by A. Gardner
Lila rolled to her knees, her wounded leg and giant wedding dress making it difficult for her. She clawed her way out of the mess of snow around her and attempted to stand up. She stumbled towards the chair lift and John followed her with a watchful eye. I focused my attention on Patrick.
"Are you okay?" I whispered to him.
"I'll survive." I could tell it pained him even to speak, but he grinned when our eyes met.
"Lila, stop," John instructed. "Lila, what are you doing?"
Lila had moved so fast I looked away from Patrick and saw that she was standing in front of one of the moving ski benches. She waited to take her ride up the slope to the highest black diamond run on Pinecliffe Mountain.
"Lila," I yelled.
"Lila, don't do it!" John Slagger ran towards her right as she took her seat on a moving bench. John ran at her and made it just in time to grab part of the armrest and hoist himself up into the air.
Sirens blasted through the canyon. I stayed by Patrick's side carefully setting the gun down next to me. The two of us looked up at Lila and John. Their feet swung above us on the chair lift, and Lila's enormous gown took up most of the bench. The two of them climbed higher and higher in altitude. I listened carefully as John reassured Lila everything was going to be okay.
An ambulance stopped at the base of the mountain and a team of medics came running towards us with a stretcher. I jumped to my ice cold feet and waved my arms. My toes had to be frost bitten by now. The medics tended to Patrick's shoulder. He groaned as he was lifted onto the stretcher and given an oxygen mask. Patrick looked up at the sky at long train dangling from Lila's wedding dress.
"I'm sure she'll be fine." I squeezed Patrick's hand. It was comforting that his skin was still very warm.
"What's going on with them?" one of the medics asked.
I let go of Patrick's hand and jogged through the snow to catch a closer look at John and Lila. They had disappeared over the trees. I quickly accompanied Patrick back to the ambulance and ran up the patio steps towards the top floor of the hotel. From the patio off the bride's room I could see Lila getting closer to the mountaintop. She scooted farther away from John and repeatedly shook her head.
I brushed freshly fallen snow from my shoulders and face and kept watching despite my chattering teeth and icicles for fingers. A hand gripped my shoulder, making me jump. I turned and saw the sheriff. His eyes darted down towards the ambulance that had loaded up Patrick and was pulling out of the parking lot.
"What happened?" Sheriff Williams asked. He spoke in almost a whisper like it was a personal matter between the two of us and no one else.
"A lot," I answered, watching Lila disappear again behind a white cloud of snow. I turned to the sheriff, rubbing my hands together. I was worried about Lila. What would she do next? Would the sheriff’s holding cell be able to contain her crazy? But my heart wasn't racing because I'd stared death in the face and hesitated. My heart wouldn't slow down because Patrick was on his way to the hospital and I didn't know if I would ever see him again.
"And the bride? Where is she off to?"
"Who knows," I answered quietly. A snowflake landed on my eyelashes. "But you'll need to get your handcuffs ready for when she inevitably takes her ride back down the mountain. She's the murderer."
"Now Essie—"
"This isn't one of my wild theories, Sheriff. She confessed everything in front of me and Patrick." I took a deep breath and stared hopeful at the returning chair lifts as they appeared one by one from behind a snow cloud. The sheriff put his arm around me and escorted me inside, knowing I would've waited on that patio until my limbs fell off.
"Essie," Joy gasped. She was waiting inside with her arms folded. She immediately ran her fingers through my hair and attempted to dry it off with the fabric of a throw pillow. "You look awful … and what were those loud noises? Don't tell me the Lellend boys were out there with firecrackers again? I've warned them so many times—"
"No," the Sheriff spoke up. "I'm afraid those were gunshots. I heard them when I arrived and I called an ambulance."
"That's why you barged in like you did," Joy muttered. "I thought you were just being a jerk as usual. No offense, Sheriff." He narrowed his eyes.
"I'm afraid there are still matters that need to be dealt with," he said. "And seeing as your groom is on his way to the hospital, and the bride is on the top of Pinecliffe Mountain, I think it's best that you send all those folks in there home."
"What?" Joy had a difficult time processing the news. The time had finally come to do what she dreaded the moment she'd heard there was a dead body in the spa. "Are you sure?"
"Joy," I added. "Do it before everyone starts asking questions."
"Too late," a voice came from the doorway. Eli raised his eyebrows. He waved at us to follow him as he periodically glanced over his shoulder.
The three of us followed him down the hall towards the place where the wedding ceremony was waiting to begin. A large window overlooking the mountain ran alongside the wall. It had a full view of the chair lift and the chalet building at the base of it. Bebe was standing near the window biting her nails.
There was yelling coming from downstairs. Voices resonated up the staircase and disturbed the peaceful silence that graced the new wedding location. The members of the press that had arrived in town this morning were getting restless, especially after hearing the commotion going on out back.
"Some of them slipped through the back fence after the ambulance left," Eli said looking down towards the lobby. "What do we do?"
"We remain calm," Joy said impatiently. "That's what we do. You go down there and tell those reporters everything is fine. Got it?"
"Oh Lord!" Bebe yelped, looking out the window. I ran to join her, realizing there was just as good of a view of the chair lift from inside. I peered out the window and saw Lila and John making their return trip down the mountain.
