“Be that as it may, I got nothing out of her. She lawyered up faster than you can say ‘no comment.’”
“She despised Ginger,” Ellie muttered, tears streaming down her face anew. “Every new idea Ginger had to make Dunlap a better place, that witch opposed it. I think Helene just got tired of Ginger and took her out.”
We fell silent for a moment, until Faith piped up. “And what about Sterling Jennings?”
“It was Helene,” I reiterated, latching desperately onto the idea of my arch nemesis finally getting her due.
“He was awfully upset today at the school,” Rachel admitted, sending me a silently mouthed, I’m sorry.
We told Truman and Faith about Ginger’s missed meeting with the heart surgeon and his storming off.
“He’s the worst,” Ellie chimed in. “His daughter, Nora, didn’t make the lacrosse team, and Sterling thought he could bribe his way into getting her on the team.”
Truman questioned Ellie about disgruntled students, but Ellie insisted Ginger was a well-loved headmistress.
A young cadet entered the room and asked to speak to Truman. To my surprise, he allowed her to speak in front of all of us.
“I secured Ms. Crevecoeur’s apartment,” the young woman officiously began. “There were two wineglasses there, one with lipstick marks, one without.”
Truman sat up sharply. “Was Ginger seeing someone?”
“Yes,” Ellie began.
“No,” Dakota finished. “She was my best friend too, and she never mentioned anything.”
Ellie took her friend’s hand and motioned for her to sit down. “Ginger was seeing someone—it was just very hush-hush. She said she wasn’t ready to disclose who it was.”
Dakota looked as if she’d been slapped. “I never knew. Why wouldn’t she have told me?” Beau joined her, caressing her hand. “Don’t worry, Dakota. She’s still your best friend. Was.” My head snapped up as I took in Beau’s voice. His folksy twang was gone, replaced with straight-up, thick tones more at home in New Jersey.
Is his southern accent fake?
Beau cradled his fiancée in his arms as she bawled once more.
The camerawoman discreetly panned out, taking steps away from us.
“What are you doing?” Truman was up like a shot, advancing toward the crewmember. “No filming my crime scene!”
“But I’ve been filming all night,” she began, a flash of fear skittering across her face.
“What?”
I’d never seen Truman so angry.
“I want every bit of film from this evening’s event. Now.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” A whiff of patchouli permeated the air, and Xavier materialized at the camerawoman’s arm.
“I’m the director, Xavier Morris.” He held his hand out to Truman, who didn’t take it. “Let’s just discuss this like adults, shall we? I can’t hand over the footage yet. It’s all in the contract.”
“I don’t give a damn about your contract,” Truman nearly roared, somehow keeping his voice low, which only served to make it more menacing. “I want that film, now.”
The two men retired to the back of the house to hash out an arrangement, and I finally turned to a weepy Dakota.
I suspected the wedding was off, and she did nothing to make me think otherwise.
“I can’t get married with my maid of honor murdered.” She shook, oblivious to Beau’s arm wrapped around her shoulders.
“I don’t blame you, sweetie.” I was willing to scrap the whole damn thing. “Why don’t you try to get some sleep? I can make you some chamomile tea.” I placed a hand on her knee, eager to get up and do something, anything to help her.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to sleep again.”
“Would you consider sleeping pills? I think getting a few hours of rest would really help.”
Dakota shuddered as if I’d suggested she ingest poison.
“I can’t take sleeping pills. My mother used to slip them into my dinner when I wasn’t sleeping enough on the set of Silverlake High. I’d get really stressed, and it led to insomnia.”
“Your mother drugged you without your consent?! That’s illegal!”
I must have sported a supreme look of horror at the idea of Roxanne drugging her teenage daughter to make her sleep, because Dakota switched modes and tried to put my mind at ease.
She shook her head. “She didn’t mean any harm. My mother always wants the best for me.”
* * *
“The wedding will go on.” Roxanne stirred a healthy helping of Splenda in her coffee mug and placed her hand on her daughter’s shoulder. She was dressed more like a teenybopper than a middle-aged woman, in a minuscule leather miniskirt, combat boots, and a tiny sweater. She cradled Pixie in one arm, the pup wearing a matching leather bow atop her head.
