Terror in Taffeta (7 page)

“The nerve.”

“I know, right? I even tried flirting with one of them, and he was completely nonresponsive.”

“That I find hard to believe,” he said, leaning across the table and kissing me softly on the mouth.

Swoon. Okay, just because he was the most charming man I'd encountered in, oh, five years, didn't mean I was going to chuck it all and move to Mexico, but for one heated moment, I pondered what it would be like to be a kept woman. Nah, I'd be bored with nothing to do but order around the part-time house staff. Besides, I was booked solid for the next year and a half. But damn, he made it tempting. It would be nice to be taken care of for once, rather than doing all the caretaking. Not to mention the handholding, decision-making,
t
-crossing and
i
-dotting.

“I admit it looks suspicious, but I'm sure everything will be fine. They'll figure out that none of us has anything to do with this mess, and we can all go back to our lives.”

“I have selfish reasons for hoping they drag it out,” Evan said, “but I'll see what I can find out from my friends at the station.”

Handsome
and
handy to have around. My kind of man.

After dinner—and, to be fair, more kissing—we walked to the
jardín
to listen to the mariachis for a bit. After a group of tourists finished nodding their heads enthusiastically to “El Jarabe Tapatío”—also known as “The Mexican Hat Dance,” also known as “the only Mexican song some people can name when approached by a mariachi”—Evan pressed some pesos into the bandleader's hand and whispered something in his ear. They began to play a romantic ballad as Evan slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me close. We danced for a few minutes while passersby smiled appreciatively. I could tell what they were thinking:
Just two young people in love.

As the song finished, an older woman patted me on the arm and said something in Spanish. My Spanish wasn't good enough to catch what she'd said, but the twinkle in her eye made me blush.

The date had been a good one, I had to admit. San Miguel was one of the most romantic towns in Mexico, maybe even North America, but I'd never really been able to enjoy it properly before now.

We got to the gate of the villa, and Evan kissed me again as the bells of La Parroquia chimed midnight in the distance.

“You know,” he said, leaning in for a kiss, “one of the benefits of dating a pilot is that distance isn't really an issue.” Just as our lips were about to touch, the heavy wooden door to the villa suddenly swung open.

“Kelsey!” Nicole cried, oblivious to the moment she had interrupted.

“What?! Oh! Hi. Nicole. We were just—I was just—you remember Evan?”

“Hi, Evan. Kelsey, where have you been?” She threw her arms around me and managed to get out a wobbly “Thank God you're here” before completely bursting into tears.

Maybe it was a mistake to have left her here with her mother. There's no telling what Mrs. Abernathy had said to put her in this state. I knew it had to be stressful for the young couple, being cooped up when they should have been off somewhere consummating their marriage. From the looks of it, Mrs. Abernathy had badgered the poor girl to the breaking point.

“What's up?” I asked, self-consciously wiping at my mouth in case my lipstick was smeared.

Nicole had yet to regain her composure, and my eyes met Evan's over Nicole's shoulder.

“Sorry,” I mouthed silently, to which Evan shrugged good-naturedly. I was eager to finish my good-night kiss in private, but that seemed unlikely, especially when Mrs. Abernathy joined us on the sidewalk.

“Kelsey, you mustn't leave without telling us. We've been looking for you for hours. Now come inside, girls, so we can stop making spectacles of ourselves for all of San Miguel.”

I felt peevish. I wasn't on the clock. “Evan and I were just catching up.”

“Catch up on your own time,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “Zoe has been arrested.”

 

CHAPTER 7

After being snatched from Evan's arms, I bid him a hasty good night and followed the Abernathys into our walled compound. Fernando, the chef who had kept us well fed throughout our stay at the villa, had thoughtfully laid out a midnight snack to fuel our middle-of-the-night summit, and the family filled me in on the events of the evening. It was starting to feel increasingly like a hostage situation, except with really good snacks.

It was hard to follow what had happened, since everyone was trying to talk at once. Their garbled cross talk came out sounding something like: “Kelsey Zoe police tonight Nicole interrogated because Dana and Zoe was accused and handcuffs jail … do something!”

