Sensing his anger had isolated him, Kitty placed her hand on top of his, leaning into the table.
“They’ll find who did this,” she assured him.
“I don’t know about that,” he said, shaking his head and meeting her gaze finally. “There were too many guests. That party was pure chaos. Everyone was drunk. Even if someone had seen the killer take the candlestick, who’s to say they’d remember? I barely remember the night.”
Kitty drew in a deep breath and wondered what she could do or say to lift his spirits.
“You’re going to be an excellent best man.”
He shrugged.
She gave him a little pat then withdrew her hand just as Mandy and Erik stepped into the store.
Kitty was on her feet in a jiffy and wrapped her arms around Mandy.
“How are you holding up?” she asked, urging her back so she could study the beautiful woman’s expression.
Mandy only nodded and sighed.
“Johnny was very special to all of us,” Erik supplied on his fiancée's behalf.
“That detective won’t leave Erik alone,” Mandy said, angrily. “We went into the station this morning to see if we could sort this out and get Erik cleared of suspicion, but it only made things worse.”
“We don’t know that,” Erik countered.
“How can you be so naive?” she snapped. “He gave them his fingerprints!”
“I didn’t touch the candlestick! I know I didn’t!”
“Alright,” said Kitty to calm them both down. “I think we need to address the gorilla in the room. Let’s have a seat.”
Mandy and Erik sat close to one another across from Derek. Strangely, the brothers barely acknowledged one another and yet they both couldn’t take their eyes off Mandy.
“Now,” Kitty began in a soft yet authoritative tone. “The wedding is in two days. We need to decide if you both still want to keep the date, or if you’d like to push it back.”
Silence all around.
Mandy and Erik searched each other’s eyes for the right thing to do, but it was Derek who voiced his concern.
“I think you should put it off,” he suggested.
Mandy smirked at Derek, appreciating his concern for his brother as well as the respect he clearly had for Johnny Gibbons.
“That’s what you’ve always wanted,” chided Erik. “To get in our way.”
“What are you talking about?” Derek demanded. “You’re a murder suspect, Erik. Don’t be an idiot! You need to let this ride out! What if they arrest you when you’re standing at the altar?”
“They’re not going to arrest me because I didn’t do it!”
Then Mandy added, “I don’t really want to push the date back.”
Derek was stunned.
“Well, I don’t. Johnny was important to me, to all of us, and going through with the wedding doesn’t take away from how we all feel about him.”
“It’s a bad idea, Mandy,” Derek pleaded. “Don’t marry him.”
“See how he puts things?” Erik shouted, appalled. “I’m so sick of your jealousy!”
“I’m not jealous!”
“You’re not married! You’re older! You think everything should come to you first and me second!”
“Gentlemen!” Kitty shouted. “Please!” She took a breath, while the brothers settled down. “Mandy wants to keep the date. Erik, it seems like you feel the same way?”
“I do,” he said, sticking the words to his brother, who snorted, exasperated.
“Well then that’s that,” she said then shot Derek an apologetic glance.
The man was on his feet, abandoning the meeting. “Let me know where to be and what to do,” he said, tossing his business card on the table. “Email me. Until then I need to get some sleep.”
Kitty waited for Derek to leave the store before she said anything.
“What was that about?” she asked Erik.
Mandy blushed and explained, “Derek’s always had a bit of a crush on me.”
“A bit?” Erik challenged. “Delusions of grandeur is more like it.”
“Why don’t you try feeling sorry for him?” she suggested. “He’s in love with the woman his brother is marrying.”
“Infatuated is more like it,” Erik snapped. “He only wants what’s mine.”
Mandy shrugged as though she wasn’t sure how true the statement was, but she wasn’t about to provoke her fiancé further.
“I’m sure a lot of hearts will break once you’re officially off the market,” Kitty said, meaning to compliment her friend.
“Oh, I don’t know about that.” But Mandy was being modest. She knew.
