by Elise Sax
“It’s not so bad,” Faye said kindly.
“It’s bad. It’s really bad. It’s the worst. I look like a bad acid trip. I look like Willy Wonka threw up all over me.” I was wrapped in a hurricane of pink taffeta, and there was some kind of hat on my head that was even worse.
“At least you have that,” Nora said, pointing at the engagement ring on my hand. Adele had returned it to me after I came back from Morris’s house two days ago.
Since the moment that Morris went over the cliff, things had happened very fast. First, I went to Boone to make sure he was okay. We worked to stop his bleeding, and he made a call to Amos. Then, I ran inside to help Gladie, who was just starting to rouse herself. She was diagnosed with a mild concussion, but she got cleared at the hospital to go about her life as usual. The girls were freed, and within a couple of hours, the property was invaded by federal agents and about ten forensic scientists.
It turned out that Morris had been completely honest when he bragged to me about his serial killer history. Bodies were buried everywhere. It would take years to identify all of them and bring closure to the families.
Boone’s leg wound was considered minor, and he was fixed up at the same hospital as Gladie. I had ordered a dozen apology presents for Boone on Amazon, and I was saying sorry every chance I got. He seemed to like this phase of our relationship where I felt guilty and showered him in praise every minute of the day.
There was a general state of shock in town about Morris. As a native Goodnighter, it was hard for people to wrap their heads around the idea that he was a sadistic psychopath. It hit Adele the hardest. She closed the diner temporarily, and as soon as the wedding was over, she was going to bring in a cleaning crew to completely douse the diner kitchen in bleach, buy all new appliances, booths, and tables. Not to mention find a new cook. She wanted to cleanse her beloved diner of any trace of the evil Morris Ford.
By the time I drove Boone home after he was released from the hospital, Rockwell was on his way back to San Quentin. The shark lawyer that Faye had hired on my behalf had done some quick research and found out that Rockwell’s early release had been a bureaucratic error. He was returned to San Quentin to live the remainder of his days with no chance of parole. On his way out of town, Amos forced Rockwell to sign the divorce papers as a gift to me for solving the mystery of his wife’s death. The divorce would take a few months to become final, and then it would be time for Boone and me to get married. I couldn’t wait.
My trust issues had miraculously resolved themselves the second I saw Boone coming to my rescue at Morris’s house. Deep in my heart, I knew that we were going to live happily ever after together. He decided to quit his job at the university in Albuquerque and sell his house there to move in with me and work permanently in the field.
“Someone wants to see you,” Gladie told me at the door to the diner. She and Spencer had decided to stay for a week on their romantic vacation. “He says he has a toenail that wants to eat his brain.”
“Oh, that’s Silas,” I told her. “Please let him in.”
Silas walked in in his regular suit. He never knew that I had suspected him of being a serial killer, and I hoped that he never found out. I hugged him.
“Hurry up with this wedding business, boss, so we can get back to our special edition,” he said. “I smell a Pulitzer, and we better do it quick before this toenail thing gets even nastier. What the hell are you wearing?”
“I’m wearing my worst nightmare,” I said.
“I don’t know a lot about dresses, boss, but I think you’re wearing it wrong. It probably shouldn’t look like that.”
“I think it looks fine,” Gladie said, smiling. “I’ve worn worse. And your boot goes well with it.”
“Are we ready?” Mabel asked in a panic. She had been getting dressed in the kitchen with Nora’s help.
“Yes. And you look beautiful,” I told her.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” Mabel replied. “We don’t have a reality show anymore, and now the town is known for having the worst serial killer in history. Our reputation is worse now than it was when the Daisy the giraffe thing first happened. Rocco and I need to get to work changing this town’s reputation, pronto. I don’t know how we’re going to do it, but we probably need to do something drastic.”
Adele rolled her eyes at me. Silas pulled out his reporter’s notebook and started to jot down notes. “What do you have in mind?” he asked Mabel.
“No time for that,” I said, waving him off. “I’m the maid of honor, and I’m responsible for seeing that this goes without a hitch.”
I adjusted my pink hat on my head, and the wedding march began to blare out of the loudspeakers in the Plaza. The wedding party marched down the aisle until we stood under a canopy in the center.
There were a few hundred guests sitting around the Plaza. I had many new friends sitting there. Good friends that I could count on. Friends that I could trust. It had been a whirlwind since I had moved to Goodnight, but it had changed my life for the better. Actually, I had found my life in Goodnight.
I now had a home, a career, and love for the first time in my life. Not to mention two dogs and an old house. Standing there in my pink taffeta nightmare, I could honestly say that I was happy.
Boone was sitting in the first row next to Amos, and he winked at me, which made me blush. We were both injured, but I knew that we were going to do some positively dirty, naked stuff when we got home tonight.
Gladie was sitting in the second row next to her husband, Spencer. Spencer had a black eye from breaking up the stuffed giraffe fight two days ago.
Nora, her husband, and their thirteen children took up three rows. Adele sat next to Faye and her husband Norton in another row. The staff of the Gazette hovered nearby. They were all taking notes except for Klee, who was taking pictures.
It was my new family, and I was proud of them and loved them all.
“We are gathered today to join this man and this woman,” the reverend began. “…should anyone have any objections…” he continued but stopped suddenly. The preacher’s eyes bugged out, and he clutched at his throat. His prayer book fell to the ground, and he keeled over on his side, straight as a board.
I knew that he was dead, immediately. I lunged for him, just as Gladie did the same from her chair.
“He was murdered!” we both yelled in unison.
