by Ally Gray
I Do, You Die
An Events By Design Mystery - Book 1
Ally Gray
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
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
Also by Ally Gray
Copyright © 2015 by Ally Gray
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by www.coverkicks.com
The Events By Design Cozy Mystery book series is dedicated to my wonderful-beyond-words husband, Michael
Chapter 1
The new girl’s nasally, irritating voice came through the speaker phone on Stacy’s desk, informing her that the staff meeting would begin in five minutes. Stacy simultaneously rolled her eyes and dropped her head to her desk. She only gave herself a split second reprieve before sitting up and pressing the button on her phone.
“Thank you, Sassy. But remember, you only need to call me ‘Miss East’ if there are clients here. I’m fine with Stacy any time we’re all just here working.”
“Yes, Miss East!” came Sassy’s too-chipper voice through the speakers. Stacy rolled her eyes again but at least managed to stay upright this time. Her lead florist, Jeremiah Hill, laughed to himself from the work table in Stacy’s office where he was poring over a catalog page of fire and ice roses.
“That girl’s certainly gonna go places,” he explained without looking up. “Not Harvard, that’s for sure, but places.”
“Well, next time I’ll be sure to tell the employment agency that I want an assistant who’s Ivy League bound. Better yet, given their track record, I want one who’s already graduated. Actually, I’d settle for community college, so long as the person has finished in a standard amount of time and managed to avoid being arrested while there.”
Stacy gathered up her notes for the morning staff meeting and piled them on top of the fabric samples that had arrived two weeks’ past due for her stager. As she passed her assistant’s desk, she reminded her to bring the coffee for the staff meeting.
“And don’t forget the cups this time, okay? Last week we just had the one pot…kind of in the middle of the table…with several straws. Remember?” The vapid expression on the blonde girl’s face told her all she needed to know.
The phone rang, and Stacy tried not to scream as the young woman stated, “Sorry, but Stacy’s headed to a meeting. Do you want to call her back later?”
“Sassy…” Stacy began after the girl put the phone back in its cradle and folded her hands patiently, “Remember, when you’re talking to clients, call me… you know what? Never mind. Call me Miss East at all times. I mean, all the time. Any time you’re talking to me or about me or even just thinking of me, use ‘Miss East.’ Got it?” The girl nodded far too fast, her earrings flying out from her head as she shook. “And when someone calls, you don’t tell them to call back later. You write down the person’s name and phone number on this pink pad right here. Remember?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry! I forgot again!” Sassy called out as Stacy retreated down the hall, in a hurry to get to the staff meeting before she could say something unintentionally—or intentionally—hurtful.
“Good morning, everyone,” Stacy called out as she dropped into the high-backed leather chair at the head of the long mahogany table. The conversations drifted to a halt as everyone turned to look in her direction. She looked over the smiling faces of her department heads before taking note of the various assistants who lined the walls in their straight backed chairs, pens already scribbling furiously on their notepads before she’d ever uttered a word.
This was the part of the meetings that always sent a nervous shiver up Stacy’s spine. She felt like an impostor somehow, a usurper to the throne that had been occupied by Miss Abigail Prudell for more than sixty years. She couldn’t even bring herself to sit in Abigail’s chair, a lovely overstuffed wingback that even now was in a place of honor in the corner, waiting on a custom-built raised platform as though dear Abigail would one day return and resume her role as leader of Events By Design, the South’s most well-known and sought-after event planning firm.
In the same way that lawyers and accountants and doctors strove to be made partner in their practices and celebrated the landmark occasion with massive, even formal, affairs—Stacy would know, she’d overseen plenty of them in her time—the top names in the wedding industry worked themselves to death to become partners in Events By Design. The evidence was all around her, staring her in the face and waiting breathlessly for the weekly meeting to begin.
Stacy disliked this part of the job most of all.
Chapter 2
“So, to wrap things up, we’re two weeks away from the J-Max/Stephanie Bindle wedding, and I don’t have to tell you what that means. Regardless of what the calendar says, there are simply no other weddings on the schedule at this point. No other work, no client meetings, limited phone calls only with any other clients until this one is in the books, and please try to keep the heavy drinking to a minimum, no matter how crazy this gets. Understood?” She watched as everyone nodded at her joke and voiced their agreement. “Perfect. Another great meeting, everyone, thank you as always for your great work.”
“I need a drink, Jeremiah,” Stacy announced once she reached the safety of her office. “Get me something heavy on the alcohol and light on the fruity syrup. I don’t care what at this point. Find a bar that’s open at this hour of the morning and don’t come back empty handed!”
“That’s just the nerves talking, dear, but I can’t understand why you still get this way after all these years. You’ve handled how many governors’ inaugurations? How many other celebrity weddings? And let’s not forget the coronations of every Miss Georgia, Miss Alabama, Miss Tennessee, and Miss Mississippi—there’s a mouthful, for you—for the last five years. You’re fine. Stop getting so worked up.”
