by Lexy Timms
And his father bought them each a ticket.
“This would be a hell of a lot easier if either of us had a cell phone. Like normal people,” Luke muttered, and with a resigned shake of his head he took off, heading into the thickest part of the expo with no clear idea at all how he was going to find the woman he loved.
He only knew he wouldn’t stop looking until he had her safe in his arms again.
Which was all well and good, provided no one got shot first.
Behind him the doors slammed open. A new set of shouts erupted. The authorities had arrived in all their uniformed glory.
Their luck had finally run out.
Luke began to run.
DANI GRABBED MARCUS by the arm, towing him down the first aisle. “Maria, you and Elaina see what you can find that way!” she shouted over her shoulder. In moments the two mothers were lost to view, and she and Marcus were alone—as alone any two people could be in such a press of people.
It was more crowded than she’d expected, even having re-formed her opinion of wedding planning in recent weeks. If it hadn’t been for Uncle Benny’s ploy, she would have had no idea what half this stuff was for. Suggestions for bridesmaid’s gifts, trousseaus, table decorations, and flower arrangements met her at every turn. Because every table had a giveaway, it seemed, there was a constant press of little knots of women filling out tiny cards, giving out more personal information than they should have been comfortable with. On the other hand, some of the prizes were quite outstanding.
‘Honeymoon for two to Costa Rica’ looked particularly interesting, and if they weren’t in the midst of a crisis she might have been tempted to fill that one out for herself.
Provided she was truly engaged.
No time to think of that now. Focus.
“Where are the cakes? You’d think you’d see more,” she asked Marcus, who was taller and had a better view than she did. He stopped, peering over the crowds, and finally shrugged. “I see lots of cake books and posters, but not a lot of dessert,” he admitted after a minute. “There’s no actual organization to this place.”
They jogged down the first aisle; the sound of banging from the front door was swallowed up by the chatter of thousands of overly-excited women, and the patter of salesmen. “Marcus,” she said after several frustrating minutes of looking. She pulled him around to face her. “This place is huge! We’re never going to find anything by running around like this!” She looked around, her brow creased in concentration. “These people had to rent these booths, right?”
“Never been to bridal show, but similar conventions, yes. You have to rent the booths.”
“Then someone, somewhere, has list of who’s renting where.”
Marcus looked back where they came from. “I didn’t see an information booth by the entrance. Somewhere else, like near a stage perhaps?”
The largest television, the one hung on the back railing, went white and static blasted through the speakers for a moment before it went black. Dani looked up and the screen said INPUT 1 and then switched to INPUT 2.
“Come on!” she cried, and darted toward the back wall, only just swerving in time to miss a stroller of twins. She called over her shoulder. “Find the person with the remote! They would have something!”
“Here!” Marcus called as he disappeared down a side aisle she hadn’t seen. Dani nearly fell trying to turn the corner and keep up with the older man.
A portly, balding man in a white shirt and tie, clipboard firmly clasped under his arm, was alternately squinting at the monitor and squinting to see the controls in his fist, and then looking back again, oblivious to the ebb and flow of humanity moving around him.
“EXCUSE ME!” Dani said. She held her hands up, palms open when she saw the fear in his eyes from Marcus running full speed directly at him. It was Marcus who scared him. Not me. right? “Excuse me.” She smiled as prettily as she could. It didn’t do much to offset Marcus’s scowl, but it was something. “We’re looking for Great Cakes; are they here?”
“Ah...” the man looked from one to the other twice, and blinked. “Congratulations?” He started shuffling papers on the clipboard and dropped the remote.
Marcus reached for it and handed it back to the man, who thanked him profusely and dropped the clipboard.
A sound from the front door, like the day Dani’s senior year of high school ended, caught the man’s ear. It was a muffled roar, indistinct and strange, that drew the man’s attention. He frowned, and grabbed for his walkie talkie on his belt, while Marcus, trying hard not to be noticed, glanced at the pages.