That’s when it hit Kitty.
Mandy was the prize that no one would win if Erik married her.
If anyone was envied, it was Erik.
So why had Johnny been the one to die?
“Erik, can I speak with you?” Mandy was halfway to the door, and since Kitty didn’t want to alarm the bride, especially since the couple was keeping the date, she needed to speak with the groom privately.
“Go on ahead, Mandy. I’ll be right out.”
Mandy eyed him suspiciously for a moment, but Kitty’s reassuring smile put her at ease, and she nodded then told Erik she’d pull the car up front.
When they were finally alone Kitty met Erik in front of the window display.
“It seems like Johnny was liked across the board,” she began, easing into the quandary at hand.
“He was.” Erik seemed to fall into a stunned daze as though the death of his friend was hitting him all over again.
“It also seems like every man to set eyes on Mandy starts fantasizing about being with her,” Kitty pushed gently into her point.
He snorted a laugh. “I know. People want to see me fail because I’m with her. Sometimes I feel like I have a target on my back.”
“Erik, I think you do.”
He cocked his head at that and shifted his stance uncomfortably.
“What are you talking about?”
Something in her told Kitty not to elaborate. Maybe it was the look in his eye or the way his face went slack and pale, but she stopped herself then and there.
“I’m not sure,” she said, backpedaling. “Nothing, I suppose.”
That only confused him more.
She tried to laugh it off. “I think we all could use some sleep. I’ll give a call tomorrow morning to go over the details of the rehearsal, rehearsal dinner, everything.”
“Okay, sounds good,” he said, though confusion still swarmed him.
Kitty shut the door behind him and watched Erik walk across the sidewalk and climb into Mandy’s Mazda. Once they’d driven out of sight she hurried to her desk in the back of the shop and pulled up the website for the local car impound and jotted down the address and phone number.
All she knew was that the vehicle Johnny was driving, a BMW endearingly referred to as a Beemer, was in fact Erik Coburn’s car. If it hadn’t been Erik’s car, Kitty wouldn’t have been getting the strong—and also bad—feeling that she was. The coatroom had been dark last night, the party pure chaos. And Johnny Gibbons had a lot in common with his best friend. What if the killer had meant to take out Erik, but made the same mistake twice?
It was worth looking into and she knew for sure that Sterling wasn’t doing just that.
The late afternoon sun glared through Kitty’s windshield nearly blinding her as she made her way across town to the vehicle impound on the outskirts of Greenwich. On the way, she managed a precarious job of hunting through all the Greenwich car shops on her cell phone and saving the pages as her gaze snapped from her cell to the road and back again in a manic effort to organize her next step should it come to that.
The Fairfield County Impound was a dismal structure build on a thin stretch of highway between two marshes. A pungent stench hit her like a punch in the face when she climbed out of her Fiat. Luckily, she was mere yards from the entrance.
Ins
ide the air was crisp and refreshing. She approached the counter where a miserable looking sixty-year-old woman was turning a floppy egg sandwich over in her pudgy hands.
“Excuse me,” she said, fearing to interrupt the woman’s unprecedentedly late lunch. “I’m here to see Erik Coburn’s vehicle, if I may.”
“You with the police?” she asked with the vacancy of a slum motel.
Kitty didn’t want to lie, but she saw an in and wasn’t about to blow it, so she simply stated a name, “Detective Sterling Slaughter.”
“Ah, you’re with that guy? Go on through the back, follow the signs through to the lot marked Lot 12. You’ll find your boys there.”
Her boys?
So Sterling had been here, was here, or was soon expected.
“Can you refresh my memory as to the license plate number?”
The woman narrowed her gaze, but only because she felt put out to have to lift a finger. Then she sighed, jotted down the number, and handed it to Kitty.
Kitty held her head high and walked briskly with her heels clicking over linoleum as she followed the signs as instructed.
