Veiled Threats (27 page)

M
Y HANDS WERE TREMBLING
.

I looked down at my bouquet of lacy ferns and lily of the valley and sapphire-blue freesias that caught the color of my gown, and tried very hard to make the damn flowers stop shaking. A wedding is not a scripted performance, I told myself silently, as I'd told every one of my brides. Wedding guests are
guests
, not spectators. Be graceful, but be natural. Smile.

“You look lovely.” Dorothy Fenner joined me in the narrow corridor behind the roof garden. She laid a reassuring hand on my arm. “Just relax, and let me worry about the details.”

I had to admit, she'd done a marvelous job. The roof garden of the Cortland Hotel had been transformed into a bower of blossoms and greenery, perfect for an intimate yet formal affair. And the reception room inside stood in lavish readiness for the champagne supper to follow. A sideboard with a three-tiered wedding cake, a bit of space for mingling and making toasts, and five tables for eight guests each, in their tuxedos and long gowns. Each table was impeccably correct, down to the last silver napkin ring, crystal candelabra, and handwritten place card.

Sure, I might have vetoed the boysenberry sorbet between
courses, and I thought the chamber quintet now playing Bach had one woodwind too many, but I'd agreed to give Dorothy free rein and that was that. Nothing left but to walk down the aisle.

“Go ahead,” said Dorothy. “Carnegie, go
ahead
.”

I unstuck my cowardly feet from the floor and stepped outside into the late September afternoon. The Cortland overlooks downtown Seattle and its harbor from Queen Anne Hill, a splendid view at any time, and most especially at this moment. Cloudless and serene, the sky was a tender, translucent blue overhead, shading westward by imperceptible degrees to warm gold, to apricot, coral, and finally the blazing vermilion of the setting sun. In the distance the skyscraper windows flashed and sparkled, Elliott Bay shone silver-blue, and the treetops of all the city's parks were a lush green touched with autumn color. Here on the rooftop in the golden light, the affectionate faces of the wedding guests seemed illuminated from within.

I walked, with all the natural grace I could muster, past Lily James, who had fixed my hair for me, past Julia Parry, who'd helped me with my dress, and past Eddie Breen, who hadn't been to a wedding in forty-five years. Eddie had been remarkably gentle with me, ever since he showed up at the Pierce County police station where the firemen had taken me, on the night Grace Parry died.

Grace Parry and Theo Decker. I didn't learn Theo's last name until I attended his funeral. (Andreas turned out to have several last names, as the police discovered once they took fingerprints from his corpse.) The funeral was the first public appearance Nickie had made since her ordeal, and the haggard look on her young face as she laid flowers on Theo's grave was enough to break your heart. I brought flowers myself, and I cried.

Eddie winked at me as I walked past. The night of the explosion he had fetched me from the police station, forgiven me everything, and installed me in Lily's guest room. I stayed with her for much of August, venturing out to the office a couple of times a week. Mom wanted me to come to Boise, but I was just as happy at Lily's, playing with her boys and watching the videos Eddie brought over. Eventually I'd be able to pay him back for the money he sent my mother in my name. He never mentioned the accusations I made, or the tax evasion case in St. Louis, and heaven knows I never did either.

I was very grateful that Eddie had broken his rule about attending weddings, just this once. Grateful to see Joe Solveto, too. He popped out from the dining room to give me a thumbs-up and then went back to his hors d'oeuvres. I kept walking. At the head of the impromptu aisle, marked off by topiary boxwood trees and swaths of white ribbon, stood Reverend Allington. He had agreed to bless this ceremony outside his church, given the unusual circumstances and the publicity-shy guests, and he beamed at me from beneath an arched trellis of ivy and late roses. So did the bridegroom, slim and straight in his tuxedo, black hair combed to perfection, and all the love in the world in his eyes. I beamed back, and tried to look calm.

I should have looked calm. After all, I was only the maid of honor.

