by Laura Durham
Review To A Kill
Laura Durham
Broadmoor Books
Contents
Book Summary
Review to a Kill
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
**Agatha Award-winning Series!**
* * *
A bride with a talent for scathing online reviews. A list of victims longer than a receiving line. Was one of them angry enough to murder her?
For wedding planner Annabelle Archer, bridezillas come with the territory. But the latest difficult diva is also known for poisonous online reviews. When she and her groom are shot, the police don’t need to look any further than the victims of the bride’s one star reviews for potential suspects. Unfortunately, Annabelle and her colleagues are at the top of that list and rising fast as other suspects are murdered.
Review to a Kill
An Annabelle Archer Wedding Planner Mystery
By Laura Durham
Chapter 1
“This rain is going to ruin the view of the White House.” I threw open one of the french doors that led to the Hay-Adams Hotel’s narrow balcony overlooking both Lafayette Park and the most famous address in Washington, DC.
The gray clouds that hung over the city had been sending a steady mist of rain since the morning and, as it was now midafternoon, my hopes for a sunny wedding day, along with my hopes for a happy bride, were dwindling fast. I stepped onto the balcony and let the fine droplets settle on my skin. I breathed in the fresh scent of rain and felt glad it had washed away the pollen haze that had been hanging over the city for the past week, even if it did have to happen on the one day I needed clear skies. I ignored the clattering noise of the wedding band setting up behind me and took a moment to soak in the relative peacefulness of standing nearly ten stories above the city on a sleepy, rainy Saturday.
I reached into the pocket of my dress and felt for the packet of gummi bears my assistant, Kate, had given me earlier in the day. I popped a few into my mouth and savored the sugar rush. They were probably the only calories I’d get until much later that night so I didn’t feel guilty about them. I held up the Cellophane candy packet to Buster, one half of my floral designing duo, and jiggled it.
He shook his head, pulling at his brown goatee with his fingers. “I’m too stressed to eat right now.”
“Don’t worry. It might clear up,” I said, dropping the candy back into my pocket and patting Buster on his thick tattooed arm. I didn’t fully believe what I said but, as the owner of Wedding Belles, one of DC’s top wedding-planning companies, I’d learned that is was crucial to keep my creative team positive on the wedding day. Even if that meant lying to them.
Buster raised his eyebrows and the motorcycle goggles he wore on his forehead followed. “It’s hard to pull off a springtime in Paris theme when it looks like a hurricane’s brewing outside.”
“Don’t you think you’re exaggerating a bit?”
Buster was usually the more even-keeled half of the floral design duo from Lush. His partner, Mack, was equally tattooed and leather-clad with a dark red goatee instead of a brown one but, generally speaking, the more emotional of the pair. I hoped Buster’s nerves didn’t mean that Mack was in a full-scale meltdown.
I turned from the view to look for Mack and glanced over the ballroom that had been transformed into springtime in Paris. One of the biggest selling points for holding a wedding at the Top of The Hay, the name for the iconic hotel’s rooftop ballroom, was the two walls of glass french doors that wrapped around the L-shaped room and provided both natural light and a stunning view. It was the perfect pick for a bride wanting any type of garden theme, and it had been a natural fit for our bride who wanted to recreate Paris in the spring. Whitewashed Eiffel Towers were interspersed between the towering arrangements of pink tulips on a runner of grass that extended the length of the long, rectangular tables. A tiny easel sat at the top of each place setting with a guest’s name painted over a pastel impressionist background, and white ladder-backed chairs wore pale-pink tulle skirts.
“There you are,” I said as I spotted Mack walking toward us under the hanging flower garden that Buster had installed in the ceiling alcove over the dance floor.
Mack dodged a hanging tulip. “Well, I delivered the bride’s bouquet.”
“And?” I asked, not sure if I wanted to know the bride’s reaction.
Mack flopped down in a nearby chair. “Let’s just say that if I cursed, now would be the time I’d pick some choice words about our bride.”
I cringed. Mack and Buster were members of a Christian biker gang, and I’d never heard a swear word leave their lips.
Buster closed the french doors. “She didn’t like the collar of nerines around the tulips?”
“Who knows what she hated more?” Mack tugged at a loose thread on his black leather vest. “She said it gave her a headache.”
“The scent of it?” I asked. “I thought you specifically chose flowers with no scent.”
“I did,” Mack said. “She approved every flower in the whole wedding, remember?”
