Dying To Marry

by Janelle Taylor

  “It’s possible,” Jake said.

  “Fine,” Holly said. “I’ll take that. I assume she’s high on your list of suspects now?”

  He let out a deep breath and nodded.

  Holly, Lizzie, and Flea were all so relieved that the rest of the evening had passed without incident that they all had hearty appetites the next morning. When Lizzie and Holly had arrived back at Lizzie’s, Flea had been asleep on Lizzie’s couch, the novel she’d been reading open on her chest. Holly and Lizzie had tried not to wake her as they shut off the television and the lights, but Flea was a light sleeper and was too anxious to hear about the reunion.

  “You should have heard Gayle tell Pru Dunhill off!” Lizzie had said. “She was great!”

  I just hope Pru doesn’t try to retaliate, Holly had thought as she’d drifted off to sleep. If Pru was their suspect, who knew how she’d try to get Gayle back—or Holly.

  Holly had spent the night tossing and turning, the possibilities of exactly what Pru Dunhill had been discussing with the man in the woods keeping her eyes wide open. Had she been plotting the next “accident”? Insisting the man get more violent? Such as taking a heavy stone and bashing one of them—

  Flip. Flop. Flip. Flop. From her stomach to her back and back again, Holly had been unable to keep the terrible thoughts from her mind. She was scared. Very scared. And worried for her friends.

  She debated telling Lizzie, Gayle and Flea about what she’d seen, but during a quick shower in the morning, she decided to hold off, as Jake suggested, until they had proof.

  “It looks bad,” Jake had said last night. “But until we know for sure that Pru hired this man to hurt Lizzie and her bridal party, we’re better off keeping what we saw—what we think we saw—to ourselves and working on finding out who that man is.”

  The shower helped clear her head, and Holly headed downstairs to work on her prize chocolate chip muffins. Baking always took Holly’s mind off her problems. She would sift her flour and spoon in her sugar and start humming a song and suddenly a half hour would have gone by and the muffins would be in the oven before she even remembered she’d been troubled by something at the start.

  An hour later, as Holly placed on the table her delicious homemade chocolate chip muffins, the three women all dug in.

  “I’m so happy about last night that I’m off my diet—for the morning,” Lizzie said, laughing.

  “Yum!” Flea exclaimed, licking crumbs off her lips. “This is the best muffin I’ve ever had! Holly, I had no idea you could bake like this.”

  “Holly’s a master baker,” Lizzie said. “She has a side job and everything.”

  “Well, if anyone wants seconds, I made two tins,” Holly said with a wink.

  “You know,” Flea said, sipping her orange juice, “I’m so glad to hear that nothing awful happened last night, but at the same time, it means Jake couldn’t catch him or her red-handed. They’re still out there.”

  “I know what you mean,” Lizzie said. “I was half hoping someone would try to dunk me in the punch bowl just so Jake and Dylan could catch them and our lives could all go back to normal.”

  “Interesting that Bobby Jones was asleep most of the night and nothing bad happened to one of us,” Holly said before biting into her muffin. According to Jake, Bobby had woken up early this morning on the hotel’s couch, demanded another beer, and then been arrested on disorderly conduct.

  Just when Holly thought it was one suspect—Pru—there was another just as likely.

  Lizzie froze, muffin midway to her mouth. “Hol, you’re absolutely right! I hadn’t thought of that.”

  “And he does have a major ax to grind against Dylan ...” Flea put in, “but not against Lizzie.”

  Lizzie sighed. “It’s so stupid. Ugh—I’m glad the reunion is over. I’m not even sure I’m glad I went. I mean, on one hand, I feel like we overcame something by going. But on the other hand, it felt like the same old thing. Like we were back in high school.”

  “Why?” Flea asked. “What happened? I thought nothing happened.”

  “Nothing except for the usual crap,” Lizzie explained. “Name calling. Immature class polls.”

  “Class polls?” Flea repeated.

  Lizzie shook her head. “‘Most Likely To Star In a Porn Video Despite Her Ugly Face and Bad Body—Lizzie Morrow.’ ‘Most Likely To End Up In the Guinness Book of World Records For Sex Partners—Holly Morrow.’ That sort of thing.”