As I took my place opposite the best man, Ray Ishigura got his first sight of the bride. Nickie was still thinner than she should be, and after weeks of near-seclusion she was anxious about facing even this small crowd. But the moment her eyes met Ray's she lit up like a candle. Her gown, bought off the rack, was a simple column of smooth pearl-colored silk,
lustrous against her olive skin, with a low shawl collar that left her shoulders bare. The silk caught and reflected the rosy glow of sunset, and the short soft curls framing Nickie's face lifted and stirred in the breeze. Circling her throat was the baroque pearl necklace, the real one, that her father had given her as an engagement present such a brief, eternal time ago.

Her father's wedding gift to her was less expensive, but even more precious: an eight-week-old Welsh corgi puppy named Molly, with a face like a baby fox and a butt like a bunny rabbit. Molly was already Nickie's faithful shadow. It had meant a lot to Nickie, just how much I could only guess, to learn from the police that Gus had been killed not by Theo, but by Andreas. The knowledge helped her to believe what she desperately needed to believe: that all along, Theo had never meant her any real harm.

Douglas Parry watched his daughter from a wheelchair, too weak to walk far as yet. He'd had another heart attack, and then a double bypass, but he was recuperating. Nickie paused to kiss his cheek as she walked down the aisle alone. Soon her father would be fit enough to assist with the federal S&L investigation—a far less daunting prospect, now that he was an innocent witness instead of a possible suspect. Guthridge had cleared his old comrade's name in the process of his own plea bargaining, and admitted that the campaign of intimidation had been meant to secure Parry's silence, not to pressure a fellow criminal.

Just now Douglas Parry simply looked like an ailing but very proud father of the bride, and not at all like the central figure of a courtroom drama. Or like a man whose close friend and family attorney, his wife's lover, his betrayer, had died of blood loss and hypothermia alone on a snowy mountainside.

But I refused to think about that. I'd had to shut the thought away several times each day, and more than several times every night. Of all the tangled emotions I'd come away with, pity for Holt Walker was the least expected, and the most painful. Douglas nodded at me, and I smiled back at him and at his niece Gloria, the former maid of honor who'd cheerfully stepped aside for me at Nickie's request. Behind them sat Mariana, Grace's innocent pawn in the scheme to frame me, already weeping happily into a lace handkerchief.

“Dearly beloved, we are assembled here—”

I cleared my mind of everything except good wishes for the bridal pair. Nickie handed me her bouquet to hold, and she and Ray spoke their vows, her voice tremulous, his joyful and determined. Ray would provide the confidence for both of them, at least for now, but Nickie was young and well loved, and would regain her balance soon enough.

The interruption came during the blessing of the rings. The corridor door banged open, there was a muffled giggle, and a short and somehow familiar brunette stepped through. She looked around, young and bubbly in a stylish red dress, then reached back to help her companion get his crutches over the threshold so he could hobble into the garden and take a seat next to Boris and Corinne. (Boris looked like a grizzly bear who'd won the lottery, and Corinne looked like a cat on an all-canary diet. Nickie's ill wind had certainly blown them some good.) A few guests turned to glance at the late arrivals, as they fumbled to put the crutches out of the way, but the clergyman recaptured their attention immediately with a clerical cough. Everyone looked obediently at Reverend Allington, Nickie and Ray looked at each other, and I stood there in the sunset with my hands full of flowers, looking at Aaron Gold and his date.

I missed most of the sermon, though I'm sure it was uplifting. It certainly seemed long. I hadn't seen Aaron since they'd slid him into an ambulance at the Trout Pond Café, and I wasn't sure I wanted to see him now, in or out of a rental tuxedo. He looked terrific in it, though, the black and white setting off his black hair and white teeth.