It was the next day, and Rachel and I had finally cleaned up every offending scrap of evidence of the Winter Ball. Although the cuts weren’t deep, my hands were screaming with pain, and I’d changed my bandages several times. But I was bound and determined to scrub all vestiges of what had initially been a successful event from the B and B. Truman had grudgingly given me the go-ahead to clean the mansion, every room save for my office. I’d happily obliged. I didn’t ever want to step into the once-cheery room for as long as I lived.
I’d convened a meeting with Beau and Dakota around the octagonal breakfast room table to discuss the formal dissolution of their wedding plans, but Roxanne had caught wind and inserted herself into the situation.
“But is that what you want?” I turned to Dakota, concerned that the woman who had drugged her daughter still had the power to steamroll her.
“I’m not sure what I want,” Dakota whispered, looking to Beau for help.
“You have to keep your brand in mind,” Roxanne said in a soothing, singsong voice. I was officially creeped out. Even Pixie the pup seemed to give her a dubious look, her blackberry eyes wide and incredulous, her doggie tongue hanging out.
I left the breakfast room to retreat to the kitchen and busied myself with the teapot. I placed a plate of blueberry scones and apple cinnamon biscotti on the table with jittery hands. A woman who felt nothing for the death of her daughter’s maid of honor was just the kind of woman who could have perpetrated the crime.
“Mallory.”
I jumped about a foot in the air and whirled around to face Adrienne. She’d stayed up through the Winter Ball aftermath with all of us, yet she’d recovered well, her face smooth and impassive. I wondered if the show hostess took sips of Xavier’s fountain-of-youth smoothies to stay looking so perfect.
“I took the liberty of typing you up a script.” She thrust several pages into my hands, and I stared at them in confusion.
“A script? But isn’t this supposed to be reality TV?”
Adrienne sighed as if I were an especially dim student and shook her head, her shining platinum hair falling back into place when she stopped. “I can tell this is going to be an especially boring episode of I Do, and I thought I’d help you out.”
“Boring?” I was incredulous as I readied the tea on a tray. “Are you freaking kidding me?!”
“Truman”—her mouth twisted in a frown as she mentioned her daughter’s grandfather’s name—“succeeded in convincing Xavier to release most of the film up to this time. So we’re starting from scratch. It’s like the Winter Ball never happened.” She waved her hand in the air, as if to make all the bad events of yesterday evaporate with a flick of her fingers.
I felt like picking my jaw up from the floor.
“It may not make it to TV, but the reality of Ginger’s murder was as real as it gets, Adrienne.”
“Which is what Xavier is trying to argue. But Truman wouldn’t hear of it.” She sighed. “He always was hardheaded. Not much has changed there.” I knew how Truman felt about Adrienne leaving his granddaughter Summer when she was only two weeks old. Hardheaded wasn’t even the half of it.
“Death is not
a spectacle for reality TV.” I heard my voice getting shrill. I picked up the elaborate tea set and scones and headed to the breakfast room, utterly disgusted.
“We’re all set.” Roxanne beamed at me, her hand gripping the shoulder of a miserable Dakota. Pixie now sat in Dakota’s lap, attempting to lick her face to make her feel better. “The wedding will go on.”
“Is this what you want?” I sat at the table and leaned toward Dakota.
“It is.” Her eyes were laden with infinite sadness, but she seemed to have had a genuine change of heart. No doubt helped along by her pushy mother. “Ginger would have wanted me to get married. Right, Beau?”
Her fiancé nodded, placing his hand over the large diamond sparkling on her left hand. “Ginger couldn’t wait for us to get married, and we’re going to follow through.” His countrified accent was back, but now that I suspected it wasn’t real, I could pick it apart at the edges. The vowels were a little too long, the twang a bit too studied.
I sighed and went over the wedding plans with them as the ever-present cameras rolled.