“How could I forget?” I recalled every painstaking moment of the planning ordeal with Tricia, from bringing blooms to her house for her to sniff test to sending her MP3 files of every song the band played so she could eliminate songs that were in a key she found irritating to having the chef forward her the ingredient list for every bite that would be served so she could identify offending foods.
“So she’s not going to carry it down the aisle?” Buster asked.
“She’s not going to walk down the aisle.” Kate stood in the open doorway across from us, her hands on her hips and the toe of one high heel thumping on the carpet.
I closed my eyes and dropped my head for a second. “Not this again.”
“Yep. She claims the stress has made her too sick to attend her own wedding.” Kate strode across the room, her blond bob bouncing with each step. She had long legs that she preferred to show to their full advantage with short skirts, even on a wedding day, so her fitted black dress stopped several inches north of her knees. When she reached Mack, she sat in the chair next to him, crossing her legs so that her dress rose even higher on her thighs.
“How can she be stressed?” I asked. “We’ve done everything for her.”
“Beats me.” Kate shrugged. “But I never understood all the syndromes she claims to have.”
Buster held up one finger. “There’s the hypersensitivity to light.”
“And migraines brought on by the scent of lilies,” Mack said. “And garden roses and peonies and lily of the valley.”
Kate snapped her fingers. “And don’t forget that anything louder than a speaking voice can make her swoon.”
“Why is she having a wedding in the first place?” Buster asked. “It’s filled with all the things she claims make her sick.”
“I’m sympathetic to the girl if she really has all these problems,” Mack said. “I know what it’s like to get a migraine. But her symptoms seem to come and go.”
Kate lowered her voice. “She’s an attention whore. Why else would you be such a hypochondriac?”
Mack swatted at her. “Language, young lady.”
Kate rubbed her arm where Mack had made contact. “Sorry, but I stand by my assessment. Annabelle and I caught her doing one of those Insanity workout DVDs when she claimed to be too exhausted to get out of bed.”
“It’s true,” I said. “She cancelled one of our first meetings so we decided to drop her welcome box off at her house as a surprise.”
“The surprise was us catching a glimpse of her working out like a maniac through a gap in her front curtains.” Kate shook her head. “I knew she couldn’t look as buff as she does by staying in bed all the time.”
“Did you call her on it?” Buster asked.
“No. We mentioned it to her mother but she said that Tricia was in therapy to work through her hypochondria and need for attention and that we shouldn’t say anything or it would make it worse.”
“Worse than this?” Buster’s motorcycle goggles lifted with his eyebrows.
Kate touched Buster’s thick forearm. “That’s what I said.”
“Since she’s a rich hypochondriac who needs a lot of attention, her mother thought the wedding would actually help,” I said. “What better way to get more attention than a big wedding?”
“Not if you don’t show up for it,” Mack said.
I shook my head. “I’m sure she’s bluffing.”
“She probably needs some of the patented Annabelle Archer Zen,” Kate said. She loved to tease me about being able to calm down even the most nervous brides just by being around them. So far, though, Tricia Toker had pushed the limits of even my Zen energy.
I sighed and mentally steeled myself for the bride’s histrionics. “I’ll go check on her. Fern should be done with everyone’s hair by now.”
“Fern is not done because Fern can’t work under these conditions.” The hairstylist to Washington’s most elite, and all of our brides, stood in the doorway of the ballroom with a can of hairspray in one hand and a round brush in the other. Since Fern always tried to dress to the theme of the wedding, he wore a navy and white striped boatneck T-shirt with white pants and a navy beret. I noticed that his beret had slipped from its earlier jaunty tilt, and strands of dark hair had escaped from his low ponytail. He threw his brush on the floor. “Fern quits.”
Chapter 2
I held Fern’s hand as we rode down the hotel elevator, listening to the soft pings as we passed each floor. It had taken a significant amount of convincing to get him into the elevator with me, and I held his hand partly to comfort him and partly to make sure he wouldn’t make a dash for it when the doors opened.
I took a deep breath to brace myself for the impending interaction with the bride and inhaled the scent of designer hair products that surrounded Fern. I knew it was a mixture of the ones he wore on his own hair and the ones he used on his clients. The only time I ever smelled like expensive hair product was when I allowed Fern to do my hair, which wasn’t often enough for his liking.
I squeezed his hand. “I’m sure it’s not so bad.”
Fern arched an eyebrow at me. “How am I supposed to put her hair in a high bun if she doesn’t like to feel pressure on her head?”
“Haven’t you been her stylist for years?” I leaned against the brass rail that ran the short length of the elevator’s back wall and stepped out of my black heels. I’d left my flats upstairs and would switch back into them once I’d seen the bride. I liked to look dressy for the client but couldn’t bear to be in heels for an entire wedding day as Kate could.
