'Til Death Do Us Part (7 page)

But Peyton had wanted neither. As for the girls’ night on the town, she’d declared that she was now a public figure and didn’t want anyone snapping a picture of her coming out of a place where men—in her words—“stripped to G-straps and let women stuff ten-dollar bills next to their cocks.” She didn’t bother explaining her veto of the shower, but it was easy enough to interpret. Peyton had very particular taste and was marrying a ton of money. The last thing she needed was a backflow of blenders and a bunch of ugly place mats.

I couldn’t recall anything out of the ordinary about the bridesmaids’ luncheon—other than how subdued it was. And it wasn’t simply because some of us were strangers. By then Peyton’s Bridezilla side was full-blown, and each one of us was trying to keep her meltdowns to a minimum.

The rehearsal dinner, on the other hand, wasn’t so calm. There had been that ugly scene when the six of us had arrived late—Peyton dressing us down while her very dignified mother tried fruitlessly to get her to chill.

Though there would be limos for us the day of the wedding, that night we’d been expected to drive ourselves. Prudence took Robin and Ashley, and I followed with Jamie and Maverick in my Jeep. As we approached an intersection not far from the church, two cars collided right in front of us. Though no one was injured, both cars had taken a nasty beating and the driver in one insisted that we wait for police. I actually hadn’t seen the accident, though a couple of the girls in the front car had, and they gave accounts to the police when they pulled up a few minutes later. Someone called the restaurant to explain our plight, but apparently the message had never been relayed.

A fairly minor traffic accident. No one injured. But it would be worth following up on since it was an event that we’d all been involved in.

Then there had been the wedding and reception. Both had seemed to go off without a hitch. For me, the reception was mostly a blur of eating, drinking, escaping the advances of boorish male guests, and flirting with the bartender-slash-actor I’d promised to call but never had. If something strange had happened that day, I hadn’t witnessed it.

“What are you writing?”

I glanced up, startled, to find Peyton standing in the doorway, holding two plates and silverware.

“Just some notes about today. I’m trying to make sense of things, but I can’t.”

“I made us some dinner. I thought it might be easier just to have it in here.”

“Sure, that’s fine. But you shouldn’t have gone to the trouble. I know how awful you must feel.”

“To be honest, the distraction did me good. Cooking always takes my mind off anything horrible that’s going on around me.”

“Have you reached David yet?”

“Yes, he’s home. He sends his apologies—he’s gone upstairs to his office to make some calls about all of this. I know this sounds perfectly dreadful, but we could be sued by Ashley’s parents.”

Three bridesmaids dead and she was considering how to protect her hide. Well, that was Peyton. But then, more charitably, I admitted to myself that she was right to guard her flank. Many people
did
want a piece of what Peyton had.

She set the plates and silverware on the red-lacquer chest. The meal was breaded chicken cutlets covered with a chopped-arugula-and-tomato salad. She pulled the bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé from the bucket on the coffee table, refreshed my glass, and poured herself one. Did this mean she wasn’t pregnant?

“This is great,” I said after taking my first bite of chicken. “You made it yourself?”

“Yes, it’s simple, really. Chicken Positano. The chicken’s breaded and sautéed and then topped with the salad. It’s better if you marinate the cutlets first in lime juice, but needless to say, I didn’t have time.”

“It’s just what I needed. So I’ve heard the phone ringing off the hook. Any developments?”

“Not from the police yet, no. But the press is now on to this. The first two deaths were under the radar. Maybe because Robin and Jamie lived in different states, no one connected them—to each other or to me. But they’ve put it all together now. The press are all fucking hyenas.”

“Well, at least if there’s press interest, it puts pressure on the police to take it seriously,” I said. “Did anyone on your staff hear or see anything?”

“Not from what I can tell. They put that cop in the room with us so we wouldn’t talk to each other, but I eavesdropped on as many of the interviews as I could, and no one offered up anything. Do you think Ashley was actually
pushed
?”

“Three fatal accidents in six months. As of right now, we don’t have any reason to believe they were more than freakish accidents. And yet it does seem to totally defy probability. And Ashley, as you know, was certain that something sinister was going on—she believed Robin and Jamie were murdered.”

“Well, what do
you
think? I mean, this is your specialty, right?”

“Well, two things come to mind if we’re going to go down that road. Jamie and Robin had gotten very tight. Maybe they were involved in something that led to their deaths—and someone thought Ashley knew about it. She lived with Robin, after all, and had started telling people that she thought the two women had been murdered. The other thing to consider, of course, is that all three women were bridesmaids in your wedding. Tell me, do you remember anything strange happening that day?”

“Strange?” she said almost contentiously. “What do you mean by
that
? As far as I’m concerned, it was as close to a perfect day as anyone could imagine.”

“Peyton, I’m not trying to suggest anything disparaging about your wedding or reception. But Ashley wondered if Jamie—and perhaps Robin as well—may have witnessed something that day or overheard something she shouldn’t have.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t have any details.”

“Well, there’s nothing
I’m
aware of,” she declared.

“Okay, then, how about this? Is there someone who resents you and your marriage to David? Who might be doing this as some symbolic act?”

She stared into the fire, not saying anything for a minute. Then she turned back to me, her face set in a look of conviction.

“David’s ex-wife, Mandy,” she announced. “I know this sounds horrible, but she could have done this. She hated the fact that he was divorcing her—and she despises me.”

“She lives around here?”

