of my head. “It doesn’t matter now, but my hairdresser reported that the bride wanted to call off the wedding right before she went missing.”

  Sherry’s mouth dropped open. “Does Mrs. Hamilton know? She’ll be thrilled.”

  I thought it was an odd thing to say considering the circumstances. “Do you really think she cares about who her daughter marries at this point?”

  Sherry’s smirk vanished. “No, you’re right. I’m sure all both parents want is to get her back. But the icing on the cake would be if she doesn’t get married after all.”

  My mind went to the elaborate tents being set up to make guests feel like they’d been transported to Carnival in Venice, the five-course meal Richard had created to go with the Venetian theme, and the penguins frolicking in the pool. I did not imagine disassembling the entire production to be the happy end to this story. If Kate and Veronica were kidnapped and the wedding called off, I might need to stay in bed for a week.

  “What’s the groom’s story?” I asked, noticing Sherry slumping further down in her office chair.

  “Tad?” Sherry sat up straighter. “He’s from California, which is enough to send Mr. Hamilton off the rails. He’s convinced he’s a hippie who’ll convince Veronica to be more socially conscious and give all her money to charity.”

  That didn’t sound so bad to me. There were probably better ways to spend half a million dollars than a lavish wedding, although I knew other people’s over-the-top spending was the reason I had a job. “Is he?”

  Sherry eyed the whiskey bottle but didn’t reach for it. “He seemed like a nice enough kid to me. A lot nicer than the Hamilton kids, that’s for sure. I’ve been dealing with those spoiled brats for years, and I’d take Tad over any one of them. He may not have come from a wealthy family or gone to an Ivy League school, but he was always nice to me.”

  “To me too.”

  Sherry held up a finger. “You can tell a lot about a person by the way they treat people who work for them. It’s why you should never date someone who’s mean to a waiter.”

  “That’s what my assistant, Kate, always says.” I heard my voice crack. “She has a lot more dating experience than I do, and that’s one of her hard-and-fast rules.”

  “Smart girl. Is she the one who was taken along with Veronica?”

  I nodded, the lump in my throat preventing me from speaking.

  Sherry leaned over the desk and lowered her voice. “Can I give you some advice? Don’t count on anyone in this house to care about your assistant. They may say they do, but this family only looks out for its own.”

  I took a few moments to digest this. “Are you saying they would let something happen to Kate?”

  “Put it this way, honey. I’ve been working for them for over twenty years, and I wouldn’t trust them as far as I could throw them.” She splashed some whiskey into her paper cup and held the bottle out to me.

  “Why do you keep working for them?” I asked, shaking my head at the offer.

  “They pay me handsomely.” She tossed back the drink. “Not every job would enable a single mom to send her child to private school and college, but this one has.”

  Knowing how expensive private schools in the DC area were, she wasn’t kidding about being paid well. I glanced at a framed photo of Sherry with her arms around a young woman with bushy brown hair. “Is that your daughter?”

  She smiled and her face changed entirely, the harsh lines around her mouth and eyes seeming to evaporate. “Stephanie makes it worth all the hassles.”

  Voices in the hallway prompted me to turn around as the door opened, and I recognized the pair of heads that appeared, along with a hint of hair spray and cigarette smoke.

  “Oh, good,” the bride’s younger sister said when she spotted us. “One of you should be able to help us.”

  The few times I’d met her, Veronica’s younger sister had struck me as a toned-down version of the bride. Shorter and less voluptuous with mousy brown hair, Val didn’t have the presence of her big sister.

  “Val,” Sherry said with little enthusiasm. “What seems to be the problem?”

  Val either didn’t notice Sherry’s nonplussed tone or didn’t care. “We had to get away from my mother. She’s being impossible.” She jerked a thumb behind her to a girl with dark hair pulled into a French twist that I recognized as one of the cousins. “So Cara and I came down on a mission to find more chilled champagne.”

  I stood up. “I can locate that for you. Have you already gone through everything upstairs?”r />
  Val made a pouty face. “My sister’s college friends are lushes. Now they’re all sitting around wailing about Veronica.”

  “Not that we aren’t upset,” Cara added, shaking her head.

  “Speak for yourself.” Val flipped her hair off her shoulders. “I’m telling you, this is another one of Veronica’s stunts. She has to have all the attention, and what could get more attention than faking your own kidnapping?”

