Weddings Can Be Murder (2 page)

Joe Lyon stepped out of the dressing room and onto the platform to let the tailor mark the hem on his tux. And he hoped like hell the man would hurry. The damn thing fit like a life jacket: cumbersome, heavy.

“You look good.” Harry, one of his groomsmen, had followed him to get his tux.

“I look like a hotel doorman.” Joe pulled at the choking collar. Button-downs and Dockers were work attire. He hadn’t worn a suit in ages, and had only donned a tux twice.

“Hey, you want to go out for a beer to night?” Harry asked.

“Can’t. I’m meeting Katie.” Was that at four or five? Oh, hell, he couldn’t remember.

“So, the ball-and-chain dance begins,” Harry said. “How you guys can give up the single life is beyond me. Did you see our waitress at lunch? She was hot and I got her number. Variety. Staying single means you get to sample them all.”

Joe ignored Harry. Truth was, he’d hardly spent any time sampling Katie these last few weeks, which partially explained why he had these antsy feelings. Could distance
cause cold feet? But damn, it didn’t make sense. Katie was sexy, smart, funny, and good-hearted. She was everything a man could want. Even his mom agreed. And he and his mom didn’t agree on much. So why had he practically avoided Katie these last two weeks? Why wasn’t he aching to be with her 24-7? What did it mean?

“You done?” he asked the man who had been chalking his pants and now stood on the other side of the room staring at him. Joe glanced around. Harry had disappeared, too.

“Been done.” The man laughed. “Got cold feet, do ya?”

Joe stepped down from the platform and went to get his clothes back on.
It will go away
, he told himself. The anxiety. The doubt. It would go away. Before the wedding, he hoped.

And if it didn’t? Hell. What would he do?

About four that afternoon, Carl watched a guy pay for a pack of thirty-six lubricated condoms in neon colors and wondered how long it would be before he trusted himself enough to start tapping the well again, trusting himself to separate the physical from the emotional.

He waited until the man left before plunking down the bag of gummy worms on the store counter. The lady there scanned his worms and grinned.

“Looks like he’s going to have a better day than you or I,” she said with a laugh.

Carl didn’t need to be reminded. His cell phone rang, and this time he carefully read the number of the caller. No more daily-constitutional talks with strangers. “Hey, Dad. How’s Austin?”

“Good. I’m thinking of staying for a few more days. It depends if Jessie can get off Monday. We don’t have anything that can’t wait, do we?”

We?
Carl frowned. After giving his dad a few jobs, his old man believed they had a regular gig. It wasn’t that Carl thought his dad, two years retired from Houston
PD, couldn’t do the job; Carl just didn’t want to spend his every working hour with the old man telling him how to run his business and his life.

He pulled out his wallet. “Stay and have a good time.”

“Did you get the pictures to Mrs. Davis?”

“Yeah.” Carl dropped a few bills beside the worms on the sales counter.

“Did she like the one of her husband dressed in that pink silk gown with the slits cut plum up to his wingwanger?”

Carl could tell his dad’s girlfriend wasn’t around now. Buck Hades had a way with words, like a hung-over sailor on a more colorful day, except in the presence of a lady. “I think she picked that one to show the judge.”

His dad laughed. “Gotta love this job.”

Love it? Photographing cross-dressers and cheating spouses didn’t fit Carl’s idea of love. He longed for a real case.

“Is that all?” the woman behind the counter asked. Carl sent her a nod.

“Where are you?” his dad asked. “Tell me you called that friend of Jessie’s cousin and took her out. She had a nice rack on her.”

Dropping a few bills, Carl frowned. “What part of ‘when you get your ass tattooed with a pink butterfly’ didn’t you understand?” Okay, so he might have inherited his dad’s colorful language problem. But the old man’s interference had gone too far.

“You gotta move on. I know Amy did a number on you, but it’s not healthy for your prostate to go a year without—”

“My prostate is fine.” Carl spotted the cashier’s grin, and his frown deepened.

“Waxing your own candle isn’t the same thing,” his dad said.

Okay, Carl wasn’t going to get into a conversation about waxing his candle or prostate cleansing with his
dad. He’d rather talk about his daily constitutional with Tabitha Jones.

“Enjoy Austin,” he said. He grabbed his worms, left his change, and had almost shut his phone when he heard his dad’s voice.

“Are you going to your brother’s to help him finish moving?”

He raised the phone back to his ear. “I helped Friday night, but I may drop by if my meeting doesn’t go too long.” He ducked into the cold and headed for his car. While it rarely happened, the forecast had Houston hitting the single digits tomorrow, and it felt like the front had jumped the gun.

