Weddings Can Be Murder (3 page)

As soon as he set the lock, Tabitha’s murderer took off down the hall. He didn’t breathe until he got to the front room, until he left the darkness and saw the blood. Lots of blood. His heart continued to race. His mind, however, calmed.

He walked by Tabitha’s body, loving how the red appeared against all that white. White carpet. White suit. She wasn’t wearing a wedding dress, but the color was right. He loved how red looked against that pristine brightness. Blood against virgin white. A shame he hadn’t brought his camera, or a bouquet of flowers to set beside her.

He circled the wedding planner’s body, humming “The Wedding March” to keep the laughter from echoing in his head. Tabitha wasn’t a bride. He hadn’t wanted to kill her, hadn’t
needed
to kill her the way he needed to kill the others. Just as he hadn’t needed to kill the other one. But…

His gaze shot down the hall. It had been too dark to recognize her, but he’d checked her hand. No ring. She wasn’t one of his brides. But had she seen him shoot Tabitha?

Probably. That meant he needed to kill her, as he’d
killed Tabitha, because Tabitha knew or thought she knew. She hadn’t figured out who was doing all the killing, but she’d told him her suspicions. He was proud of how he’d scoffed. Sometimes he really fooled people. They thought he was normal. Tabitha had thought he was normal. She’d even slept with him…but she’d have slept with anyone.

He stared down the hall, humming. He would pretend she was a bride. Too bad he hadn’t brought his knife.

Suddenly he remembered: she wasn’t alone.
Police
. He recalled the man yelling that out. He gripped his hand tight around his gun. How could he have forgotten? He couldn’t start messing up, losing focus. They’d send him back, back to that hospital where his mother had sent him so many times. He had to act normal. They had to believe he was normal. He couldn’t make mistakes.

Think. Think. Think
. Why had the police come? His pulse thundered through his body. He rocked back and forth on his heels. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. Had Tabitha been telling the truth when she’d said she called them?

What was he going to do? Should he take Tabitha’s body with him? No. She wasn’t his bride. She didn’t belong with the others.

His gaze shot from the hall to the front door. Run. Should he run? Maybe the woman he’d chased hadn’t seen him. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to identify him. Or maybe he just needed to finish it. Maybe he needed to kill them both.

The laughter in his head echoed louder, and he started humming again. “Here comes the bride, all dressed in white.” He gripped his gun tighter in his hand and started down the hall.

The party had bottomed out, and Les Grayson’s mom had walked her two sisters to their car. Les’s brother had
been given “Mimi duty.” At age ninety, Les’s grandmother always had someone assigned to her, just in case.

Les’s gaze moved around her mom’s kitchen. It felt weird being back home. Nothing had changed. Her dad still hid behind the shed to smoke cigars, as if her mom didn’t know, and her mom still compulsively clipped coupons. Tim, her twin brother, still searched for the perfect woman, and if given half a chance would probably skip out of helping her with the dishes, even when it had been
their
chore for as long as Les could remember.

And everywhere she looked, she saw Mike: sitting at the kitchen table helping her mom organize coupons, slipping out the back door to talk to her dad while he poisoned his lungs.

Les had left Piper, Texas, to forget, but someone had forgotten to tell her hometown it was supposed to forget, too.

“You okay, sis?”

Les turned to face her twin brother, the dish-washing escape artist. “Don’t I look okay?” She feigned a smile.

“You look like you did the day Mom’s cat invited your gerbil to lunch.” His gaze moved to her hand where she toyed with the ring that lay beneath her shirt.

She dropped her hand. “I’m tough.”

“I’ll bet the cat thought your gerbil was tough, too.” He shot her a grin. “Are you dating yet?”

Les raised an eyebrow, proud of this much at least. “Yes.”

“Anyone I need to go beat up?” That was Tim’s way of asking if she’d had sex.

“My last date asked if I had penis envy. You could beat him up.”

Her brother smiled. “Give me his address.” He glanced back into the living room. “Oh, crap. Mimi’s taking her clothes off again.”

“Stop her,” Les insisted. “Mom left you in charge.”

Tim snickered. “I’m a guy. I’m morally opposed to stopping any woman from taking her clothes off.”

Les scowled at him. “Even when it’s your grandmother?”