“Are you kidding me?” Spencer moaned from his seat.
The reverend was murdered by his wife. It took Gladie and me exactly ninety minutes to solve that mystery. Amos married Rocco and Mabel a few minutes after the reverend was taken away to the morgue, and a good time was had by all at the party afterward.
Tilly greeted Boone and me at the gate when we returned home.
“I’ve got something to say to your fiancée,” she told Boone. “Go inside and wait for her.”
Boone did as he was told. We watched him limp toward the house, where he was greeted by the dogs at the door.
“I’m packed up,” Tilly said to me when Boone went inside.
“What?” I said, honestly surprised. “You don’t have to leave just because Boone and I are engaged.” I didn’t want to admit it, but Tilly had grown on me. Sure, she was a dishonest pain in the ass, but I liked her and liked having her around.
“I’m not leaving because of that. My family needs me in Sea Breeze, California.”
“I thought your family was dead,” I said.
“Nope. They’re all in Sea Breeze. A new wind is blowing, and I need to be there to help them through it. It’ll be nice to go back to my family home.”
“I thought you had lived in Goodnight your entire life.”
Tilly looked at her feet for a second. “About that. I might have lied about some things.”
“Tilly, I already know that you lied about being the oldest citizen of Goodnight.”
“Actually, I told the truth about that,” she said, smiling. “Between you and me, I lied abo
ut being ninety and lied about being a hundred years old. I’m a lot older than that.”
“That’s impossible. How old are you?”
“Let’s put it this way. I might have dated Galileo. And between you and me, I was the one who told him that the earth revolves around the sun.”
I studied her face for a moment, searching for the lie or a psychotic break, but I couldn’t find either. She was telling me the truth, as far as I could tell.
“Will you call? Will you write?” I asked, feeling lonely now that Tilly wasn’t going to sleep in my living room anymore.
“Probably not. But maybe I’ll visit you in the forest,” she said and winked at me. “By the way, I lied about my name, too. It’s Bright. Tilly Bright.”
We went back inside and said goodbye to Tilly. She had ordered a taxi, and within a couple of minutes it arrived and honked for her to come out. She had packed two small bags and waved to Boone and me when she got in the taxi.
“Don’t be sad, Matilda,” Boone said to me, as we watched Tilly ride away. “I’ll keep you company.”
“But you can’t make Tilly’s macaroni and cheese, and I won’t be able to get chicken fried steak at the diner anymore.”
“I’ll get Amos to cook for you,” Boone told me. “He’s a lot nicer to me the past couple days, and he’s always liked you.”
We went inside, and I let Boone take off my nightmare dress. I wanted to burn it, but Boone said the material probably wasn’t flammable. With my dress off, Boone kissed every inch of my body, and he didn’t stop even when we could hear Silas run his bath in the bathroom.
“I’m going to pretend that we’re alone,” Boone said, closing our bedroom door.
“I’m never alone in this house. Even now, there are two dogs in the corner.”
“Nope,” he said, taking me in his arms. “Right now, it’s just you and me.” And he made love to me until late in the night when the house grew quiet and the sky was filled with stars. I waited for him to go to sleep so that I could take the dogs for our nightly walk in the forest. I had a feeling that I would no longer be visited by ghostly apparitions, and that was fine with me. It had taken me longer than I had hoped, but I had finally got some justice for Morris’s victims. I was glad that I could help them in the end.
I closed my eyes for a second. When I opened them, again, the sun was streaming through the bedroom window. I was lying on my side, and Boone was lying on his side, facing me.
“Good morning, sunshine,” Boone said.
“What’s happening? Did I lose consciousness? Am I okay?”
“You’re fine. You slept.”
“I did what?” I asked, sitting up in bed. I looked at the clock. It said it was nine o’clock in the morning. Impossible. “I slept for nine hours? Nine hours straight?”
“Yes, my love. You slept for the first time since I’ve known you. I would even say that you had a very good night.”
Follow Tilly to Sea Breeze in The Fear Hunter, the first book in the Agatha Bright Mysteries. Sign up for my newsletter to be the first to know when it’s released.
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Also by Elise Sax
Matchmaker Mysteries Series
Matchmaking Advice from Your Grandma Zelda
Road to Matchmaker
An Affair to Dismember
Citizen Pain
The Wizards of Saws
Field of Screams
From Fear to Eternity
West Side Gory
Scareplane
It Happened One Fright
The Big Kill
It’s a Wonderful Knife
Ship of Ghouls
Goodnight Mysteries Series
Die Noon
Doom with a View
Jurassic Dark
Coal Miner’s Slaughter
Wuthering Frights
Agatha Bright Mysteries Series
The Fear Hunter
Operation Billionaire Trilogy
How to Marry a Billionaire
How to Marry Another Billionaire
How to Marry the Last Billionaire on Earth
Five Wishes Series
Going Down
Man Candy
Hot Wired
Just Sacked
Wicked Ride
Five Wishes Series
Three More Wishes Series
Blown Away
Inn & Out
Quick Bang
Three More Wishes Series
Standalone Books
Forever Now
Bounty
Switched
About the Author
Elise Sax writes hilarious happy endings. She worked as a journalist, mostly in Paris, France for many years but always wanted to write fiction. Finally, she decided to go for her dream and write a novel. She was thrilled when An Affair to Dismember, the first in the Matchmaker Mysteries series, was sold at auction.
Elise is an overwhelmed single mother of two boys in Southern California. She's an avid traveler, a swing dancer, an occasional piano player, and an online shopping junkie.
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