  Holly took a sip of her coffee. “Unbelievable. Do Pru and Arianna realize they’re twenty-nine? That they’re grown-ups?”

  “I hate them!” Flea said through gritted teeth. “Sometimes I wish I could do something, anything, to get back at them!”

  “Dylan made a really good point last night when he said that the best thing we could do is not pay any attention to their immaturity,” Holly said. “And he’s right. Getting upset is giving them what they want.”

  “Isn’t Dylan just wonderful?” Lizzie said, her expression turning dreamy. “Do you know he came back over last night, after you guys fell asleep, just so we could sit on the front porch? Just talking, holding hands. Those are my favorite times with Dylan—when it’s just me and him—no money, no fancy car or house or other people. Just us.”

  “I feel so bad that you all cut your night short for me,” Flea said, arranging her black scarf around her neck, a telltale sign that she was uncomfortable. “You didn’t have to do that.”

  “There’s nothing we wouldn’t do for you, Flea,” Lizzie said with a smile. “There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for any of you.”

  Flea smiled. “I know you would, Lizzie. That’s why I’m making you the dress from Bettina’s. No—don’t you dare say a word. I already ordered the material. It’ll be here tomorrow.”

  Lizzie shot up and hugged Flea. “I love you so much! Do you think you’ll feel up to coming to the engagement party?”

  “I hope so, Lizzie,” Flea said. “The doc said I should stay off my feet for two weeks, but let’s see how I feel. I still feel pretty wobbly, but I’ve got six more days to rest up till the party.”

  Lizzie’s face crumpled. “I can always postpone the party. How could I celebrate my engagement without one of my best friends?”

  Flea smiled. “You’ll postpone nothing. If I’m not up to going, I’ll be there in spirit. You can bet I’ll be dancing at your wedding, though.”

  “Felicia Harvey, dancing?” Lizzie said with a grin. “Now that I have to see!”

  Flea laughed. “I’d better get going. Thanks for letting me rest up here last night. It was nice staying here instead of my room in the shop.”

  “Anytime, Flea,” Lizzie said.

  When Flea was gone, Lizzie cleared the breakfast dishes, and the cousins headed into the living room with their second cups of coffee.

  “Sometimes I don’t know if she’s really okay about things or if she could use more support,” Lizzie commented. “She’s always so strong, but getting locked in her room, hit with that stone, missing the reunion and maybe even my party— and the dirty names ... she deals with an awful lot.”

  “Flea’s a strong woman,” Holly said. “She’s had to be. Like all of us. I’ll spend some time with her today—make sure she’s all right.”

  “Thanks,” Lizzie said. “I’d better head to work. You’ll come by for lunch?”

  “I wouldn’t miss your mom’s mac and cheese for anything,” Holly said.

  A few minutes later, Lizzie had gone off to work, and Holly was alone. She headed upstairs to Lizzie’s bedroom, planning on a long think-session. But the sight of the Troutville High yearbook on Lizzie’s bed stopped her.

  She lay down with the book and flipped through it. When she got to the pictures of her classmates, she turned directly to the B page.

  Jake, unsmiling, his expression half serious, half pensive, as it often was, stared back at her. She traced his face with her finger. “I loved you, too,” she whispered.

  She carried
the book to the window and nestled into the cushion on the seat Lizzie had built. She could hear a bird singing on the branch that scraped the window, and Holly parted the curtains.

  And then she froze.

  She shot up so fast she scared the bird and it flew away.

  One story below, in the backyard, on the lawn, someone had used what looked like white spray paint to spell out: WHOREHOUSE.

  In less than ten minutes of getting Holly’s phone call from Morrow’s Pub, Jake and Dylan had rushed over, where Holly, Lizzie, Gayle, Flea, and Lizzie’s mom were sitting around a large table, their faces somber. The pub didn’t open for business until noon, so they had the place to themselves.

  “I feel terrible for calling you all out of work,” Lizzie said. “But I want my fiancé and my mother and best friends to give me their honest opinions. Someone is out to get me. Out to hurt me, out to hurt my friends. I can’t stand it any longer.”

  “Now, Lizzie—” Dylan began.