  Cara’s cheeks flushed, and she seemed embarrassed by her cousin’s wild accusation. “Why would she need more attention? She’s already a bride.”

  Val rolled her eyes. “To a guy everyone hates. Now that our parents decided to go along with it, she realized she didn’t want to marry the guy in the first place, so instead of calling off the wedding, she pretends to be kidnapped.”

  I looked at Sherry to see what she thought of this theory, and her expression told me she thought it was as farfetched as I did. “Even if Veronica decided to stage her own kidnapping, which I don’t think she did, my assistant would never go along with it.”

  Val hesitated. “I forgot that the blond girl is missing too.”

  I tried to keep my voice even. “That blond girl is my assistant, and she would never do something like this to terrify people.”

  Val didn’t meet my eyes. “Well if this is real, I feel sorry for your assistant. My father may love Veronica the most, but he loves his money and reputation more. If they’re counting on him to save the day, they’re screwed.”

  We all watched as she stalked off down the hall.

  “I should apologize for my cousin,” Cara said. “Emotions are running a little high, and she’s had too much to drink.”

  “It’s not your fault,” I said. “And I’m sure Val is more worried about her sister than she’s letting on.”

  Sherry made a noise behind me that told me she wasn’t so sure, but I ignored it.

  “And don’t believe all the bad things she says about her father.” Cara looked over her shoulder. “Val has issues with him because she’s convinced Veronica is his favorite, but Uncle Stephen isn’t as bad as she makes him out to be.”

  “Do you still want me to find some champagne?” I asked.

  Cara laughed. “Probably not the best idea. I may try to scrounge up some coffee for Val.”

  “Check with the catering staff in the garage,” I said, gesturing to the door at the end of the hall leading to the makeshift garage kitchen. “They may have the coffee pots plugged in by now.”

  “Thanks,” she said as she stepped out of the room.

  “So not all the family is high-maintenance,” I said, turning around to face Sherry.

  “Because she wasn’t raised by the Hamiltons,” Sherry said. “She’s the only daughter of Mrs. Hamilton’s sister. Cara didn’t grow up indulged like her cousin since her mother didn’t marry into money.”

  “So Mrs. Hamilton didn’t come from money?”

  “Not by a long shot. You’ve heard the expression ‘the wrong side of the tracks’?”

  I thought back to the old woman I’d met earlier who’d claimed to be Mrs. Hamilton’s mother. If it was true the bride’s mother came from a different class, the old lady would make sense. “I did meet the grandmother earlier.”

  Sherry rolled her eyes. “Mrs. Hamilton does her best to keep her mother at arm’s length. I can count on one hand the number of times she’s visited in all the years I’ve been here.”

  “I can understand why.”

  “Can’t you though?” Sherry shook her head. “You have to give it to Deborah. She’s done an amazing job of creating her new persona and distancing herself from her trashy family. You’d never guess she had any connection to them.”

  “But Cara seems nice. Not rough around the edges like her grandmother.”

  “She’s had the advantage of the Hamilton money without being spoiled rotten like the Hamilton kids. Can you keep a secret?” Sherry asked, lowering her voice, but not waiting for me to reply. “Mrs. Hamilton sends her sister money every month. From what I’ve seen, her mother and sister make her feel guilty for leaving and striking it rich with her husband.”

  “She only sends money to the sister?” I asked. “Not her mother?”

  “She bought her mother a house. Granted, it’s somewhere in the Midwest, so it cost peanuts compared to houses around here.”

  “Does Mr. Hamilton know?” I asked, wondering what a man so concerned with amassing wealth would think about bankrolling extended family.

  “I can’t say.” Sherry spread her palms wide on top of the wooden desk. “I do know the Hamilton children don’t know, which is a good thing for Cara. I doubt they’d be as fond of their cousin if they knew she was inadvertently dipping into their future inheritance.”

  “You don’t paint a pretty picture of the Hamilton siblings.”

  Sherry held her palms open and swept them wide. “They’re a product of all this. I don’t think they had much of a chance to turn out selfless.”

  “There’s a big difference between selfless and cold-hearted. Veronica’s sister seemed callous about the whole situation.”

  Sherry sat forward. “And you haven’t even met the brother yet.”

  I realized the difficulty was not going to be finding people motivated to get rid of Veronica. The tough part would be finding people who weren’t.