We had no time to waste with all of the prior footage confiscated, and made our way through the sodden muddy grounds to the carriage house to film Dakota crafting her centerpieces. Rachel and I had set up a representative table a few days ago, and the mock-up was waiting for us, gleaming and festive as if nothing horrible had happened.
Dakota and Beau’s wedding was to be a study in black and white, an Ascot My Fair Lady theme. Our sample reception table featured long silver branches woven together with fresh pine boughs. The evergreens were befitting of a winter wedding, but more in line with the outdoors than like a Christmas holdover. Through the foliage, I’d threaded shiny black metallic beads, which would reflect the light of the chandeliers in the front hall. Fist-sized clear and black crystals nestled among the pine boughs and branches. Our florist had dropped off the sample table flowers with the Winter Ball arrangements, and fragrant lily of the valley and big, stately calla lilies shared tall and stout silver vases. Stark white china, trimmed in silver, held smaller pewter plates. It was a bold and sophisticated theme, and if I could admit it, a little cold and clinical. If Pixie had truly inspired Roxanne to push for these plans, none of the pup’s warmth was present. But I’d whipped up the setting according to Roxanne’s whims, with some small suggestions allowed by Dakota.
Rachel came out with a sample menu of escarole salad, lemongrass soup, ceviche, salmon with capers and endive, spicy basil short ribs, and a black and white checkerboard cake. She explained to the cameras how we’d taken Dakota and Beau’s palates into consideration while choosing and tweaking the menu.
“Well done,” Adrienne murmured. She looked pained to admit the tasting was a rousing success, under the sad and crazy circumstances. “It will be a sophisticated Valentine’s Day wedding, not something cheesy as I was expecting.”
“Um, thanks, I guess.” I wasn’t sure if she’d given me a compliment or an insult.
“Mom!” Summer bolted into the carriage house and enveloped Adrienne in a bone-crushing hug.
“Oh, sweetie.” Adrienne buried her head in Summer’s short blond hair, and I felt a rush of pathos for the woman who barely got to see her daughter.
But that was her choice, a voice in my head reminded me.
“You’ve executed my mother’s plans very well,” Dakota said in a low voice as she sidled up to me, tearing me from thoughts of Summer and Adrienne.
“That’s what I was afraid of. Dakota, it’s not too late to make some changes to bring this wedding more in line with what you really want.”
“Are you sure?” Dakota’s violet eyes sparkled, and we made tentative plans to meet sometime tomorrow when the cameras weren’t rolling.
The cameras filmed as Dakota, Rachel, Summer, and I spray-painted dried branches from the grounds a brushed silver. Things were going as well as could be expected, until Adrienne inserted herself into the shot. She was doing her usual host narration, setting up the scene for the eventual viewers and asking us mundane questions about the wedding craft.
“And here we have my daughter,” she said, with obvious fondness.
“Cut.” Garrett stood in the doorway to the carriage house, his gorgeous hazel eyes blazing.
“Who said that?” Xavier swiveled around to take in Garrett.
“Who gave you permission to film Summer?” Garrett motioned for Adrienne to join him outside.
“But, Dad—” Summer started to join her father and mother, but Garrett held up his hand.
“Not now, Summer. I need to have a word with your mother.”
We could hear their argument from outside, in smatters and bits, though I could tell they were both trying to keep their voices low. I heard the words custodial, guardian, and permission flying about and gathered that Summer wouldn’t be appearing on I Do anymore.
“I wish they’d stop fighting.”
Summer stood with tears streaking down her elfin face. I slung my arm around her shoulders and we exited the carriage house.
Chapter Five
I couldn’t get Summer’s stricken face out of my head. I tossed and turned all night, my head hot on the flannel pillowcase. My mind replayed Adrienne and Garrett’s fight. I’d been in Summer’s shoes once, decades ago, when my own parents’ marriage had imploded. It hadn’t been pretty, and my heart ached watching the tears gather in Summer’s huge hazel eyes.