  “No, Dylan,” she interrupted. “They have won. I can’t live like this. I won’t live like this. And I won’t subject my cousin—who left Troutville because of this very thing—to it. It’s just not fair—” Even with security guards, this monster is managing to get to me, to get inside my backyard!”

  Lizzie broke down into sobs and her mother flew to her side. “Lizzie, honey. It isn’t fair. And someone is out to get you. But we are going to catch them. Do you hear me?”

  “Lizzie, you can rest assured that I’m devoting all of my time to the case,” Jake said. “I’m on this twenty-four/seven. And Mrs. Morrow is right—we will catch whoever is doing this. There just isn’t a lot of evidence right now, but sooner or later they will make a mistake and the culprit is going to lead me right to him or her.”

  “So I’m supposed to have an engagement party and risk our lives?” Lizzie asked. “Dylan, how can I do that?”

  “Jake, maybe she’s right,” Dylan said, running a hand through his hair. “Whoever’s behind this crap is seriously unhinged. I don’t want Lizzie hurt. And I don’t want her friends hurt even more than they’ve already been.”

  “This is really between the two of you,” Jake said. “It’s your engagement party. And it’s something you deserve to have and to celebrate with your friends and families. I wish I could guarantee security and safety, but I can’t. On the other hand, there’s no guarantee nothing will happen if you don’t have the party.”

  Dylan and Jake sat back down. For a few moments, everyone ruminated on that.

  “Holly, what do you think?” Lizzie asked.

  All eyes swung to Holly. “I think the party should go on. Lizzie, it’s not like you can just hide in your house all day, every day. You have to live your life. If you cancel the party, what’s next? Canceling the wedding? You can’t do that.”

  “I won’t do that!” Lizzie insisted tearfully. “I want to have the engagement party. I want to plan the wedding of my dreams. I want everyone I love involved in the most important day of my life. But I also want everyone safe and sound!”

  “Lizzie, there’s no guarantee that canceling anything will stop this ... psycho,” Jake pointed out. “We don’t know what we’re dealing with here. Holly’s right—you need to live your life, go on as planned.”

  “The party is on,” Dylan said, rubbing Lizzie’s shoulder. “We’ll beef up security. Every guest must have ID and be checked against a master list at the front door, and all bags and purses will be checked. Maybe we’ll set up a metal detector, too.”

  “That’s a good start,” Jake agreed. “I’ll tell you what. Since it’s my business to take care of these things, why don’t all of you head back to work. I’ll arrange the security detail.”

  Holly opened her mouth to speak, but then thought better of it. The despicable greeting in the backyard had scared her senseless. It wasn’t only the ugly message; it was the invasion. Of privacy. Of space. Of everything.

  It was almost as though Holly could feel the person’s breath on the back of her neck, warning her that he or she was close by, just waiting for the right opportunity to do away with Lizzie and her friends.

  She shivered and felt Jake’s eyes on her.

  Once she could have run straight into his arms for warmth, for safety, for comfort. And now those arms were a man’s arms, muscular, strong.

  God, how she wanted to run into those arms, even if it was for just a few minutes.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Dunhill Mansion ballroom could comfortably hold two hundred guests. Currently, it held two. Yet Jake had never felt more claustrophobic.

  Victoria Dunhill, wearing an ornate, sequined peach gown, walked up and down the length of the ballroom, conducting her inspection as she always did thirty minutes before each Dunhill party. Jake walked beside her, scanning the guest list her personal assistant provided for him. He recognized most of the names. He wondered if one of them was Pru’s mystery man from the reunion.

  “How is Lizzie’s little friend—the one who got hurt?” Victoria said. “I don’t believe I know her name.”

  “Felicia Harvey. She’s one of Lizzie’s closest friends. She’s a member of the bridal party.”

  Mrs. Dunhill fluttered her eyelashes. “Oh, Jacob, please. You can’t expect me to recollect all of Lizbeth’s friends. I know she is the little one with the—” She paused dramatically. “We don’t need to mention her other more permanent injuries, do we? She’s reminded of her scars from that fire her own father set every time she looks in the mirror, poor dear.”

