Weddings Can Be Murder (8 page)

He stormed out of the bathroom, his gun drawn. “What?”

Red stood pressed against the wall, pointing at the door. He’d seen dead people with more color in their faces. He moved in front of her, his gaze and gun now aimed at the door.

He heard it. Someone was out there. He motioned for her to move into the bathroom.

Of course, she didn’t.

Forced into action, he caught her arm and growled, “Go. Lock it. Don’t open it unless I tell you to. Got it?”

She looked up at him, all desperate-like. She leaned in, so close her lips pressed against his ear. “You come, too.”

“No.” He caught her by the elbow and moved her into the bathroom. When she didn’t close the door, he did. He backed against the wall. “Lock it, Red.” He didn’t move until he heard the click.

He took a deep breath and waited, preparing himself for the inevitable. If this was the same person who’d shot Tabitha, Carl didn’t question his intentions in coming
back. Red had pegged it earlier. Murderers didn’t like leaving witnesses.

Sirens echoed and blue flashes flickered in through the front window. Les’s gaze shot to Joe. Right then she noticed the red, angry scratches across his jaw. She’d done that.

She’d also flirted with her best friend’s fiancé. And he’d flirted back. Okay, not much, but he had flirted. Oh, and she’d seen him naked. He’d seen her naked. He’d made her wow voice go off. Oh, hell, why couldn’t he have just been an ordinary rapist/killer.

“The police are there,” the woman on the line said. “You can explain it to them.”

Explain? Oh, that would be really easy, considering Les didn’t have a fucking clue what had happened. She recalled the broken window in Katie’s study and the open back door.

And Katie being MIA.

Joe met her in the entryway just as the knock sounded.

“Piper Police,” a voice called out.

“Just a second,” Les answered. Opening the door, Joe and she came face-to-face with two cops, pistols drawn.

Their eyes went from her, elegantly dressed in a Mickey Mouse throw, to the shirtless, red-eyed Joe with a bleeding face.

The guns quickly turned on Joe. “Step back,” one of the officers yelled.

“Wait,” Les said, and held up her hand. “It’s a mistake.”

“A mistake?” the shorter of the two officers asked.

“Yes,” Les said. “A big one.”

Carl heard the thump again. He waited to hear the bar being removed. His finger tightened on the trigger; then a whimper and a sniffing noise rang in his ears. He stood frozen, listening, wanting to be sure. The tip of something white appeared under the door. A paw…a paw
with its nails painted pink. Then came the all-telling bark.

Carl released the expired air held in his lungs and tried to slow the adrenaline pumping through his veins.
A dog
. And from the looks of the painted nails, another sissy mongrel.

“Red.” He knocked on the bathroom door. “You can come out.”

The door swung open. “He left?” she asked breathlessly.

Carl reached under his jacket and holstered his gun. “It’s a dog.” The bark came again.

Fear still masked her expression, and he saw she was trembling.

“It’s okay now,” he said, purposely keeping his voice calm.

“I want this to be over.” She blinked, and a few unshed tears webbed in her lashes. “No more dead people, no more guns. I want to be warm.”

Her scarf had come untwisted and hung loose around her neck. The lack of color on her face brought new meaning to the word
pale
.

“I know.” He took the steps separating them and pulled her against him. She buried her face against his chest and wrapped her arms around him. Tight. Tight, as if she didn’t ever want to let go. All her softness fit against him, reminding him that in addition to her being scared, she was also female.

He lowered his face in her hair. God, she smelled good. He breathed in and tried not to let his body respond to her scent, or to the fact that he hadn’t held a woman in months. He told himself she needed to be held, not laid.

Unfortunately, he had the opposite problem. He needed to be laid, not held. The situation wouldn’t have been so pressing if he’d kept his date with the model this morning. But no, Ms. Jones and her talk of brides had ruined the mood. Realizing his “situation” grew harder, he
pulled away before she felt it. Crazily enough, he literally had to pry her arms from around him. It was obvious to him she didn’t have a clue how hard it was to walk away. And he meant that literally.