Erik Coburn’s car wasn’t stacked with the bulk of totaled vehicles. It was positioned in the middle of the concrete lot. There was no one around.
Kitty approached the vehicle with caution. It was a BMW, certainly, and Kitty realized upon closer inspection that it was a blue 2015 M3 sedan. Its entire left side was crushed, where the other vehicle had collided into it, she figured. When she rounded the front of the car, she noticed the right side between the front bumper and right wheel had been badly grazed, perhaps where Johnny had careened into the guardrail. Seeing the damage helped Kitty to form an impression of what had happened. Whoever had sideswiped Johnny and caused the kind of damage that was present would surely have a great deal of damage on the right side of their vehicle. And that’s where her list of mechanics and car shops in the area would come in handy.
Then Kitty realized a critical detail. The windows were tinted. Dark. There was no way to see into the BMW except through the front windshield.
It was then that Kitty was one hundred percent certain that the candlestick had been meant for Erik.
The killer was tenacious. They’d failed to run Erik’s vehicle off the road. They had been a guest of the bachelor party (or bachelorette, but Kitty feared to imagine a woman could’ve done this) and had again taken steps to take Erik’s life, but again attacked the wrong man.
Suddenly, her head was reeling with overwhelming panic. If the killer wasn’t caught, they’d strike again.
Kitty peered into the right window and had to press her nose against the tinted glass before she could see inside.
“You’ve got to be kidding me?”
Kitty jumped at the sound of Sterling’s deep voice behind her and she whipped around facing him. His eyes looked darker than usual and yet the light favored his rugged features, casting alluring shadows over his face and tattooed arms.
If she needed anything in this moment, it was a copy of the accident report. She needed to know the color of the assaulting car. Johnny had known that much and the police had taken his account. So Kitty smiled and sank into her hip, helping her natural curves to accentuate. His eyes flickered at that.
“How’s it going?” she asked, an edge of seduction in her tone that made her wonder if this would go well or terribly wrong. It wasn’t like her to flirt boldly and there was a reason for that. She wasn’t very good at it.
“How’s it going?” he questioned, skeptically. “How about you tell me what you’re doing here.”
“Just wanted to see you.” She felt nervous, which meant she looked nervous and that wouldn’t do. She forced herself to relax, but it wasn’t easy.
Something in his gaze told her he wasn’t buying it.
“You’re being a nosey busy-body again,” he pointed out with insult, but Kitty deflected by broadening her smile.
She leaned back against the crushed car awkwardly. It was bent into such a deep divot that the angle caused her to slump into herself.
“No, I really wanted to see you,” she went on, determined to get from him what she needed. “We probably got off on the wrong foot yesterday.”
A strange smirk came across his face, but it was only a hint that soon disappeared. “How would we have gotten off on the right one?”
As she shrugged and pushed away from the car, an alarmingly loud ripping sound filled her ears. Her mouth popped open, stunned, as she glanced down the back of her dress. It had caught on the jagged car metal. There was a giant hole down the back of her dress.
Sterling laughed. “I could’ve done that if that’s what you came for.”
Blowing her cool, Kitty glared and suddenly words were flying from her mouth. “Oh, Becca didn’t get it out of your system?”
She immediately regretted the snide accusation.
Sterling had a real poker face about him. “No, I guess she didn’t.”
Was that a confirmation that her nemesis had once again succeeded at stealing her man? Or was that his way of saying nothing transpired between them? Kitty couldn’t be sure.
“Jealous of Becca Motley, are you?” He pressed.
“Hardly,” she said, dryly with a bit of an eye roll. She couldn’t properly focus on shaming him, not with her torn dress in her hand, her fanny exposed for all the world to see should she ever step away from this vehicle.
“I asked you a question,” he pushed.
“You did?”
“If you wanted to get off on the right foot, what would you have done differently?”
“I was insulted you left without saying a word,” she admitted. “But, well, what I would’ve done differently is let you know I don’t actually care.”