"Bebe," I hesitated. "Did you see…?"
"Oh no, darlin'." She placed a hand on her chest. "You'll have to tell me what happened down there because I couldn't see a thing as soon as you walked around the other side of that building."
"Oh uh—"
"And you could use a major touch up," she went on.
Lila was waving her arms and arguing with John again. She was still too far away for me to see the look on her face. I was relieved that my parents and Patrick's didn't have the opportunity to see what had really happened between the three of us. Patrick's mom might have dropped dead if she saw her only son shot by his fiancée right before the wedding.
Lila shook her head. She turned away from John and wouldn't stop shaking her head. John outstretched a hand to comfort her, but Lila jerked her hand away. I could barely see her face now. She glanced down at the snow and then back at John before she slid from her seat. My stomach churned. John grabbed her arm just in time.
Lila dangled from the ski lift and she didn't look the least bit frightened. She swung her body, trying to force John to let go, but he wouldn't budge. I turned around and saw that all eyes were on the frosty window. Bebe gasped again, then the room fell eerily silent.
The chair lift was still high enough that falling would cause serious injuries or even death. I studied the look on John's pale face as best I could from a distance. He clenched his jaw and wrinkled his entire face. He was holding onto Lila with all his might. In the meantime, Lila was furious she hadn't fallen. With her free, dangling arm she clawed at John's fingers. He cried out, but his yells were muffled from behind the glass.
Sheriff Williams was already outside watching from above. I ran back towards the bride's room and to the open patio. The cold stung my face as I stepped back into the snow. My body shivered. I hadn't fully de-thawed from my first adventure in freezing temperatures.
"Hang in there, son." The sheriff was shouting encouraging words at John. "Hold her steady."
Lila screamed. Her shrieks shot up and down the canyon and I thought they might cause a mini
avalanche. She swung her body again and this time she was successful. I let out a yelp, and my lungs felt like they had been squeezed to half their size as I watched her plummet into the snow. Sheriff Williams went running towards her. She was still a good ways up the mountain. High enough to do some damage, but low enough that whether or not she was alive would be unclear until someone checked her pulse.
Bebe had followed me and stood at my side. She buried her face in her hands, hiding tears. As she wiped her cheeks, her gaze steadily wandered down to the ground beneath us. She froze just like she had the moment she saw Donna's body. My eyes darted to the spot she was staring at. Lights flashed uncontrollably from every direction at the base of the resort. Like the wedding party upstairs, the press had also seen the whole thing.
"Let's hope she's not dead," Bebe quietly muttered. "Otherwise, the world is going to hate this town."
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE
By the time John Slagger was back on the ground, another ambulance had arrived and more medics were making the trek up the snowy mountain to meet the sheriff. His son, Murray, staid near the hotel keeping the press under control and shouting no comment as they rattled off lists of ridiculous questions. Bebe retreated back to the wedding party to offer words of comfort to Patrick's frail mother, and Joy prepared a private room for family to wait and receive word about the bride and groom's conditions.
John's hand shook so hard he shoved them into his coat pocket. He looked at me as a medic who'd stayed to wait for him checked his pulse and listened to his breathing. John hung his head, and bit the corner of his lip. When we finally made eye contact again his eyes were glossy as if he was holding back tears.
"I thought there was hope for her," John said to me. "She seemed so bright when she left."
"Left where?" I asked. I folded my arms, wondering why he'd been admitted to The Cove in the first place. He seemed perfectly average. Then again, no one would have suspected Lila would've shot her fiancé and herself to make it look like she wasn't guilty. "Are you talking about The Cove? What is that? A rehab center? An insane asylum?"
"It's an experimental rehabilitation facility for patients struggling with severe personality disorders," he answered. "It's reserved for people like Lila who deal with their disorders under public pressure."
"So you aren't a patient there?"
"What?" He chuckled. "No, I'm a psychologist. Lila agreed to do her post-therapy followups with me. She skipped her last one. I kept calling her to reschedule, it is vital to prevent relapses you see, and she told me to just meet her here."
"So that day when you approached me--"
"She wouldn't return any of my calls," he responded. "The hotel wouldn't cooperate. The townspeople I spoke with wouldn't point me in the right direction so I stuck around hoping she would eventually reply."
"She stopped taking her medication," I informed him.
"I figured it out when I heard there had been a suspicious death." He scratched his forehead and rubbed his eyes. "I didn't sleep a wink when I overheard it was a bridesmaid."
"Why didn't you go straight to the sheriff?"
"I had to be sure before going around disclosing private medical information," he said discreetly. "One of the reasons she recovered so well was because the media has no idea she's bipolar and severely paranoid."
"So Franco knew," I said out loud.
"Her assistant?" John asked me. "Yes, I think he did."
I thought back to how upset Lila had been about Franco's book deal. She had been so furious she'd ripped out a couple pages and sneakily had taken them back to her room. He must have been planning on exposing the details about her illness. He couldn’t do that if he was in jail for murder.
"All this time he thought she was taking her pills."