“What meeting?” his dad asked.

Carl crawled into his car. “It’s about a case.”

“What kind of case?”

“Don’t have the details yet. We’ll talk later.”

“Son, about your women issues…”

“I told you, Dad, I don’t have women issues.”

“If it’s about your mom, you need to know—”

“Gotta go.” One button push ended the conversation. Some subjects were delicate, such as candle waxing and his prostate. Others were downright barred. He pocketed his worms, tossed his phone into the passenger seat, and drove off to talk to Ms. Jones about her missing brides.

Katie dropped her keys and checkbook into her bag with the ten Styrofoam boxes of cake, and left her purse behind to lighten her load. Todd Sweet’s assistant had given her extra samples.

As Katie moved up to the porch, she glanced around the wedding planner’s new place. The silver maples fronting the house stood naked and almost ghostlike; their dead brown leaves scuttled across the lawn in the icy wind. A shiver, and not just from the cold, hopscotched up Katie’s spine. The place looked like a fortress—
or a
prison
. She noted the bars on the windows.

Tabitha’s praise of her new home as Katie remembered it stood at odds with its ambience.
It’s six times bigger than
my old house. And with five acres, I’ll start throwing weddings
here next spring
. Katie wasn’t so sure she shared Tabitha’s feelings for the property.

Not that Katie’s feelings on the subject mattered much to Tabitha Jones. They weren’t exactly friends. Tabitha was simply a rich patron who frequented the gallery Katie managed. So when Joe had asked her to marry him and wanted it to happen ASAP, before his mother’s illness took a turn for the worse, Katie had gone straight to Tabitha for advice. And because Katie had offered the wedding planner a few discounts on artwork, Tabitha had felt compelled to do the same—even when it was last-minute planning.

No complaints from Katie. It felt nice knowing she had professional help. Her mom, the professional type, would have approved.

As Katie knocked, she looked down at her ringless left hand. She was amazed she didn’t feel naked without it. Probably because she’d only worn the ring for eight weeks.

Already keeping secrets from him, huh?
Les’s question tiptoed across Katie’s mind. Happily, she didn’t have time to ponder it because the door swung open.

“Hey,” Tabitha oozed. In her late forties, the woman breathed out words more than she spoke them. “How’s my latest bride?”

“A little nervous,” Katie admitted. “Hey, I brought some extra wedding cake samples in case you wanted to try them.”

“I never sample,” Tabitha snapped. She ran a hand over her white suit as if to emphasize her slim shape. “Plus, you’re not using Todd Sweet for the cake. And I just hired you a different DJ, florist, and photographer.”

“But you…recommended them. And—”

“Trust me.” Worry flashed across Tabitha’s face, but
then she smiled. The worried look left so fast that Katie wondered if she’d imagined it.

“Come in!” Tabitha said. “Why don’t we head to my office?” She swept out her arm as if to show off her place.

“It’s really big,” Katie said, not wanting to lie, and still worried about the sudden change in her wedding plans.

“I know,” Tabitha said. “I’m lucky to have gotten this place. I just had the carpet installed. Don’t you love it?”

“Umm,” was all Katie said as she looked. White. Startling white. Hurts-to-look-at-it-too-long white.

They walked down the hall and into an office where, in the blink of an eye, Tabitha, the patron who bought lots of art, morphed into the Nazi wedding planner from hell.

Poised like a matronly high school teacher behind her large mahogany desk, Tabitha commenced to ream Katie out for waiting so long to organize the grand event. Never mind that Tabitha was the one changing things midstream. Then, typing on her keyboard, Tabitha switched from reaming to spouting orders. Katie had to:

Go to the new florist to pick out her flowers. Today.

Get new samples and make an immediate decision on the cakes. Today.

Have the wedding dress fitting by…last week.

And drag her “one” bridesmaid, Les, to be fitted for her dress by…today.

And if it didn’t get done? The big, black, slimy, hideously ugly wedding monster would rise from the earth and gobble Katie’s head off, and the whole wedding would be a big freaking joke. Which
wouldn’t, couldn’t
, happen because Tabitha Jones didn’t throw bad weddings.

Okay, Tabitha hadn’t said the monster stuff, but it had been implied. When had the wedding become more about the wedding planner than the bride? Since when did a wedding planner have the right to make changes without consulting the bride? Katie started to ask. “I—”

“You got all that?” Tabitha barked.

