Veil of Night (18 page)

Cars were pulling out of the parking lot now, as the wedding party made their way from the church to the rehearsal dinner. She and Peach waved to them all, smiling and calling cheerful goodbyes.

Madelyn very much wanted to talk to Jaclyn, if for no other reason than to tell her daughter that she was here for her, to ask, again, if there was anything she needed. But the rehearsal Jaclyn was handling had started an hour later than the bubblegum rehearsal, so now wasn’t the time to call. She had to wait for Jaclyn to call her.

With murder and suspicion in the air, and undirected anger building rapidly, Madelyn wasn’t anxious to be alone. She tilted her head at her friend. “Do you have plans for dinner?”

“Does Lean Cuisine count?” Peach asked wryly.

“No, it doesn’t. I have some lasagna in the freezer. Come home with me and I’ll crank up the microwave and open a bottle of red wine. We can kick off our shoes and relax for a while. You still haven’t told me all the details of last weekend’s date, and to be honest, I could stand to be distracted for a while.”

Peach sighed. “You silver-tongued devil, you had me at lasagna.”

Madelyn had hopes that Peach’s company and a couple glasses of wine would help to ease her toward a decent night’s sleep, but it was likely a hopeless cause. Until her baby was in the clear, she wouldn’t rest easy.

This wasn’t the first Bulldog wedding Premier had ever directed, but Jaclyn couldn’t help noticing that the participants of this one were more rabid fans than most, and that was saying something. It was the middle of summer, and for the rehearsal the groom and groomsmen were in the jerseys of their favorite football team. She was a bit surprised that someone hadn’t suggested—thank goodness—passing the rings down the aisle by way of a spiraling football festooned with red and black ribbon. She might’ve had to put her foot down. In her experience, throwing anything at a wedding wasn’t a good idea.

In the South, college football was practically a religion, yet she was still surprised when the bride requested a team theme. It was Premier’s job to give the bride what she wanted, but finding the exact shade of Georgia Bulldog red fabric, ribbon, and flowers was a bitch.

And Diedra had been forbidden to mention, at any point during the planning or execution of the wedding, that she was a diehard Georgia Tech fan. Wedding planners had been fired for less. Jaclyn had been to more than one event-planner convention where discussions centered around the dicey subject of college football and how to deal with the intense rivalries and loyalties. In Alabama, for instance, no one with any sense scheduled a wedding on the same day Auburn and Alabama played, because no one would attend the wedding other than family members, and most of them would be pissed at missing the game, which wouldn’t make for a happy time.

Diedra would be with her tomorrow night, for the wedding, but one representative was enough for the rehearsal unless Diedra had just wanted to be here, which she hadn’t. Nevertheless, Jaclyn could have easily begged off—she
was
the boss—and let Diedra handle tonight’s chores, but she wanted to stay busy. No, she needed to stay busy with something, anything, other than thoughts of dead brides and annoying cops.

No, she wasn’t going to think about the annoying cop. That horse was dead, and she was getting frustrated because she couldn’t seem to stop kicking it. Being angry was okay. Being angry was probably healthy. Being
hurt
was silly and unreasonable, two words she didn’t like when applied to herself. All day she’d been telling herself to just get over it, with limited success. Hell, how about no success?

Her attention was yanked back to the rehearsal when the groom barked, a distinctive Bulldog woof of pleasure, excitement, and gratification. Jaclyn fought to keep her face still, her expression bland. Was this the groom’s normal way of expressing joy? Did he bark during sex? The mind boggled. The good thing was, the bride laughed; the bad thing was, several other men barked in response.

It was going to be a long night. Jaclyn simply wasn’t in the mood for barking.

Two of the younger children, the bride’s niece and nephew, were entertaining themselves by running up and down the aisle, playing some game only they could understand, but it involved a lot of shrieking and giggling, which blended nicely with the barking. Because the mindless activity kept them busy, and they weren’t too loud—too loud being subjective—everyone let them have their fun. The family was accustomed to the chaos. Even Jaclyn had tuned them out, as she instructed the wedding party and then stood back to watch the rehearsal. If the processional had to dodge around the youngsters, no one seemed to mind. The mood of the evening was boisterous and happy.