Garrett and Adrienne had stopped their argument as soon as Summer and I had emerged from the carriage house and they’d taken in how upset their daughter was. They’d both gathered her up in their arms, murmuring apologies. Summer had left with Garrett, and Adrienne had spent the rest of the afternoon silently observing the crafting process, for once at a loss for words.
The sun hadn’t yet peeked its face over the horizon, and rain thrummed in a staccato rhythm on the rooftop of my third-floor attic apartment. I idly wondered how Dakota’s black and white winter-wonderland-themed wedding would play out now that the snow had been washed away. We could no longer have a planned sleigh ride, and the ice crystal motif might look a bit silly. I recalled Dakota’s impassive face as I’d presented the wedding ideas and a headache of doubt crept across my brow.
The cast and crew of I Do slept below. At 5 AM, I gave up my fruitless quest for sleep and padded down the back stairs as quietly as the creaky wood would allow. My calico cat, Whiskey, followed behind me, and Soda, the orange kitten, raced after her. They’d been wary of traveling downstairs after catching a whiff of Pixie the Shih Tzu, and stayed close behind.
I planned on whipping up a scrumptious breakfast for my guests. I smelled the aroma of coffee as my foot connected with the final step, and my pulse accelerated. I flicked on the lights in the cleverly disguised industrial kitchen and screamed.
“You scared the living daylights out of me!”
“Sorry.” Dakota offered me a wan smile and held up a small French press. “I couldn’t sleep, so I helped myself to some coffee.”
I sighed and sank into a chair across from the bride. “Make that two of us.”
Dakota rubbed her eyes with the cuff of her green silk bathrobe. “I can’t believe I let my mother convince me to go on with the wedding.” She cast a glance in the direction of the front hall and my crime-taped office and shuddered. “All I can think of is Ginger at your desk. This isn’t a time for a wedding celebration.”
I couldn’t agree more.
I let her go on, to see if she could talk herself out of her wedding.
“But I do want to marry Beau. And I think Ginger would want me to go through with the wedding. I just wish it weren’t so soon.”
I emptied the remaining contents of the French press into a large yellow polka dot mug and clasped one of Dakota’s hands in mine.
“What do you really want?” I reminded her of my promise yesterday to rework her wedding, as much as time would allow.
She gave a weak laugh. “To go back in time and save Ginger. To never
have agreed to be on this silly reality show. To stand up to my mother and get the wedding I really want. To honor Ginger’s memory in some way.” A small smile broke through the heavy sadness. “And to marry Beau.”
“Why are you doing the show anyway?” I blurted out, emboldened by the deep, rich coffee and the edge from lack of sleep. “No offense, the show usually features D-listers.” I clapped a hand over my mouth as the last part slipped out.
Dakota leaned back in her chair and laughed, her chuckles clear and bell-like. The sound was a welcome change from the tears of yesterday. “After Silverlake High went off the air and my roles dried up, I was considered a D-lister. Until the last three indie films I landed. I promised Xavier I’d do I Do. He was the director on Silverlake High, and he launched my career. I feel like I owe him.” She stopped, suddenly pensive. “Our careers both took a nosedive after Silverlake High was cancelled. I feel like working with him again on this pet project of his is coming full circle.” She leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes. “I just wish there were a way to still get married, but honor Ginger as well. It won’t be the same without her here.”
“You could honor her somehow.” The wheels began turning in my head.
“You don’t think it would be too macabre, incorporating Ginger into the wedding?” Dakota leaned forward, cupping her mug of coffee.
“Not if you’re celebrating Ginger’s life. It would be untraditional, but the circumstances are a little crazy right now. You could overhaul everything and do what you really want, and honor your maid of honor, too.”
Dakota nodded slowly, warming to the idea. I grabbed a legal pad and pen from a drawer and we got to brainstorming.
“What about Ginger?” I gently prodded.
“I want to honor her the day of my wedding. I wanted her to stand next to me, to be by my side on one of the biggest days of my life.” She stared dolefully into her coffee cup, her wide violet eyes overcome with a sudden wave of sadness.
Murder Borrowed, Murder Blue Page 6