“Pardon me!” The man snatched the clipboard back, and turned to run toward the entrance, as much as anyone could run in that crowd.
“Tell me you got it!” Dani said, eyes scanning the area around them, not liking that it sounded like trouble when the place was so full of people. If someone brought out a weapon, people could die. Lots of people could die. A sick feeling settled in the pit of her stomach.
“We get it, get out, and no one needs to get hurt. They’ll come after us; they won’t risk losing us in a stampede. And there WILL be a stampede if they upset the balance here,” Marcus said softly as he turned, but with a different purpose in mind. He was looking for something, she realized. Landmarks. For the first time since this whole mess had started, Dani felt a glimmer of hope. Something was going right.
“Where?” she asked, wishing she knew what he was looking for.
“Down here, back row!” Marcus turned, immediately colliding with a man who spun, reeling. He nearly drew his gun, and instead started stammering apologies until he saw the wildness in the stranger’s eyes. Dani grabbed Marcus’ arm as the man drew himself up, thrusting his chest out and shoving himself into Marcus’ space, aggressive and mean.
“Marcus...”
It was a warning, not that it was needed. Marcus didn’t so much as move as the man, still nearly a foot shorter than him, stuck a finger in Marcus’ face and shouted the word, “Elaina!” then nodded, apparently satisfied, and ran off in the opposite direction.
“What the hell?” It was Marcus who spoke first.
Dani looked at Marcus and shrugged. “You were saying?” She had a bad feeling about this. That man was not there for any weddings. The enemy had breached the walls.
Marcus came to the same conclusion. “This way!” He pelted to the back row.
Thankfully there were fewer people back here. Correction, there were no people back here, save the ones tending the booths. Most of the vendors were sitting with heads propped on whatever comfortable surface they could find. This was the cheap seats at the convention, the smallest booths, rented by businesses more likely to be out of someone’s home than an actual storefront. Here the displays carried a hint of desperation, playing to a crowd already tired and bored. The giveaways were nothing so grand as vacations, but instead were more along the lines of free pens or refrigerator magnets.
GREAT CAKES was distinguished only by a cloth sign that hung to one side, slightly crooked as if it, too, was resting until someone showed. Dani scanned the booth, and came up blank. No birds, no cakes of any kind. Instead, three scrapbooks stood open to different pages, showing desultory confectionary across a purple velvet swatch of fabric. A plate of cupcakes stood off to one side, bearing a sign warning people not to eat or even touch. The other side of the table offered purple and white lanyards with a pink plastic cupcake dangling from the end. What purpose they served was anybody’s guess.
“Ms. Pinal?” Dani said breathlessly.
The woman behind the table could not have looked less like the woman in Orlando. She was thin to emaciated, which possibly was a comment on the taste of her cakes. Whereas her mother was triple-chinned, this woman barely had enough flesh to cover the jaw.
“Yes?” she asked, blinking like an owl just waking up. “Can I help you? Oh, wait...you’re together? I mean...congratulations!” She drew one of the books over until it was planted squarely in front of D
ani. “I have some pictures here, beautiful examples...”
“We’re friends of your mother!” Dani hated interrupting, but they didn’t have much time. Any minute now the rest of the world was going to descend.
“Really?” Ms. Pinal tried to sound enthusiastic, but to Dani it sounded like a half-hearted attempt at best. She scowled and shoved the book back where it had been, careful to center it perfectly in the middle of the table.
“She sent you a statue...” Marcus said, holding his hands apart to indicate a small size.
“The bird?” Ms. Pina blinked again, and it occurred to Dani that the girl was a bird. Not an owl, perhaps, but she had the hooked nose, the furtive way of moving, and the disconcerting eyes.
“Dani!” Maria and Elaina appeared seemingly out of nowhere. Elaina doubled over, breathing hard, bracing one hand on the table to hold herself up. “Someone screamed my name. I thought it was someone from the agency. Or FBI. I didn’t know. We had to run—”
Dani held up a restraining hand. “Please, the bird?”