“Who’s worked up?” Tori Michaels asked, coming into Stacy’s office and dropping the fabric samples on the worktable, flicking her hand over them before announcing, “These are the wrong shade of sapphire. They’re practically cerulean. We need something a little more azure. Now, I repeat, who’s worked up?”
“Stacy is! She’s freaking out because yet another rap star/actress combo has decided to get married.”
“I’m not freaking out, I’m merely voicing my professional opinion that having something with maybe a tiny bit of alcoholic in it right now would probably be in the best interests of everyone in this building. Aren’t there mimosas left over in the fridge from the Carson/McGrady wedding?” she asked, trying hard not to whine.
“Do you really think this is a good time to barge in on Chef Pierre and demand a drink?” Jeremiah asked, shaking his head as though giving Stacy a hint about the correct answer. “Now, for the record, what’s got you so upset?”
“I don’t know! I just get this nagging feeling every time we have a high-profile wedding, this feeling that someone’s going to find out about me and we’ll all be ruined!”
Jeremiah and Tori looked at eac
h other, just a fleeting glance, but it was enough. Stacy noticed and sat bolt upright. “You think so too! I know you do!”
“Honey, no one thinks that, you’re really getting all worked up over nothing,” Tori said, coming to sit on the arm of Stacy’s chair and putting a comforting arm around her shoulders. “Besides, there’s nothing to find out. You’re not breaking any laws, you’re legally entitled to run this company.”
“Oh really? How about FRAUD?” Stacy hissed, trying to keep her voice down. “People pay us a great deal of money to put on their events thinking they’re getting the famous Abigail Prudell, but the old dear up and died! She’s been dead for three whole years, that’s three years’ worth of clients who could sue us for fraud!”
“It’s not your job to do people’s homework for them,” Jeremiah said. “If they don’t go to the county records office and look for her death certificate, that’s hardly our fault.”
“No, but when they think they’ve been paying for Abigail’s expertise all this time, there are bound to be some angry people. And half of them are related to lawyers!” She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms over her face. “If anyone ever finds out…”
“They won’t find out,” Tori assured her. “And as long as you keep making everything perfect for these brides, no one will ever have a reason to look into it.”
“That didn’t help,” Stacy moaned. “You know exactly how much work it is to make a wedding go perfectly!”
“Then we just all have to be better than perfect. It’s what Abigail would have wanted. Hell, it’s what she demanded. We’re all so used to it that we just know it’s the rule. Perfect is what we do.”
Chapter 3
“Why is there a dead body in the freakin’ parlor?!” Stacy screamed from her spot where she’d established her office on the first floor of the historic mansion. The wedding—the famed J-Max/Stephanie Bindle wedding, the wedding of the century, the celebrity “it” wedding that all the tabloids were following—was in just a few days and preparations had been underway on site for over a week. The entire company had moved on location already at this grand estate overlooking the ocean, and tensions would have been running on overdrive even without the terrible discovery. They’d arrived at the mansion at three that morning to begin work and nearly stumbled over the body of one of J-Max’s groomsmen where he lay sprawled on the two-hundred-year-old Aubusson rug with the cabbage rose border.
“Because the living room was full of tulle and garment bags?” Jeremiah quipped, earning a misplaced nervous giggle from Tori and a look of pure frozen rage from Stacy. He turned away and covered his laugh with a cough.
“What do we do, Stacy?” Tori asked, her tone slightly more sympathetic than Jeremiah’s. They were all giddy from lack of sleep and from the months of stress and planning, but the sight of an oversized man decked out in a velvet track suit and enough gold chains to win over a tribe of Aztecs lying face down on the rug was more than any of them had thought to plan for.
“Oh my god, we have to call the cops. There will be policemen, detectives, the newspapers, and Perez Hilton swarming this property and stomping on the floor runners before sunrise.” Stacy ticked off the list on her stubby-nailed fingertips, the chewed off ends ready for her game day manicure but in the meantime looking ragged for the work ahead of her. “You don’t suppose we could just put him in the walk-in freezer until the wedding’s over, can we? Do you think he’d fit?”
Jeremiah and Tori exchanged a worried look before both of them came to stand closer. Jeremiah took her face in his hands and looked deeply into Stacy’s eyes before asking, “Sweetie? Are you on drugs? Because you’re talking like you’re on drugs. What’s gotten into you? You’re never this freaked out.”
“Because I’ve never had to deal with a dead groomsman! At least not one who was dead at the actual site of the ceremony. All the dead members of the bridal party I’ve ever had to put up with have always had the good sense to get themselves dead off the premises and away from the reception area!” Stacy shook her head as much as Jeremiah’s strong hands would let her. Her cheeks smarted from the pressure of his palms pressed to the sides of her face, but it was what she needed to ground her at the moment.