“Yes. She’s one of those women who live off their divorce settlements and spend their entire lives being gym bunnies. She still even uses the name Slavin, for God’s sake. And she and David have that kid, Lilly, who Mandy is always thrusting on us.”

“It’s something to consider. But for now we need to wait to hear what the police turned up in their investigation. If Ashley was pushed, there might be scuff marks on the landing.”

We talked for a few more minutes—mostly about her work, just to take our minds off everything else. She also managed to ask a few questions about
my
life. Eventually I felt fatigue grab hold of me and announced that I needed to turn in. Leaving our dishes for the housekeeper, Peyton gave me a quick tour of the ground floor. The living room was a mammoth space, with three or four seating arrangements, all done in creams and brocades, the walls boasting breathtaking landscape paintings. I was also given a peek at a large formal dining room, with walls covered in a bird-covered chinoiserie, a billiards room, a media room with a huge plasma screen in the wall, and a sunroom or conservatory filled with bamboo. The last time I’d seen this many different rooms in one house, I’d been playing Clue. If I hadn’t been wrestling with so many other emotions, I might have felt engulfed with envy.

Once I was tucked in bed, I tried to put off going to sleep for a while longer. Ever since my divorce a couple of years ago I’d been dogged by insomnia, and I had a nasty feeling that it was going to rear its head tonight. I leafed through the latest issue of
Gloss
, which I’d crammed in my tote bag. There was a story on readers’ most embarrassing beauty questions, including “I Have Dark Patches on my Inner Thighs—Help” and “How Do I Prevent Hump Hair?” Hump hair turned out to be that thick matt of hair that develops after you’ve shagged someone for seven hours straight. God, if only that was all I was contending with tonight, instead of worrying about whether someone was killing off Peyton’s bridesmaids—with me possibly next. Just as I felt my eyes growing heavy, I heard someone yell from another part of the house.

My heart leapt like an antelope, but I lay as still as I could, trying to hear. Someone was definitely shouting, a man, and it seemed to be in anger rather than any kind of distress.

I crawled out of bed, and since I’d been forced to sleep in only my lime green panties, I wrapped myself in a cashmere throw blanket from the end of the bed. As quietly as possible, I turned the handle and opened the door. The only light in the hallway was from two dim wall sconces.

Now a woman was yelling, too. I was pretty sure it was Peyton. I crept down the hall toward the door of what I thought must be the master bedroom. That was where the angry words were emanating from.

“You’re not even thinking about me in all of this, are you?” Peyton shouted.

“Why should I?” It was David’s voice now. “You do enough of that for all of us. God forbid there’s ever a moment in the day when you’re thinking of someone other than your fucking self.”

CHAPTER 4

A
S CURIOUS AS
I was to know more, I felt guilty listening to their marital scrape. On tiptoes I began to make my way back to my bedroom, fearful that at any moment one of them would fling open the door in retreat and I’d be caught standing there in my makeshift toga.

I climbed back into bed, blisteringly fatigued but at the same time totally wired. What the hell was going on with Peyton’s marriage? David’s voice had sounded positively ragged with frustration. Was the flare-up I’d overheard simply a result of all the tension lately—from Robin’s death and now Ashley’s—or was it an indication of deep, serious trouble? As I lay there pondering and fretting, my cell phone went off on the bedside table, scaring the bejesus out of me. It was Jack.

I poured out the whole awful story to him. He listened in that nice Jack way of his, periodically asking for more details.

“I hate the idea of you being there alone,” he said finally. “If I were in New York tonight, I’d drive out to Greenwich and pick you up.”

“Thanks,” I said. “But I feel safe enough here. The house is practically a castle, and I’m sure they’ve got every type of security short of a moat.”

“What do the police make of this?” Jack asked.

“The guys who interviewed me weren’t giving anything away. Listen, Jack, when you and I spoke yesterday about clusters, we were talking about only two deaths. Could
three
accidental deaths like this still be just a cluster?”

“Believe it or not, yes. It could still all be random. Though if you ran a probability study on it, you’d most likely find that the chances of it happening are astronomically low, so Bailey, you have to be careful. You need to stay out of this and let the police investigate it.”

I knew I should appreciate his concern, yet I found it irritating and patronizing. Not only was I a crime reporter, but in the last year I also had played a key role in
solving
two crimes. I didn’t say anything, just let his remark hang there.

“And I want you to call me as soon as you get back to New York,” he added. “You’re coming home tomorrow, right?”

“Yes, I have to be back for a meeting at
Gloss
. Look, you’ve got classes in the morning. I better let you go.”

He hesitated for a second, then simply told me again to call him tomorrow. I wondered what he’d been about to say. Some kind of endearment? That was still a bit of a tricky area for us. We had done the L-word limbo in the past month or two, saying things to each other like “I love when you do that” and “I love that shirt on you.” But neither one of us had ventured further than that. Which was okay with me because my feelings were still evolving. I was definitely in lust and very deeply in like, but I couldn’t yet say whether I was in love with him.

I turned off the bedside light and lay in the dark, totally wide-eyed. Whatever fatigue I’d felt earlier had been chased away by the altercation down the hall. At one point I thought I heard raised voices again, then realized it was only the wind, which had begun to howl. I finally fell asleep at about one and thanks to sheer exhaustion slept straight through till seven—when the roar of a snowblower jarred me awake. From my window I could see a man in a green parka riding it, working along the edges of the large circular driveway in front of the house. I took a hot shower and used the time to plot out my morning.