Aaron had never returned the phone messages I left at the hospital—he was always in physical therapy when I called— and after he was sent home I only tried once. A woman answered, undoubtedly this very woman in the red dress, and I was too flustered to leave my name.
Let him call me
, I thought. And then I thought,
Leave the man alone, he's recovering from a concussion and a shattered ankle.
And then I thought,
What a good thing he hasn't called, because we're obviously incompatible.
In the end I sent him a dumb, jokey get-well card, and he sent an equally dumb card back. End of story.

Only now he was seated in the last row of our little congregation, grinning at the brunette, and soon the two of them would be going inside to drink champagne and eat dinner. Well, as long as we were seated far enough apart—

“I now pronounce you husband and wife. Yo u may kiss the bride.”

It was a lovely moment, and Julia Parry was not the only one weeping grateful tears. I returned Nickie's flowers to her, and accompanied Ted, the best man, back up the aisle to the dining room. The warm gold of sunset had cooled to a violet dusk, and it felt good to step inside to the candlelight. While the guests followed us and pressed forward to embrace the bride and admire the cake, I headed straight for Joe Solveto near the kitchen door. I wanted a distraction, and shop talk
was my best bet, especially now that my professional reputation had been restored.

“Hey, Carnegie, I finally get to see you with a bouquet instead of a clipboard!” Joe kissed me on the cheek and put a brimming champagne flute in my hand. “It suits you. Now go back and be a guest.”

“But I just wanted to ask about the cake-cutting—”

“Would you get off duty, woman! Dorothy Fenner told me you were kibitzing, and I want it stopped.”

“But—”

“Now. Go mingle. Go find your place card. Go.”

I laughed and obeyed, sipping the cold, fizzing wine faster than I should have. I accepted a refill from one of the white-shirted waiters, and exchanged greetings with Nickie's family and friends as I drifted toward the table where Eddie was already sitting. He wore his natty tuxedo as comfortably as his khakis, and he was deep in subversive conversation with Lily about the obsolete character of the institution of marriage.

“Well, sister,” he said, lifting his glass to me, “it's about time you got bossed around instead of bossing. You look pretty, Carnegie.”

“It's all Lily's doing,” I said, and she smiled. “Am I sitting with you?”

They checked the other place cards and shook their heads, so I drifted on. I didn't see Aaron Gold until I tripped over his crutches. He was seated at an otherwise empty table, with his crutches on the floor, and the brunette was nowhere to be seen. If I'd been in charge I would have known the guest list by heart, and therefore her name. My own name, as it turned out, was on a place card next to Aaron's.

“Well,” I said intelligently.

“Well.” A pause, and then he said, “I'd jump up to greet you, but—”

“Don't be silly,” I said quickly, and sat. Sitting down I was still taller than he was, but not as much. “How's your ankle?”

“Not bad at all, really.” He grinned. “The crutches are just for sympathy. Works great on the bus.”

“Still no car?” We can do this, I was thinking. We can do small talk.

“Nope, not till I finish rehab. Parry's paying for it.”

I had to lean forward to hear him over the babble, and raise my voice a bit in reply. “Well, he should, of course, but it's nice of him to think of it, considering what he's got on his mind.”

Aaron nodded in agreement and sipped his champagne. Then he gestured with the glass toward the picture window across the room. On the other side, lingering in the twilight garden above the city, Douglas sat talking to Julia Parry. They both looked weary, worn down by life, but at peace for this one moment. As we watched, Nickie left the dining room and ran out to them, laughing and exhilarated, to urge them inside. We couldn't hear their voices, but her parents looked at her with such grateful tenderness that I glanced away, feeling like an intruder. I lifted my own glass and found it empty.

“More champagne?” I asked Aaron.

“Gail's getting me some. Thanks anyway.”

Gail. OK, her name was Gail. Nice name.

“Listen, Carnegie,” he was saying, “remember in the car, that night at the café, I was going to ask you something?”

“Um, no, actually I don't.”

He shook his head in despair. “It is
so hard
to get women to learn their lines.”

I shifted closer, making way for Nickie's very large uncle to sit down on my other side. “Aaron, just refresh my memory, OK?”