“I’ve just had a bad feeling about this wedding, ever since we were first hired to do it,” she continued, willing herself not to cry. “I can’t shake the feeling that this is the time it’s all going to blow up in our faces, and not just blow up, but blow up publicly in front of every news outlet in the country. And this dead man will be the nail in the coffin for this company.”
“FYI, ‘nail in the coffin’ might not be the words you want use if you have to speak to the police. Look, Stace, it’s just because of all the exposure. The most press we usually have to contend with are a few hometown newspapers covering the nuptials of some local corn-fed princess, maybe something as large as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. But this time, the whole world will be watching this wedding, and you’re just going through some pre-wedding jitters, that’s all. It’s normal. I’d worry if you didn’t feel at least a little freaked out. But you’re a pro, and you’re the most sought after wedding planner in the country. Just go out there and do your thing. Oh, and make sure you don’t get blood on your shoes, they’re too fabulous to ruin with biohazardous fluids.”
“Jeremiah, it creeps me out when you use the word ‘fabulous,’ especially when you use it in the same sentence with ‘shoes.’ For the last time, I don’t care if you are a florist… you’re not gay.”
“No, but everyone expects it. I just thought I’d get warmed up early this morning!” He smiled brightly and kissed her cheek where his hand had still left a slight pink tint. “Step one, let’s call the coroner before Chef Pierre’s crew arrives with the cake today, we don’t want anyone tripping with fourteen layers.”
“I’m on it,” Tori interjected. “It’ll give me something to do, and when he shows up, I bet I can get his whole group to keep this whole thing under wraps. I’m incredibly persuasive.” She thrust her beyond ample chest forward and pulled her shoulders back, pointing out where her persuasion skills came from. Stacy rolled her eyes and let herself enjoy one supremely indulgent flop into her desk chair, awarding herself exactly two and a half minutes to luxuriate in the sense of panic before she would force herself to snap out of it.
Chapter 4
Stephanie Bindle, the Hollywood A-lister slash It Girl, breezed into the entryway of the old house with an entire entourage bringing up the rear. Stacy met her coming out of the temporary office, extending her hand for a shake as she introduced herself for the first time in person. The hand went untouched, hanging uncomfortably in the space between them as Stephanie looked at it over the rim of her very large sunglasses.
Don’t fall for it, Stace, she reminded herself. Abigail would have never put up with it, starlet or not. A showdown ensued as Stacy remained frozen, a confident smirk plastered on her face and her hand held between them, decorum be damned. Stephanie was the one to cave, reluctantly taking Stacy’s hand for a nanosecond, more of a disdainful and lingering high five than a handshake.
Nonetheless, Stacy had just won. She knew Abigail would have been proud.
“Miss Bindle, we have all the plans laid out here in my office. I’m sorry to say the police have cordoned off the area where the unfortunate incident occurred, but they’ve assured me they’ll get everything cleaned up and get out of our way as soon as humanly possible.” Stacy led the way towards the room that served as her private office, trying to hurry them right past the parlor that was currently draped in crime scene tape instead of gossamer, but was interrupted by an ear drum-splitting scream, one whose pitch was only a few levels below being inaudible to human ears. The group jumped at the sound, which continued in one long note as the screamer danced into view.
“O! M! G! Stephanie freakin’ Bindle! I’m so sorry about T-Spot, I guess it’s just one of those things, but I’m so excited to see you! We’re just gonna
have so much fun with this wedding and I can’t wait to see you in your dress and don’t worry we haven’t told a soul about the designer! It’s a super giant secret, I pinkie swear!” Sassy screamed in the actress’s face without pausing for air, grabbing her in a bear hug and jumping up and down with her. The assistant’s hostage was jostled almost painfully during the attack. Stacy wanted to dig her stubby nails into Sassy’s neck until she felt blood and spinal cord, and if she had had her way at that moment, the unfortunate groomsman wouldn't be the only dead body at this wedding.
From out of nowhere, one of the photographer’s crewmen—a burly, tattooed man in torn jeans and three days’ growth of beard—tackled Sassy, deftly removing her from the room in one swift blur of motion without harming the bride. Stacy was mortified but remembered to appear controlled.
“My apologies, that was an overeager temp worker who I assure you will no longer be with us,” she explained to Stephanie’s manager lest they get the impression that security was falling down on the job.
“Is this the kind of treatment we can expect from you?” the manager asked, speaking for Stephanie while the actress looked bored. It couldn’t have been stranger than if he’d had a hand up her dress and was using her for a puppet.
Stacy’s gut instinct was to run from the room making almost the same noise Sassy had made, but she remembered to channel her inner Abigail instead. She took on a frosty glare before turning to the manager, who turned mousy under her impressive gaze. He almost seemed to shrink a few inches.
“Miss Bindle,” she continued, finally turning her attention to the bride and ignoring the shark with the cell phone, “if I could have you come into this room to look over the plans, we can have a brief session on your special day. And I must say, my sincerest apologies but only the bride and members of the wedding party are allowed to attend. We can’t have anyone ruining the surprise of your special day.”