She supposed it was too much to ask that the evening continue without some sort of disaster. The little boy—four years old or so, Jaclyn would guess—rounded the end of a pew at a dead run, tripped and fell forward, landing facedown in the center of the side aisle just in front of her. For a long, heart-stopping minute, he didn’t make a sound.

Her heart in her mouth, she hurried to the little boy to assess the damage. Good Lord, was he unconscious? That fear was banished when he abruptly began to wail, a sound that grew in volume and pitch until it resembled a steam whistle. She knelt beside him, touched his back, which if anything sent his screams into a dimension she couldn’t quantify. Everyone began hurrying toward them, while the recorded music continued to play.

“Come on, sweetie, let’s sit up and see where you banged your head,” she said, hoping there wasn’t any blood. She wasn’t overly squeamish, but—Bracing herself, she helped him to roll over and sit up, then she literally breathed a huge sigh of relief when she got a look at his face. There was a lot of tears and snot, but no blood.

“You’re going to be just fine,” Jaclyn said gently, brushing his hair back to see if there was a knot on his forehead.

Upon hearing her voice, and realizing that it was not his mother or grandmother who had come to his rescue but was instead a stranger, the kid squalled even louder.

Did she really want one or two of these? Jaclyn thought as she rose to her feet and backed away to allow the mother, who was very calm given the volume of the scream, to take her place. There were no small children in Jaclyn’s life; she had no brothers or sisters and so no nieces or nephews. If this was what she had to look forward to, maybe she was better off getting a gerbil. Or a fish.

Which was a very sad thought. Screams or not, that wasn’t the way she wanted to live the rest of her life.

The mother checked the child’s mouth, nose, and head, as if she’d completed this particular check a thousand times, and maybe she had. She pulled a tissue out of her pocket and wiped away the snot. The kid kept screaming, to which his mother responded with a gentling shush. She didn’t seem to be worried, so Jaclyn figured she could stop worrying herself.

And then a familiar voice behind Jaclyn said, “What are y’all doing, skinning that kid alive?”

She went rigid, and the hair on the back of her neck lifted in horror. Oh my God, what was
he
doing here? If he questioned her in front of clients, if he was here to actually arrest her, she’d … she’d
kill
him, and then he’d have a real reason to slap on the cuffs.

Instead of grabbing her hands and cuffing her, he brushed by her, crowding so close in the aisle she had to step back and even then she could smell him, momentarily feel his warmth. He crouched down beside the screeching little boy, brushed back his jacket so that his big black gun was visible along with the badge clipped to his belt, and ruffled the kid’s hair with his big hand. “Looks like you had a spill.”

The kid momentarily stopped screaming, distracted by this big man he didn’t know. He saw the gun and the badge, and his eyes got big. He gave a big sniff and nodded his head. His mother shot an assessing look at Eric, then made a lightning decision and stood, stepping back out of the way. She was just a mother; how could she hope to compete with the enticement of a real gun and a shiny badge?

“Is that real?” the kid asked, pointing at the gun.

“Sure is. The badge is real, too.”

“Bad boys, bad boys,”
the kid started singing. Not bad. He could carry a tune, even if he was only four. His lip started trembling and tears welled in his eyes again.

“You come for
me?”
he asked in an anguished tone. His mother clamped her hand over her mouth to keep from laughing out loud.

“No, I only come for bad boys, and from what I can tell, you’re one of the good ones.” Eric ruffled his hair again. “Brave, too. Looks like you’re gonna have a lump on your noggin. If you’re going to play rough, you have to learn how to protect yourself.”

“But how?”

Eric stood up, but put his hand on the kid’s little shoulder. “Let me think about this.” Then he said in a voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “I see you’ve got some football fans in your family.”

Some of the men barked on cue. The kid nodded, and together he and Eric looked to the altar where half a dozen men stood around, waiting for the rehearsal to resume. “I’ll bet you one of them would be happy to buy you a helmet just your size, so the next time you take a header you’ll be protected. Are you going to be a football player when you get bigger?”

The boy nodded enthusiastically.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Eric said. “You’re tough. I bet you could play running back, because that’s a tough position.”

“Quarterback!” the kid said indignantly.