Truth be told, Katie wasn’t a pushover. She faced disgruntled artists, dissatisfied art dealers, and idiot art critics at her job on a regular basis. She could hold her own pretty darn well. But some people scared her. And right now, Tabitha Jones was one of those people.

“I got it.” Katie tapped her notebook with her pen.

A ringing doorbell interrupted the tense silence and Tabitha’s white-suited body rose from her white leather chair. The woman liked white.

“It’s probably…my next appointment. Give me a sec, sweetie,” Tabitha said.

Sweetie?
Had she said “sweetie”? Yup. And now the Nazi wedding planner from hell was patting Katie on the arm.

“Just relax.” Tabitha’s words once again oozed out rather than being barked. “Weddings can be murder, but we have to stay calm.” She started to the door. “I’ll have him wait in my second office.”

Wanting to get out of there ASAP—before Tabitha’s bipolar personality did more morphing—Katie pulled out her checkbook and wrote Tabitha a check for the agreed-upon amount. Which, all of a sudden, seemed to be a lot more than Tabitha was worth. Not that it mattered. Katie had hired her, and paying her now was only fair. Well, maybe not really fair, but it went back to the fear factor, and more importantly to Tabitha being a regular gallery patron. Ticking her off wouldn’t be good for business.

Katie signed her last name on the check and paused when she realized it would probably be one of the last times she wrote Katie
Ray
, because she’d soon become Katie
Lyon
.

“Katie Lyon.” She said the name aloud and…bam! Her stomach went from okay to sour in zero flat. Her gaze shot around for a trash can. None.

“Oh, fudge.” Cupping her hand over her mouth, she realized she couldn’t give up her last name any more than she could puke on Tabitha’s new white carpet. The Ray
name was one of the last ties she had to her family. Instant tears clouded her vision. Why did her family have to die, leaving her all alone?

She was still fighting the nausea and cloudy vision when she heard a scream. And not just any scream, but an oh-shit-I’m-screwed kind of scream. And not the good kind of screwed, either.

Jumping up, Katie shot to the door and peeped through the open slit. She could see the screaming Tabitha, but not the person being screamed at.

While eavesdropping on private screaming matches wasn’t Katie’s thing, she couldn’t help but try to make sense of the jumble of words.

“You! Brides. Can’t do this. Psycho freak. Murderer!”

All of a sudden, the words weren’t important. Not when the loud pop sounded. And once again, it wasn’t a
good
kind of pop.

With her nose poked through the small opening of the door, Katie watched Tabitha Jones, bipolar wedding planner extraordinaire, fall to the floor. Something bright red flowed out the front of Tabitha’s white dress and trickled down onto her brand-new, white—startling white, hurts-to-look-at-it-too-long white—carpet.

“Fudge.”
Oh, hell
. Les was right. This deserved the real word. “Fuck!” Then, unable to help herself, she barfed.

Staring at the mess—which looked like a bad abstract painting in shades of mauve against the white carpet—Katie lost her ability for rational thought. Time seemed to stand still. She vaguely recalled looking for a phone to dial 911 and not finding one. The next thing she knew, she had her bag, which held her cake samples, her keys, and her checkbook, and was hotfooting it down the hall.

Down the hall.

Away from the front door.

Away from a bleeding Tabitha.

Away from the person who had made Tabitha bleed.

And deeper into the house that looked
way
too much like a prison.

She’d only made it a couple feet when she heard them: footsteps. She screamed and took off at a dead run.

Carl parked behind a silver Honda that was parked in front of a white elephant of a house.

He let his motor continue to run while he listened to his CD. From the conversation he’d had with Ms. Jones, he figured he might need a bit of Zeppelin before facing both her and her story of missing brides-to-be. He wasn’t sure if he bought into her concerns, either. From what she’d said, the cops hadn’t given her story any weight. But he’d learned the hard way not to discount anything too quickly. Discounting things had gotten him shot.

When the song finished, he forced himself out of his car and studied the house. Having grown up only a few miles down the road, he’d heard the rumors about this place. Supposedly, the guy who’d had the home built was a rich paranoid schizophrenic who’d believed the government was out to get him. Carl chuckled. A home with so much prison emphasis was going to house a wedding planner? What irony, seeing that marriage was the social equivalent.

To some people
. Carl admitted that his older brother seemed happy locked up in his jubilant little life with a
doting, pie-baking wife, cute kid, and a fetching
manly
dog.
To each his own
.