“I needed it. I plan on winning this year!” Ms. Pinal puffed up and straightened her back.
“Win?” Dani asked.
“The contest.” She blinked again and looked pointedly at each of them. “The cake contest...” she said, as though explaining the obvious.
“Cake contest?” Maria echoed.
“Yes,” the woman said. “This year, I am entering my greatest creation.” She swept one hand across the air, as though leaving space for a grand title. “Wings of Love.” She wrapped her arms around herself and sighed. “So romantic. Like something out of a book—”
“THERE!” someone screamed, and a horde of people ran at the little group, not stopping for the table. Hands came in to upend it, scattering lanyards in all directions. Marcus thrust Dani back out of harm’s way as Ms. Pinal shrieked and ran out of the back of the booth. Two people vaulted the remains of the table and ran after her while chaos erupted at the other tables, people scrambling to protect their possessions or, in some cases, themselves as the world exploded around them. Three policemen followed, and Dani ducked as a sheaf of brochures cascaded around her. From behind Marcus’ back she heard screams and the sounds of a fight. Occasionally someone would scream “ELAINA!”
“WHAT THE HELL DO YOU WANT?” Elaina yelled back.
Not about to be deterred by a little paper Dani came up in a fighting stance, only she had no idea who the enemy was, and Ms. Pinal was long gone. Realizing that the crowd had already swarmed past in pursuit of the missing baker, Dani dropped her arms and straightened, feeling kind of silly now—somewhat peeved that after all this, Marcus was still trying to protect her as if she were a child.
“I never was in any danger,” she informed him haughtily. With a sigh, she started after the crowd as the vendors around her came out from under their tables and looked around at the destruction that moments ago had been a reasonably calm venue.
“DANI!” She spun. That voice she knew.
“LUKE!” She flung herself into his arms, and where he would have held her she grabbed his shirt with both fists. She pulled him down to her level and hissed, “It’s on a cake. There’s a contest, it’s on a cake!”
“I am telling you,” the round little man was waving his clipboard in front of William and someone who was walking with him, “this is NOT acceptable! This is a family-friendly exposition! I cannot have people running through here screaming ‘Elaina’, or any other profanity!”
Elaina sighed and hung her head.
Dani grabbed the clipboard from him and handed it to Marcus.
“HEY!” The organizer made a lunge to get it back, but he was restrained by the very policeman who had been attempting to reassure him.
Marcus scanned the page that gave a layout diagram, and pointed to the huge cloth that stretched the width of the far wall directly below the television.
“Behind the curtain!”
His cry electrified the newcomers. While actual patrons screamed and fought to get out of the way, a good part of the crowd tore through the curtain, shredding it and found hundreds upon hundreds of cakes. Apparently, Wings of Love was a very popular motif this year. Each last one had some sort of bird on it, in every variety and shape and size.
“What kind of bird was it?” Marcus asked Luke, never looking away from the collection in front of them. There was a hint of awe in his voice.
Police and men in suits gathered. Thankfully the police were already shepherding out anyone who didn’t belong. Or at least removed anyone who actually had any connection to weddings whatsoever.
Dani breathed a sigh of relief as the civilians disappeared out the exits. Thank God. Fewer potential casualties.
These guys on the other hand... Dani’s eyes narrowed. She found she was clutching Luke’s hand hard. He squeezed back, a silent signal of solidarity. Either that, or he didn’t want to lose her in the melee.
“I can’t remember,” Luke said so quietly it was barely audible.
As one, every eye moved to study him.
“I’m sorry.” He shrugged. The collective representatives from several intelligence agencies rolled their eyes.
Luke looked at Dani. She put her fingers upon his lips, stilling whatever excuses he might have had. “It’s okay. We’ll find it.”