“Yes, but she only gets her hair cut once every six months or so, and I basically go to her house, wave the scissors over her head, fluff it up, tell her she looks divine, and leave.”
“And she pays you for that?” I shook my head. “I’m in the wrong business.”
Fern squeezed my hand. “I could have told you that a long time ago, sweetie.”
“How do you deal with a client who’s making up all these issues?” I asked Fern. His years as a hairdresser to the elite had given him an incredible level of patience and insight into people.
“Her mother clued me in years ago and asked me to play along, so I do.” Fern twitched his shoulders. “I have clients with genuine sensory issues and actual chronic fatigue syndrome so it’s not hard to tell that Tricia’s illnesses are fabricated. It’s sad she feels like she needs to do it.”
“I guess.” After a tortuous planning process, I had a hard time feeling too sympathetic but I knew Fern had a point. A person had to be seriously damaged to pretend they were always sick. Plus, I’d learned early on in planning weddings that the most difficult people usually were the most unhappy with themselves.
“I’m sure we can figure this out,” I said as the elevator door opened and we faced a wooden accent table with a white orchid plant. “Can you convince her to wear her hair down?”
Fern led me to the right and down the hall to the very end where the largest suites in the hotel were situated. He paused in front of a cream-colored door with an engraved gold plate that read the Jefferson Suite in cursive. “I suppose I could be persuasive if I wanted to be.”
“Trust me.” I knocked lightly. “You want to be.”
A woman with a silvery-blond helmet of hair opened the door. “Thank heavens you’re here, Annabelle.” She pulled me inside. “Where have you been?”
I reflexively glanced at my watch even though I knew I’d been upstairs for less than thirty minutes. “I had to check on the ballroom setup, remember?”
The bride’s mother nodded. “That’s right. You told us that, didn’t you? It’s just that Tricia is having such a hard time dealing with all these disasters.”
“What disasters?” I asked. I looked around the spacious suite, which was decorated sumptuously in shades of ivory and cream. Twin sofas topped with oversized fringed cushions were flanked by a pair of soft chairs. A mahogany dining room table surrounded by upholstered chairs sat behind them. A wooden sideboard held the remains of breakfast. Champagne chilled in an ice bucket. And the maid of honor, and only attendant, sat in the makeup chair by a row of tall windows.
So far every vendor had been on time and every delivery had been accurate. We weren’t missing flowers or dealing with late makeup artists or even a late breakfast delivery. After the challenges of the planning, everyone was on their toes. And counting down the minutes until it was over.
Fern dropped my hand and took a few steps toward the closed door that led into the attached bedroom, where I assumed the bride was resting. “Why don’t I check on her?”
As Fern walked away I took Mrs. Toker’s hands in mine. Sometimes mothers needed someone to listen to them, and I could validate feelings until the cows came home. “So tell me about these disasters.”
The mother of the bride gnawed at her lower lip. “Well, the rain for one.”
“You know I can’t control the weather, Mrs. Toker,” I said. “And we chose an indoor venue for the precise reason that Tricia didn’t want to worry about the weather if we did a tented wedding.”
The mother nodded like her head was attached to a trip wire. “We just wanted this day to be perfect. After her illness and her father’s death, Tricia deserves a day all about her.”
From what I’d seen over the months of planning, every day was all about Tricia. And I had a hard time believing t
hat the girl had become as spoiled as she was only after her father’s death a little over a year earlier. A girl had to be indulged all of her life to be ruined as badly as Tricia Toker.
Even though her extreme hypochondria was clearly something she’d honed over years, this was the first time I’d had a bride use undiagnosed illnesses to get attention, controlling every person she knew and manipulating them with equal parts guilt and pity. But even so, she’d alienated almost everyone she knew so that only a few diehards like her mother, fiancé, and maid of honor remained at her side. That was also the reason that her guest count was less than one hundred and a decent number of the guests were from her late father’s company. I assumed they were attending out of respect for the parents and to stay on the mother’s good side as she’d taken over the running of his business.
Fern poked his head out of the bedroom. “The bride’s asking for you.”
I left Mrs. Toker chewing on her thumbnail and went into the dark bedroom. I could make out the form of the bride reclining on the king-sized bed, and as my eyes adjusted to the lack of light, I saw that she still wore her bathrobe. I tried not to focus on the fact that, according to my schedule, she’d be walking down the aisle in less than an hour. We’d never had a bride get married in a bathrobe, but there was a first time for everything.