“You’ve got a point.” Tim poked his head out the door. “Stop that, Mimi. It’s not bedtime yet.” He glanced at Les. “Are we sure she wasn’t a stripper back in the day?”

Les laughed. “Oh, yeah. I can see her pole dancing.”

Tim studied her. “I’ve missed you, sis.”

“Me, too,” she admitted. They’d already done the hug thing when she’d come in, or she would have given him another. Tim pretty much had a one-hug rule.

“Then move back home. Boston’s bad on Texas girls. I’ve heard you say ‘you guys.’ Twice. Hurt my ears and everything.”

Grinning, she studied her Diet Coke. “I’ll move back soon.”

“You’ve got to get over it, you know?”

“I’m working on it.” Les didn’t attempt to lie. Not to Tim. “I’m making progress. Seriously, I’ve had three dates in the last month.”

“And I’m assuming none of them cut the mustard.” He pulled a soda for himself from the fridge. “Maybe you’re too picky.” He popped the top. “Like you accuse me of being.”

“I’m not picky. I just want…”

“What?” he asked.

“The spark. That little voice in my head that says, ‘Wow.’”

“You haven’t felt ‘wow’ about any of the guys you dated?”

“Not even a baby wow,” Les admitted. Then she met her brother’s eyes, the exact same bright green as her own. “It’s as if my wow voice box is broken. I want it to work. I want to feel wow. But I don’t.” Her throat tightened.

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right guy.”

Maybe the only “right” guy for me died
.

The thought ran a circle around her heart. Of all Les’s most recent fears—yes, she had a few—this one plagued her the most. Because while she still missed Mike so much her fingernails hurt, she wanted to get past the hollowness living in her chest. She wanted to know the thrill of flirting again, of being flirted with, of sharing secret smiles. She wanted another first kiss, first touch. She wanted wow. And some really hot sex, too.

Tim set his drink on the counter. “Mom said that Katie is getting married.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“You don’t like the guy?”

“Haven’t met him.” And bam, just like that, the thought slammed into Les’s scruples. Could she be jealous that Katie had found a wow and she hadn’t? Oh, crap. Nothing like realizing you’re a jealous bitch. Add fear of unfair jealousy to her phobia list.

“Woohoo!” Mimi’s voice came from the living room. Tim took one step out the door, put it in reverse, and came back.

“ ’Fraid you’re going to have to handle this one,” he said. “Damn, I’m never going to be able to look at a pair of boobs the same way.”

Before Les could ask, Mimi came strolling into the kitchen. The only thing she wore was a smile and the new hot-pink tennis shoes Les had brought her from Boston.

Les glanced away from Mimi’s naked, wrinkled body to Tim’s panicked look. “Darn,” she said. “I’ve gotta run or I’ll be late meeting Katie.” She shot her brother another smile, kissed Mimi’s cheek, and walked out, leaving Tim to contend with their naked grandmother.

“Poetic justice!” she called out and chuckled. “How many times did you leave me to deal with the dishes?”

Katie heard the tap-tap of angry pacing and occasional curse words. Shaking so badly she also heard her own
teeth chatter, she scooted across the cold concrete floor to the even colder stone wall and curled up into a ball. The chill that shot through her didn’t feel real. Maybe it wasn’t real, but her buns sure felt frozen.

“Shit. Fuck!”

This had to be a bad dream. She couldn’t have seen someone get shot. Couldn’t just have been chased through a dark, dungeonlike passageway and had a gun jammed into her ear.

More pacing. “Shit. Fuck.”

Or was it all real? Her stomach hurt and rumbled, but Katie was too scared to throw up.

Hiccup
.

She was too scared to think.

Hiccup
.

Too scared to…
God, let this just be a dream
.

“It’s going to be okay,” a deep voice said.

Had she spoken aloud? She stared into the darkness and tried to make out her companion, but only a dark shape loomed over her. Letting out a slow breath, she pushed the nails of her index fingers into her thumbs. She’d read that could prevent a person from having a panic attack, and while she’d never been plagued with panic attacks, just nervous puking, if there were ever a time she’d be close to panicking, it was now. Right now.