  Mrs. Dunhill was insufferable. Plain and simple. If Jake hadn’t become such close friends with her son, he would have cut ties with Victoria years ago.

  “Mrs. Dunhill, it was town gossips who accused Felicia’s father of setting the fire. And he was completely cleared of having anything to do with it.”

  “Are we still talking about that unpleasantness?” Mrs. Dunhill said, waving her arm in the air. She clapped her hands twice, and a maid came running. “There’s a crease in this curtain,” she snapped to the young woman.

  The maid nodded, pulled a walkie-talkie from her apron pocket, and ordered a porter to bring a stepladder and a portable steamer at once.

  Jake rolled his eyes. How Dylan had ended up so down-to-earth was beyond him.

  But Jake had more pressing concerns—such as Felicia’s name appearing on the guest list when she had called to say she would not be attending, after all. How accurate—or inaccurate—was the list?

  “Speaking of unpleasantness,” Mrs. Dunhill said, “I’m surprised Lizbeth and Dylan didn’t cancel tonight’s party given what happened to Lizbeth’s little friend a couple of weeks go. But what really shocked me—shocked quite a few people—was their callousness at attending their high school reunion last weekend while Lizbeth’s dear friend lay with a grave injury. That doesn’t sound like friendship to me.”

  “She prefers to be called Lizzie,” Jake said for the hundredth time in the past week. “And Lizzie didn’t want to go to the reunion, but Felicia insisted she’d feel worse if her friends canceled their plans because of her.”

  Mrs. Dunhill could not have looked more bored. Perhaps what he would say next would interest her.

  “Besides, there was a very good chance that whoever’s behind these ‘incidents’ would be at the reunion,” Jake said.

  Mrs. Dunhill perked up. “And was he?”

  “He?” Jake asked.

  “Or she,” Mrs. Dunhill amended.

  “I never discuss my cases,” Jake said. “You know that.”

  “Yes, I do,” she said flatly.

  “And as far as tonight is concerned,” Jake continued, “Lizzie and Dylan aren’t going to let some jerk stop them from celebrating how much they love each other.”

  Mrs. Dunhill raised an eyebrow. “Love?” She leaned close to Jake. “Come now, Jacob. You can speak straight to me. You mean lust.”

  “No, I mean love,” he corrected. “You haven’t spent a lot of time wi
th Lizzie or with Dylan and Lizzie as a couple. You’ll see—as time goes by—how much they love each other.”

  “Jacob, my dear boy,” Mrs. Dunhill said, her eagle-eyed gaze inspecting every curtain, every square of wood on the floor. “Love is what I felt for my husband. From the first moment I saw him and until the day he died six years ago. Twenty-nine years of marriage. That is love.”

  No, that is your story and you’re sticking to it, Jake thought as Mrs. Dunhill, apparently satisfied with the rest of the ballroom, snapped at her butler, who stood awaiting her every request. The man hurried to the bar, returned with a scotch on the rocks, and resumed his post.

  “Yes, Jacob, love is much more than sex,” she added as she sat in one of the high-backed chairs lining the walls. She sighed and stared upward at the ornate ceiling, a huge crystal chandelier its magnificent centerpiece, and seemed lost in thought.

  Dylan Dunhill II had been cheating on Victoria from the moment they met, through their courtship and their marriage. He’d been cheating on his wife when he died of a massive heart attack, a high-priced prostitute on top of him.

  Jake had been the police officer who’d responded to the call at the Troutville Plaza Hotel. The prostitute, scared out of her mind, had phoned the front desk for an ambulance, then ran out the front door, never to be seen again, according to the night manager. Jake had gone to Dunhill Mansion and was ushered into the library, where he met Victoria Dunhill for the first time. Upon hearing the news, the details of which he relayed as sensitively as he could, she blanched for just a moment, then recovered instantly. She led Jake into her private office, snapped for her scotch on the rocks, sat very straight in her desk chair, and spoke with absolutely no emotion in her voice.

  “With Dylan’s heart condition and previous heart attack, I have no doubt that his heart simply gave out, especially under such ... activity,” she’d said. “So I’m under no delusion that the autopsy report will reveal this ... call girl had anything to do with his death. Dylan ... enjoyed young women and he always survived his dalliances.”