I couldn't follow any given sentence, but all the words were there. Zoe was in jail, which was very, very bad.

“That's terrible!” I said when the hubbub had finally died down long enough for me to speak. “I can't believe they think she did this. What I don't understand—and if you can talk one at a time, that would be super helpful—is why?”

Unsurprisingly, Mrs. Abernathy was the first to jump in. “They wouldn't tell us! Can you imagine?”

Actually, I found it pretty easy to imagine, but Mrs. Abernathy wasn't used to dealing with people who didn't have to do her bidding.

Mrs. Abernathy, Nicole, and Vince all stared at me, waiting for my response, but I was at a loss for words. On what grounds could they have possibly arrested Zoe? “Did they tell you
anything
?”

Nicole shook her head. “It all happened so quickly. The policemen—those two who were here earlier—came by while we were having dinner. They said Zoe had to go down to the station with them. We told them there had to be some mistake, but they wouldn't listen.”

Mrs. Abernathy nodded in agreement with her daughter's description of the events. “It was like they were entirely unconcerned with our feelings.”

I leaned over the table and put my head in my hands, rubbing my eyes, trying desperately to come up with some response. I wanted to go to bed so badly. Why had I let Mrs. Abernathy bully me into staying at the villa instead of in my own private hotel room? And how had Brody managed not to get roped into all of this? He was probably hiding in his room, the traitor.

“I've called the consulate,” Mrs. Abernathy continued, “but no one will be in till ten o'clock tomorrow morning.”

“Do you need me to get you the name of a lawyer?”

“We
have
a lawyer, Kelsey.” Silly me. Of course they had a lawyer. He was probably part of the house staff.

“Getting him on the phone—now, that's a different story. But as soon as he calls me back, I'm going to get him on the next plane down here.”

“Well, great, sounds like you've got it all under control,” I said. I felt terrible that Zoe had to spend the night in jail, but I was glad she was in capable hands.

Mrs. Abernathy looked incredulous. “Kelsey, we need your help!”

“Me? What can I do?”

“Get Zoe out of jail, for starters!”

I glanced over at Nicole and Vince for support, but Nicole just looked at me expectantly while Vince stared at the floor. What superpowers did these people think I possessed? “How am I supposed to do that, exactly?”

“You're the wedding planner!” said Mrs. Abernathy. “I'm sure you'll think of something!”

Was she
serious
?

“Mrs. Abernathy, I can't do anything! If she were trapped in a wedding cake, I might be able to get her out, but this is outside of my jurisdiction!”

“But you know these people. You work down here. Surely there's something you can do, someone you can talk to. The thought of my baby in a Mexican prison…”

Sure. I could probably just sashay into the station and explain that there'd been a huge mistake. I'm sure they'd let her out on my say-so. This midnight ambush coupled with the sangria was making it hard to think.

“Mrs. Abernathy, I'm sorry. I really don't know what to tell you right now. This is a lot to process, and I'm sure we'll all feel better after a good night's sleep.”

Nicole and Vince looked like they were exhausted, too, and nodded with glassy-eyed stares.

Mrs. Abernathy sighed and slumped in her chair. “Oh, all right. There's probably nothing we can do at this time of night anyway.”

Finally—she'd finally said something reasonable.

“But first thing in the morning I want you to march down to that police station and tell them they've made a terrible mistake. And be sure to remind them that she's an American!”

So much for reasonable.

I wasn't sure what magical power she thought I could wield over the police, but the woman was clearly used to getting her way. She didn't see me as the wedding planner—she saw me as staff, and she assumed I would do her bidding.

“Look, Mrs. Abernathy, I don't think—”

“I'm not paying you to think! Just fix this. Now, I'll see you in the morning.” And with that she stood, kissed her other daughter good night, and vanished down the hall.

*   *   *

Whoever had painted the ceiling of my bedroom had done an impeccable job. Top-notch, really. I knew, because I'd been staring at it for most of the night. I cocked one bleary eye open to check the time on the digital clock across the room. The glowing numbers read 4:18
A.M
. I had the same feeling of sleepless despair that I'd experienced at 1:23, 2:47, and 3:05.