A shout rose up from the crowd that remained. The numbers had swelled to easily a hundred agents, the greatest collection of intelligence agencies the world had ever seen come together in one place. A handful of policemen fell back, holding a perimeter that they didn’t understand.
As one they threw themselves forward, hands outstretched.
“ELAINA!”
Chapter Fifteen
It became a pastry slaughter of epic proportions.
Cake and icing flew in every direction. The floor was awash in sugar, as anything with a wing was grabbed off cakes and hurled to the floor. There was little enough time to search through the rubble of ceramic and plastic birds for anything resembling a USB stick, and the wholesale destruction simply continued.
In a bid to be the first one to locate the stick, shoving turned to fights. Men and woman punched, kicked, and even bit to reach the next bird, the next attempt at the stick. The losers of the ad-hoc battles were thrown into the cakes that had been stripped, and occasionally into cakes that had no bird statues and had avoided the original devastation.
It was a confectionary food fight, only out for blood. Not content with wading through battles, men began leaping through the air, pouncing on tables and cakes, and occasionally sliding over the frosting, a ceramic bird clutched in a death grip.
Luke lost Dani entirely, in the mess of bodies and pastries. It became a rolling mess. It had its humorous elements, when the people running the convention attempted to halt the destruction. The fact that they attacked trained professionals should have been a horrifying, one-ended bloodbath, but with the slick footing of sugar and the debris scattered over the concrete floor, they actually had better odds than he would have given them credit for.
Not that Luke wasn’t trying. His own fingers scrambled for the prize as much as anyone else’s until his hands were coated in cake crumbs, held together by what he feverishly hoped was raspberry filling. Shaking off the remains of what had been a six-tiered masterpiece complete with working fountains, Luke took a moment to reassess. He found William fast enough. He stood at the back, observing, Thomas at his side. Someone in police blues, with enough medals across his uniform to qualify him as a fairly high muckety-muck, stood next to them, arms crossed, scowling face letting the world know that he in no way approved of this rampant destruction.
Not a speck of frosting so much as touched any of their clothing.
Only just resisting the urge to fling something sweet in their direction just to watch them jump, Luke turned to survey the rest of the room. Even the giant television was getting splattered, and some of the people gathered on the balcony above were regretting their choice of get
ting so close, though how on earth cake was being thrown that high was beyond him. Truly, the melee was impressive and was only going to add to their fame this day on the nightly news. That whole slew of bystanders in the balcony had their cellphones out, recording every second.
Civilians. Potential casualties.
What are we thinking?
The whole thing had gotten completely out of hand, and William was at the heart of it. Setting up Dani as bait had only been part of it. He truly hadn’t cared one whit about the thousands who had shown up today with no thought in their minds beyond planning their weddings.
He should have called in a bomb scare. Anything to empty the place. Why hadn’t he?
Luke shook his head. Because that took time, plain and simple. Time that his father had felt they hadn’t had. Was he right? The groups fighting over the few remaining cakes certainly had shown up just as expected. But how much of that was his father’s fault? Air Force One certainly hadn’t been subtle.
A handful of cakes remained. Luke started toward them, his foot kicking something that clattered across the floor and came to rest in a pile of strawberries and smashed flowers. Luke looked down automatically and froze. There was a half-smashed bird statue under a fallen table a few feet away. It was difficult to tell, but there was something poking out of the bottom of the bird. He ran, slipping and sliding like he was trying to jog on a skating rink. A man in what might have been a black suit at one time saw him and, following his gaze, lunged for the same statue. Luke gritted his teeth and threw himself forward, shoulder meeting shoulder, sending them both tumbling, sliding, falling.
“FBI! FREEZE!”
He couldn’t have stopped if he’d wanted to, though he could have sworn he heard his father shout. Somehow he rolled and came up running. A wild, crazy leap over another agent, a woman in a blue suit, sent him stumbling over the remainder of a wedding cake that had been large enough to park a limo on, his feet and legs reducing it to so many frosted crumbs, and slid the remaining distance to the broken statue.