His humor vanished when he heard a scream. Grabbing his gun, he edged up to the door, which stood ajar. Thrown subconsciously into his police training, he backed up against the wall and became acutely aware of his surroundings. The cold. The wind. The sudden silence.

And the coppery scent.

Counting to three, he shifted to peer inside. His gaze lit on a woman lying faceup on the carpet. Blood. It was everywhere. “Ah, shit.”

Was it Tabitha? Was she the one who’d just screamed?

As if in answer, another scream sounded. And not from the lady in white.

The urgency in the shrill voice echoing from deeper inside the house put Carl on automatic. “Police!” he called out. “Throw down your weapons!”

He’d surged into the room before he realized what he’d said. He wasn’t with the police anymore. Not that he missed it.

Like hell you don’t
. He hadn’t stopped loving this: the excitement, the rush that came with catching the bad guys. He gave his once-injured shoulder a good roll.

Moving in a little more, his gaze cut back to the victim on the carpet. He started to check for a pulse, but the blank stare in her eyes told him not to waste his time. Dead. She was dead. This part of police work he didn’t miss.

A banging noise from the back of the house sent another shot of adrenaline down his spine. He reached for his phone to call for backup, but then remembered he’d left his phone in his car. “Shit!”

Choices flipped through his mind: grab his cell, wait for backup, or rush in like a fearless hero. He hated making quick decisions. Particularly those that involved
life and death. Especially when it involved
his
life and death.

He’d taken two steps toward the door to grab his phone when another scream split the silence. “Fuck!” He always had to be the hero, didn’t he? He swung around and took off down the hall, his gun held tight.

The deeper he got inside the house, the creepier the place felt. Most of the windows were covered with plywood. The doors were metal and had the old-fashioned bar-across-the-door lock. The hall dumped him out into one big room, with only one window, then spidered off in several directions. The outlying halls were darker and colder.

He chose one to follow.

“Police!” he called out again. “Throw down your weapons.”

This time, he’d purposely said the words. Yeah, he could be arrested for impersonating an officer, but something told him the person he was after wouldn’t have the authority to make the arrest. Besides,
Police!
sounded better than
PI—I don’t have a right to be here, but I am anyway
.

Okay, maybe he had
some
right. Tabitha Jones had been about to hire him to protect her and investigate her bride situation. And if it wasn’t Ms. Jones dead on the living room floor, then she might be the one screaming, needing protection.

Carl moved with his back against the wall, almost blinded by the surrounding darkness. Another crash echoed close by. The hall ended at a heavy metal door that stood ajar. He gave the dark room a quick overview, tightened his grip on his gun, then stepped inside.

Raspy breaths filled the darkness. Feminine breaths. Not that being female made a villain less vicious. Carl believed in equal opportunity. Hell, he’d been confronted by some pretty scary broads. And he wasn’t just referring to Mr. Logan in that pink nightgown.

Sucking air into his tight lungs, he listened, hoping to
get a fix on the person in the room, hoping even more they didn’t have a fix on him.

After blinking, his eyes became a tad more accustomed to the darkness. He made out what he thought was a woman crouched beside a table. The sounds of her breathing grew intense—hyperventilating intense. Following the raspy sounds came whimpers, soft crying. He inched in. Smelled a flowery scent.
Nice
. His gut told him this wasn’t a villain, but another victim.

Which meant someone else could be in the room.

He shifted his gaze around. Too dark, so he depended on hearing. Finally, semi-satisfied he was alone with only a crying, perfumed female, he knelt in front of her. “Ma’am, I—”

She charged him, and her head slammed into his abdomen. Like most of her gender, she was a hardheaded little twit. Carl landed with a thump on his back. The hyperventilating, sweet-smelling individual—definitely a woman—fell right on top of him. Soft curves and breasts pressed against him. For just a second, he let himself enjoy it.

But all good things must end, and this one did as soon as all that softness started hitting, kicking, and clawing. Fingernails raked his jaw. Her knee shot up between his legs. Thankfully, she missed his balls and only connected with his thigh.

He caught her by one shoulder. “Stop! I’m the poli—I’m here to protect you.”

She stopped. He heard her inhale, backed by a sighlike whimper. But then came a scuffle from behind them and a loud squeak of metal on metal, followed by an even louder clank. It took Carl about two seconds to realize what had happened.

Someone else
had
been in the room.

That someone had shut the heavy metal door.

That someone had set the bar on that fucking heavy metal door.

“Shit!” He pushed the woman off. On his feet, he felt his way to the door, and sure enough, it was shut.

Sure enough. It was locked.

Sure enough. They were royally screwed.