I'd returned to my room around one o'clock and crawled into bed, hoping the next morning I'd wake up with a clear head and a brilliant plan. But to do that, I'd have to get a good night's sleep—and to do
that
I'd actually have to
fall
asleep.

What was I going to do about Zoe? I didn't want her to sit in jail, but it really was beyond my particular skill set. Too bad Brody wasn't awake. He always had good advice. Well, okay, maybe not good advice, but he'd let me talk until I figured it out for myself. I was tempted to wake him up, but that would be mean.

Five minutes passed. Waking someone up at four-thirty in the morning
was
mean, right?

Or was it just mildly inconsiderate?

I decided I could live with mildly inconsiderate in the face of an international crisis, so I threw on some yoga pants under my sleep tee and tiptoed down the hall to his room.

He didn't immediately answer my knock, and I started to feel silly standing outside in my hastily assembled attire. I knocked again. Nothing. What if I ran into someone out here? It wasn't likely, but it would sure be embarrassing. I tried the door. It was unlocked, so I stepped inside the dark room.

“Brody? You in here?” I whispered.

“Who's there?” he demanded, fumbling at his bedside lamp.

“It's me, Kelsey.” I padded across the room toward the sound of his voice.

He clicked the light on and glared at me. “What the hell?”

“You shouldn't leave your door unlocked,” I said. “Anyone could come in.”

“So I see. What are you doing? What time is it?”

“Scooch over,” I said, climbing into bed next to him. “We have to talk.”

“You could have at least brought me some coffee,” he said, yawning as he spoke.

“What? Don't be silly. It's the middle of the night. Anyway, did you hear about Zoe?” Somehow he'd managed to miss the whole drama, having weaseled his way out of joining the family for dinner, so I recounted my earlier conversation with Mrs. Abernathy, throwing in occasional nudges to keep him awake. “Brody, are you listening? This is important!”

Brody sat up and rubbed his eyes.

“Sorry, I just had the weirdest dream that a crazy woman broke into my room and woke me up at four in the morning. Oh, and look: here you are!”

“Okay, I'm sorry I had to wake you up, but this is important. You wanna go get coffee?”

“No, I want to go back to sleep.”

“Yeah, me too. Anyway, Mrs. Abernathy expects me to march into the police station in a few hours and, I don't know, slip Zoe a file in a cake or sweet-talk the police into letting her go.”

“I'm sure you'll do great at that,” he said, burrowing farther into his bedding. “Good night.”

“Brody!” I pulled away the pillow he had strategically put over his head to drown me out. “C'mon, how am I going to get the police to listen to me if I can't even get
you
to listen to me?”

“Okay, okay,” he said, sitting up and yawning. “I'm listening. Now, what's your problem?”

“Mrs. Abernathy thinks it's my job to fix this, but I don't know the first thing about getting someone out of jail.”

He sighed as he leaned up on one elbow. “Did it ever occur to you that you're going to have a lot better luck getting through to the police than Mrs. Abernathy would?”

“True. But what am I going to say to them? Zoe looks great in taffeta? She carried those flowers like a champ?”

“I don't know, but at least you can say you tried.”

“But then what? Mrs. Abernathy isn't going to be content with ‘I tried.' And I don't have time to stick around until this gets sorted out. I have to get back to San Francisco. The Richardson wedding is in two weeks, and I've still got a ton of work to do.”

“Then we'll have to go with Plan B.”

“Plan B? We have a Plan B? What is it?”

“I don't know. You wedding planners always have a Plan B, don't you?”

I sank back into the spare pillow. Dang it. I was Plan B. I at least had to try.

“Okay, I guess I'll sleep on it and maybe in the morning I'll know what to say.”

“Soundslieaplahn,” he replied, his face smushed back down in the pillow.

“Brody?” He shook his head and buried his face deeper in the poly-down mix. “Brody, can I stay in here with you?”