"If I would've known about this," John responded. "I went through every exercise in the book. I even listed off all the things she still had to live for and she still jumped. I knew the moment she ran for that ski lift she was toying with the option of jumping." He pressed his lips together to keep himself from saying any more.
"You did what you could," I said, not knowing whether or not my words would comfort him. I thought I would give it a try anyway. He dug the toe of his boot into the snow.
"But was it good enough?" His voice was quiet and stained with regret.
"It was." I allowed myself to take a deep breath of the mountain air surrounding us. The events of this morning had gone by so quickly and happened so suddenly I was already sore from my muscles being tense the entire time. "She knew what she did, John. I'm not sure if she was sorry about it, but she was fully aware that she'd killed her friend Donna. She also shot her fiancé. Worst of all, she shot herself to make it look like he was guilty instead of her."
"All cries of desperation."
The medic who was examining John speedily checked his blood pressure and then nodded, giving him the okay to leave.
"Do you think she's alive?" I asked as the two of us steered clear of the flashing lights coming from the photographers’ cameras. John shrugged.
"I honestly have no idea. I didn't see her move after she fell, but that doesn't mean she wasn't breathing." He pulled a hand out of his pocket. It still shook as if he'd been stuck with a syringe of adrenaline. He stuffed his hand back in his pocket, glancing at me. His cheeks went rosy when the two of us entered the hotel. The warm air from the heaters swept over my skin like a soothing bath.
"A little tip," I suggested. I hoped I could put John's mind temporarily at ease by lightening the mood. "Ada is really into cats." John slowed his paced and looked at me curiously. It took him a second to get up to speed and realize I was now addressing his bakery crush.
"Is she really?"
"Cats and beads," I said. "Oh and Andy Warhol."
"Good to know." John grinned at my statement. I succeeded in filling his mind with something other than doubt.
Joy met us near the dining room. My stomach felt sour when we followed her through the staff hallway and up the staff only staircase to meet the rest of the wedding party. It reminded me of what Lila had said about how I stuck to the same old habits. She was right. I even took the same path to the bathroom when I was at work and ate the same thing for lunch every day. Chicken or ground turkey on a bed of spinach with cucumber slices, cherry tomatoes, and a scoop of rice.
"The Jayes are getting ready to go to the hospital," Joy informed me. "I thought you might want to drive them there."
Patrick's mother, Anne, was standing nearby. Her husband sat in an armchair with a stern look on his face while his wife stood staring out the window. Her eyes followed each snowflake as it gracefully fluttered to its resting place in the snow. Her slim arms were folded against her torso, revealing a figure that seemed a tad malnourished. I knew as soon as we were alone in the car together she would want to know everything, and I didn't know what I was going to tell her. The whole truth or half of the truth. Patrick would never forgive me if he found out his mom was lying in a hospital bed in the room next to his.
"Sure," I volunteered. "I'll take them."
"Good." Joy stuck out her jaw like she sometimes did when she was preventing herself from speaking too freely. "Mom and Dad went home and they're going to stop by the Jaye's house and pick up some of Patrick's things."
"What about Bebe?" I asked.
"I suppose she can wait around here for when Franco comes back," Joy replied, shrugging. "I'll get the kitchen to send Anne with a to-go bag."
Joy left my side and the void was instantly filled by Bebe. She was still biting her nails and studying my expression. She adjusted the hem of her bridesmaid dress so that her sparkly heels were visible. Even in the midst of deadly nuptials she had fashion on the brain.
"Okay spill," she said quietly. Her eyes passed over me and she twisted her mouth. I needed to change before making the long drive to the nearest hospital. "What happened, apart from the wind tossing you around like a rag doll?"
"I plan on r
unning a comb through my hair."
"Good plan," Bebe responded. "But first you have to tell me what happened out there. I have to be prepared for tomorrow."
"What happens tomorrow?"
"This place will be crawling with press wanting to get the inside scoop," she answered. "I need something juicier than no comment. Essie, this place is going to be front page news."
Finding Donna's killer was all I wanted from the moment we'd found her body. Now that I had, I was hesitant to share what I'd learned. For some reason I was feeling guilty for blatantly shouting to the world what Lila really was, especially when the world had such fond memories of her. I didn't want to spoil her memory.
"I better get moving on that comb situation then," I joked.
"She didn't jump for no reason." Bebe's voice changed. It sounded sorrowful. She took a step, leaning against a wall for balance. "I knew she had issues but…" Bebe gently dabbed her eyes. "It just shows you how short life can really be, doesn't it? The things we thought were important suddenly aren't that important anymore." She sniffled.
"Yes, she had issues," I confessed. "We all do. Unfortunately some of us can't help but … snap."
"I should have been nicer to her," Bebe confessed. "I should have been a better friend and kept my mouth shut that one time she told Celebs Daily magazine that I'd had butt implants."
"Why would she say a thing like that?"
"I took a spinning class for a whole month without her." Bebe thought about it for a second and sported a private smile.
"Hold onto those memories," I said softly. "I suck at always seeing the good in people, but I try."
"You see way more than the good." Bebe laughed lightly. "You see everything there is to see. Everything." She held up her wrist, flashing her silver cuff and therapeutic wristband.