Sighing, he went and unfolded the cot that had been pushed against the wall. “Why don’t you sit down before you fall down?”

“I’m not going to faint,” she said, as if insulted—or maybe just mad he’d pushed her away.

“I said ‘fall,’ not ‘faint.’”

She moved to the cot. “I’m not normally such a girly-girl.”

“I like girly-girls.” He smiled, not wanting to offend her.

“You know what I mean. I can usually handle—”

“Don’t beat yourself up. You’re doing better than I expected.” He meant it, too. “The first time I saw someone get killed, I lost it. You’re doing better than I did.”

She drew her legs on the cot, huddled for warmth. “What happened?”

He hadn’t planned to give details, but if it helped her—“It was a domestic dispute. I’d only been on the job a couple of months. The husband pulled a gun.”

“Did you…”

“No, my partner shot him.”

“That must have been hard.” The color was back in her face.

“It wasn’t easy. But my point is that you’re actually holding together pretty good. For a girl.” He winked at her.

She scooted back until she leaned against the wall. Then she pulled her knees up to her chest. “Thank you,” she said.

“Just doing my job, Red.” And as long as he could remember that, he’d be okay. Despite his actually liking Red—his flirting, and wanting to do more than flirt—he’d come here because Ms. Jones was going to hire him.
This was a job. The rules, his rules, were written in stone: catch the bad guys, be someone’s hero, and then get out. A
temporary
hero. The one time he’d let his emotions get caught up, he’d got burned and stuck with a damn poodle with a foot fetish.

Frustrated, he backed against the cold wall and let his eyes move around the room. It was time for him to face it. They really were going to be stuck here. And since Ms. Jones didn’t work on Mondays, they actually could be in here until Tuesday.

Buck Hades used his key to get into his son’s place. “Carl?” he called out. “We decided to come on back.” His son didn’t answer, but his son’s floppy-eared dog yapped its way around the corner.

The dog raised up and put tiny paws on Buck’s knee, which caused Buck to say, “Don’t even start pretending you like me. And you know I don’t like you.” He said it in case his son was listening. After giving the room another look-see, Buck gave the animal his customary rub behind the ear. Truth was, he was a sucker for the dog just like his son. Though neither one of them would admit it.

“Where’s your master?” Buck walked toward the bedroom. Maybe his son wised up and had a woman here? He stopped. Hoped.

“Carl?” He knocked on the half-opened door. “Son?”

When there weren’t any bumping sounds or a
get the
hell out of here, Dad
, he poked his head in. Nothing.

He glanced at his watch. Almost ten. Lately, his son kept kindergarten hours. He turned around. Precious met him in the living room carrying his food bowl in his mouth. The dog dropped the dish at Buck’s feet.

“Carl didn’t feed you?”

Buck grabbed the bowl and went and filled it with Kibbles ’n Bits. Then placed the food on the floor. The dog hung back.

“Well, you gonna eat or not?” Turning around, Buck saw his son’s answering machine on the cabinet. The light was flashing. He hit the button to listen to the messages.

“Hey, Carl. It’s me, Ben. Where are you?”

Buck frowned. Why hadn’t Carl shown up at Ben’s? You could set your clock by Carl. Though his younger son had a knack of being a nonconformist—hence his early retirement from the force—the boy didn’t let people down.

Yeah, Buck was damn proud of both his boys. Well, he would be proud as soon as he got Carl hitched to a good woman. A man needed a woman. Without one, he was only half-human. And Buck himself had been half-human for too long. Which was why Buck had come by to tell Carl that he and Jessie were planning on tying the knot.

His son Ben would be thrilled. Carl would be the difficult one. He’d taken his mother’s death the hardest. And part of Buck knew that Carl wouldn’t be dancing a jig at the idea of this marriage.

The dog standing by Buck’s feet crunched on a nugget of food and looked up with appreciation. “You’re welcome,” Buck mumbled. Barking, the canine ran back to get more. “You really haven’t been fed, have you, big guy?”