Her breath hitched again. She heard a little whimper escape her throat. Crying had never been a big recourse for her, either. Sure, she’d spilled her share of tears—mostly over boys. Later in life, she’d cried over men, over the art critics’ reviews of her work, and she’d cried for a week after she’d gotten the dark news about her family. Sometimes she still cried about that, but most of the time she could control it. Right now wasn’t one of those times.

More whimpers escaped her throat, and she cupped a hand over her mouth.

Hiccup
.

She heard the footsteps move closer.

“It’s okay,” the masculine voice said again.

This man obviously didn’t know what she knew. He didn’t know Tabitha had been shot, that Katie had almost been shot, that she, along with this stranger who said
fuck
and
shit
way too much, was apparently locked in a dark prisonlike room.

“Oh, God!” The words escaped her tight throat as tears started rolling down her face.

She heard him kneel down. She saw the dark figure looming over her, and like lightning, her thoughts flashed back to the other person who’d chased her. Before she knew she’d done it, she kicked the hell out of the looming stranger.

He let out an
oomph
of air and then spoke. “Damn it, lady, I was…just trying to help.”

Okay, she was definitely having a panic attack. Why else would she have kicked him when she really didn’t think he was a bad guy? She couldn’t remember why she felt that way, but it had been something he’d said. Hadn’t it?

She drew in another shaky breath and dug her nails deeper into her fingers. “Sorry.” She pulled her knees tighter to her body.

A lengthy pause passed before he spoke. “Are you hurt?”

She did a quick mental assessment of her body. She remembered being tossed against a wall, feeling something cold and metallic press against the side of her face while…while that creep had started running his hands down her left arm and feeling her hand, her fingers. Feeling, as if…as if looking for a ring. He’d probably meant to rob her.

But she didn’t have a ring.

The thought slammed against her brain. She’d flushed her eight-thousand-dollar ring down the toilet this morning.

Okay, she was clearly getting less scared, because the urge to throw up hit her hard. She cupped a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. She lost the rest of her lunch on the floor.

Immediately, she heard another gagging sound. She wiped the back of her hand over her mouth. The silence played Russian roulette with her sanity and she spoke before she thought.

“Nervous puker,” she muttered.

“Sympathy puker,” he muttered back.

It was so inappropriate, so insane—laughing at a time like this—but it happened. The sound of his chuckle followed hers: a deep, husky, pleasant sound. Her head instantly cleared of what she’d assumed was panic. Or at least she felt more in control of her thoughts and breathing. However, her butt, plastered to the floor, was frozen for good now.

She leaned her head back. They both laughed for several minutes. Then there came a silence. She wasn’t sure how much time had passed—maybe five minutes, maybe more.

“Are you okay?” he asked again.

“I think so.” She moved several feet away from the mess she’d left. As she scooted, her brain scooched closer to the reality of what had happened. She remembered seeing Tabitha fall to the carpet. She remembered the blood.

“Someone shot Tabitha.” Sudden fear settled in her stomach. Her heart raced. Her mind zipped back to the wedding planner. “I tried to call for help, but there wasn’t a phone. She needs an ambulance.”

Her companion inhaled. “I…don’t think that will help now.”

Katie closed her eyes—not that the blackness behind her lids was any darker than the blackness in the room. “Is she dead?”

“It appeared that way,” came the reply, sounding as if the man had gotten closer. “So, I’m assuming you don’t have a cell phone.”

“Left it in my car.” Why hadn’t she brought it in?

Another pause. “Can you tell me what happened?”

She took a deep breath. “Someone shot Tabitha.”

“I know.” He didn’t say it sarcastically, but calmly. “Did you see it happen?”

His voice was deep, solid, and comforting. She let herself soak up that sound before answering.

“No. From the office, all I could see was Tabitha. But he chased me in here. He grabbed me and slammed me into a wall.” Her mind replayed the scene in her head like some low-bud get movie. “He held the gun to my ear.” She hated low-bud get movies.

“Did you see him at all, enough to give a description?”

Right then, Katie remembered another reason why she trusted this man. He was police. Yes, she’d heard him tell her that.

No wonder he made her feel safe. No wonder he wasn’t too worried. Police never worked alone, did they? Surely, he had a partner who would let them out. And if he didn’t have a partner, he would have radioed in his location.

Hearing the man move, she recalled he’d asked her a question. Oh, yeah: he wanted a description.