  I stood to leave, then remembered one of the reasons I’d come to talk to her. “Are the security cameras over the front door live feed only or do they record?”

  Sherry’s eyes shifted down. “I wondered when that might come up.”

  “What? Are the cameras fake?” I knew some businesses put up fake cameras to scare off potential robbers, but I couldn’t imagine the Hamiltons cheaping out on security when the father had hired a private team.

  “They aren’t fake,” Sherry said. “They just haven’t been recording for a few weeks.”

  I waited for a beat before prodding the woman. “Why?”

  Sherry blew out her breath. “I suppose it’s going to come out at some point, but Mrs. Hamilton had me turn them off so there wouldn’t be evidence.”

  I felt my pulse quicken. Was Mrs. Hamilton somehow involved in her own daughter’s kidnapping? “Evidence of what?”

  “Of her affair with Mr. Hamilton’s business rival and her best friend’s husband, Tarek Nammour.”

  Chapter 13

  “Do you think it’s too much?” Alexandra stood back from the towering wedding cake and assessed the flowers Buster and Mack were attaching to the front of the rolling cake table.

  The cake itself stood five tiers high with a cushion of tightly packed white roses between the tiers. Each tier mimicked one of the elaborate designs from Carnival masks—a multicolored diamond pattern on the large bottom tier, crimson with gilded leaves above it, black and gold swirls covering the next layer, glittering blue accents on the penultimate tier, and the top layer covered in iridescent gold fondant and imbedded with jewels. A duo of Venetian masks made of sugar and exquisitely detailed with metallic rope and feathers perched on the top in lieu of a traditional bride and groom figurine.

  Buster straightened up from where he bent over attaching a curtain of white orchids extending from the base of the cake down the tablecloth to the floor. “I thought the whole theme of the wedding was ‘too much.’”

  “He’s right,” I said as I joined them in the kitchen. “If the opera singer, footman, and doge to welcome guests aren’t too much, I doubt the cake will put it over the top.”

  I was still reeling from everything I’d learned from Sherry, but I wanted to digest the information and what it might mean before sharing it with everyone. Focusing on wedding prep would be the perfect way to distract my overwhelmed mind.

  “Annabelle!” Alexandra rushed up to me and enveloped me in a hug. “The boys brought me up to speed. I’m so distraught about our dear Kate.”

  I inhaled her familiar scent of sugar mixed with expensive perfume. “Thanks
, but we’re going to get her back. And the bride.”

  Alexandra pulled back. “Of course I’m worried about Vanessa as well.”

  “Veronica,” I corrected.

  “Right. Her too.” Alexandra turned her attention back to the cake. “Do you think Van—I mean Veronica, will like it?”

  “It’s exactly what she described and what you sketched out. I think it’s perfect.”

  Alexandra let out a whoosh of breath. “The one drawback of living in Scotland and flying back to DC to do cakes is I don’t get to know the brides.”

  “Isn’t that also the reason you moved to Scotland?” I said. “So you wouldn’t have to interact with brides.”

  She winked at me. “I didn’t say it was a drawback I minded.”

  “So what’s the verdict on the tablecloth of orchids?” Mack asked, holding a spray of phalaenopsis orchids in one hand.

  I appraised the cascading white orchids. “The clients want lush, and this is lush. I think they’ll love it.”

  Buster began attaching the blooms again, but Mack came over to me. “Is there anything we can do to help get Kate back. Aside from the obvious?”

  I knew for Buster and Mack the obvious was praying, while for me the obvious was poking around where I probably shouldn’t. I put an arm around his shoulders, but my own arm only reached halfway across his back. “The best thing we can do now is prepare for the wedding as if nothing is wrong. Chances are good the dad will pay the ransom, and the bride and Kate will be back here in plenty of time for this wedding to happen.”

  Mack raised a pierced eyebrow. “Are you sure the bride will want to get married after being kidnapped?”

  I knew my desire to act as if everything was normal was more for myself than anything, but I also knew if we didn’t keep busy, we’d go crazy with worry. “I’ve always said it takes a lot to stop a bride. We’ve had weddings in the immediate aftermath of hurricanes and during code orange terror warnings, remember?”

  “Those aren’t my best work memories,” Buster said, his voice little more than a gravelly rumble.