“You’re kidding? You’re going to play quarterback? Man, that’s
really
tough. You definitely need a helmet for that.”

The little chest was puffed up with pride, the tears gone, the lower lip steady. One moment he was screeching as if he’d been scalded, and the next, all was well.

She was
not
going to thank him. Yes, Eric had provided a distraction when one was needed, but it wasn’t as if anything dire had been going on.

The groom promised to buy the kid a football helmet, and said he could wear it to the wedding tomorrow night. That wasn’t exactly the picture Jaclyn had of an elegant wedding, but it wasn’t her wedding, it was theirs. If they were happy, that was all that mattered. She’d get all the kids football helmets if that was what they wanted.

“Is something wrong?” the mother of the bride warily asked Eric.

“No, everything’s fine. I’m a friend of Jaclyn’s.”

Oh, really? Jaclyn clenched her jaw against the retort that bubbled up. The M.O.B. glanced from Jaclyn to Eric, smiled a little, and left them alone.

The wedding party returned its attention to the matter at hand, the rehearsal. They were already running late, because they’d been having too much fun, and they weren’t going to make it to the restaurant in time for their reservations if they didn’t pick up the pace a lot.

Jaclyn moved forward a little, got everyone lined up in the correct order, and picked up where they’d left off. She felt Eric move closer, standing right at her back like a rock. She got an itch between her shoulder blades, as if he had drawn his pistol and held it pointed at her. A nightmarish vision swam in front of her eyes: Was he going to question her here? Or worse, arrest her in front of her clients?

But he just stood there, cool and calm, watching the rehearsal. The minister had everything well in hand, at the moment, so there was nothing more for Jaclyn to do but be present in case she was needed. The previously rambunctious children had, at their mother’s insistence, taken seats on the second pew, where they sat whispering and swinging their legs.

Finally, she couldn’t stand it any longer. “What are you doing here?” she whispered, fiercely resentful.

“I heard a cry for help and was duty-bound to investigate. Serve and protect, that’s the deal.”

That wasn’t what she’d meant and he knew it.

He didn’t haul out the handcuffs or his little notebook, so she relaxed a little. If he wanted to ask her more questions, it looked as if he intended to wait for the rehearsal to be over, so he wasn’t going to embarrass her. If he’d come to arrest her, he wouldn’t be waiting. Probably.

Dammit, she hadn’t done anything wrong, she thought bitterly, but she was paying a price anyway! Yes, if anyone asked her she’d have to say the world was a better place without Carrie Edwards in it, but that didn’t mean she was a murderer. And right now she’d love to have Carrie back for just a few minutes, so she could give her a real piece of her mind and tell her everything she’d thought but held back during the long months of dealing with her.

When the rehearsal was over, she walked away from Eric without looking back or saying a word. She said her good-byes to the bride and the bride’s mother, and reminded everyone of the time they’d be meeting tomorrow night. She’d already made her excuses for skipping the rehearsal dinner, and the way the bride and her friends were staring at Eric, they probably thought he was the real reason for skipping the meal.

As if.

As members of the wedding party started to leave, Jaclyn turned to see if Eric was standing there twirling his cuffs like the villain in a Saturday-morning cartoon. He wasn’t there. Shocked, she looked around, but didn’t see him anywhere. For a stupid, giddy moment she was hit with mixed relief and disappointment. She pushed the disappointment away and concentrated on the relief, but that still left the question of why he’d been there at all.

She was the last to leave, except for the minister, who locked the big sanctuary doors behind her. He would let himself out through the back door, where he was parked, after he’d made certain the church was buttoned down for the night. She paused at the top of the steps, taking a quick look around.

There were still a few cars in the parking lot, others just now pulling onto the street. The happy couple was getting into his red pickup truck, which came complete with Bulldog stickers and flags. No surprise there, she thought. A few parking spaces away sat one bridesmaid’s Toyota; she was taking a moment to refresh her lipstick, while another bridesmaid, sitting in the passenger seat, chattered away. These were happy people, Jaclyn thought, and lucky people. So what if they took their football obsession a bit too far? In the scheme of things, that was nothing. What mattered was that they enjoyed their lives, they didn’t hurt anyone else, and tomorrow they were going to have one great big party.