It hurt her to lie like that, but if he wanted to be cold, she could be colder. Anything he could do she could do better.
He stared at her in such a way that made her shrink even more than leaning into the car dent had. And for a second she thought his heart was aching.
“Good,” he said, cutting her down at the knees. “Then we’re on the same page.”
Well that backfired.
Kitty didn’t want to stand there and grimace or get teary eyed or say something she’d soon regret, so she did what she could to hold her dress tightly and started to round the car in the direction of the impound, anything to escape the back lot that clearly wasn’t big enough for the both of them.
“Why’d you really come?” he called out.
She turned slowly. “What do you want me to say, Sterling?”
“I want you to tell me the real reason.”
She felt like they were talking about so much more than a totaled vehicle, but knowing Sterling, it was probably a one-sided conversation, her hopes swelling beneath the surface and his miles away and completely unrelated to her. Which was why she couldn’t tell him that she’d thought about him nonstop since he'd left, that she was mad at him for disappearing, that she wished they could be together now that he was back, that if she had a regret in life, it was that she hadn’t worked hard enough to win his heart. That was her real curse. She couldn’t go to bed with a man she wasn’t sure loved her. She hadn’t gone there with Sterling, and underneath it all it had been her biggest insecurity. She felt like if she’d allowed him to take her he never would’ve left.
Kitty realized they’d been staring at each other for far too long without words.
“I wanted to see the accident report. I need to know the color of the vehicle that hit Erik’s BMW.”
Sterling held her gaze for a long moment and she anticipated he’d tell her to stay out of his investigation.
“It was black.”
He’d told her the color, but what Kitty heard was that some part of him still wanted her. She smiled.
As she walked away she did a poor job of holding her ripped dress closed, a strange way of saying thank you that she knew only Sterling would appreciate.
*
&
nbsp; “He doesn’t know what the hell he wants!” Kitty exclaimed as she plopped onto Trudy’s couch.
“Aren’t you glad he’s back?” Trudy poured two glasses of Merlot and handed one to Kitty then tucked herself into a cozy armchair, readying herself for the long tale to come.
“Glad. Frustrated. Excited. Heartbroken. I’m feeling so many things about it I could jump out of my skin!” Kitty tried to calm herself by taking a long haul of her wine, but as good as it tasted she was only getting more riled up. “And I know he did something with that trollop Becca Motley, I just know it!”
“He didn’t.”
“How would you know?” she snapped, which caused Trudy’s eyes to widen in a warning. “Sorry, but how on earth would you know?”
“She left before him,” Trudy said easily.
“Oh, that means nothing. She has ways.” Kitty truly was furious, but not at Becca. Her old college nemesis was an easy outlet to vent her anger so she wouldn’t have to deal with the underlying anguish Sterling had caused. Kitty took to muttering and grumbling and sipping her wine like a wound up crazy person, as Trudy looked on in wide-eyed alarm.
Then she popped up from the armchair and scurried behind her Chinese folding screen.
“If you need to turn in,” Kitty began as she watched Trudy’s silhouette rummage around behind the screen. “I can take off. I have some calls to make anyway.”
Trudy appeared with a sage smug in her hand and proceeded to light one end until it began smoking.
“What’s that?”
“We need to clear your negative energy away,” said Trudy.
“Oh, I have every right to be negative. That man is infuriating!”
“I’m not doing this because of Sterling or his effect on you,” she explained, as she waved the sage smug around Kitty’s head. “You’ve had two murders at two weddings in the past two months, and that ain’t right.”
“I know!” Kitty wailed. “What the heck is going on?!”
“I don’t know, but we have to nip this thing in the bud. We don’t want you to get a reputation.”
“Oh, God forbid!” Kitty was truly scared. She’d never get another client so long as she lived if people started thinking of her as a conduit for killing.
“Breathe it in, Kitty,” she instructed. “Let it wash away the bad mojo.”
BRIDE and DOOM (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 2) Page 4