Carl took his responsibilities seriously. He wouldn’t have left the dog without feeding him if he’d expected to be out this late. A bad feeling stirred in the pit of Buck’s stomach. The feeling parents get when they’re worried about their kids. Carl wasn’t a kid, but sometimes even a man needed a hand. And as long as Buck was alive, he’d be there, his two hands ready.

He picked up the phone and dialed *69. A recording came on. “Congratulations. You’re probably getting married. You’ve reached Tabitha’s Weddings….”

Buck hung up and eyed the canine. “Why would a wedding planner be calling my son?” Buck asked the dog. “And why do I have this feeling my boy is up to his ying-yang in trouble?”

The dog tilted his head to the side and eyed him, and the feeling in Buck’s gut bit harder. It was, in fact, the same feeling he’d had right before he’d gotten the call that Carl and his partner had been shot.

“Why the hell would I break the window when I have a key?” Joe curled his hand into a fist, growing more annoyed at the cops who tried to make him look guilty when even the woman who’d originally called them seemed to believe him now. Not that she was being friendly. Those glares she shot him every few minutes had him on his last nerve.

He reached up and touched the scratches, studied her through stinging eyes. She shot him another look that said she didn’t appreciate sharing the same air with him. He still didn’t quite get why she got to be the one pissed off here. Wasn’t he the one who’d had the first layer of his corneas burned off with dandruff shampoo, had a goose egg on his shin, busted gums, and four claw marks across his chin?

She shoved one sleeve of her sweatshirt up to her elbow. She’d gotten dressed right after the cops arrived, and had even brought him his shirt from the bedroom. Folding her arms around her middle, her sweatshirt fell off one shoulder and he got a glimpse of her red bra strap. For a second, the memory of her nakedness appeared in his mind.

“Are you sure you trust this guy?” the smaller of the
cops asked, and his voice brought Joe back to the moment. And a damn good thing, too. He had no business thinking about Katie’s friend naked.

“Trust him? No.” There she went with the go-to-hell looks again. “But I don’t think he was the one who broke in.”

The bigger cop crossed his arms. “So you think someone broke in while you were fighting with your friend’s fiancé, who you thought had broken in. A little farfetched, isn’t it?”

Joe closed his eyes. It was hard even for him to believe.

“Yeah,” Les said. “And the back door was open, too.”

Joe remembered stepping inside the house and feeling the draft. “It might have been open when I came in,” he said. “I remember turning up the heater because it felt cold.”

“So you think someone was in here and they heard you opening the door and they took off.”

Joe cut his eyes to the cops. “I know it sounds crazy.” The older cop took off outside.

Then another thought struck Joe. “Oh, shit. Katie?”

“Excuse me?” The younger cop asked.

Les’s gaze met Joe’s. They shared the same concerned look.

“Katie’s missing,” Joe said. “My fiancée. She was supposed to meet us at the restaurant. What if…” He couldn’t say it. He didn’t want to imagine anything happening to Katie.

“Is her car here?” the cop asked.

“No, it’s not,” Les said. “And neither is her purse or keys. I don’t think she’s been home.”

Joe raked another hand through his hair. “It’s not like Katie not to show up.”

The cop frowned. “Has she been okay lately?”

“Okay?” Joe asked.

The cop shrugged. “Is she nervous about the wedding?”

“No,” he said, the same time Les spouted out, “Yes.”

“She isn’t…nervous,” Joe insisted, not wanting to believe it. Or maybe what he didn’t want to believe was that he hadn’t paid enough attention to Katie to know how she felt.

“But,” Les added, “he’s right. This isn’t like Katie.”

The cop arched his brow. “You remember the bride who disappeared from Georgia? She created a whole story about a kidnapper. Getting married makes people do crazy things.”

“Katie wouldn’t do that,” he and Les said at the same time.

The bigger cop came back in. He shivered and looked at his partner. “There’s a tree limb lying by the window. Lots of ice. It could have broken the window when it snapped and fell.”

“What about the door?” Les asked, looking worried.

“Maybe it blew open,” the bigger cop said. “We’ve had forty-mile-an-hour wind gusts to night.”

Even Joe had to admit the cop’s theory made more sense. What didn’t make sense was Katie’s disappearance. Even if she was nervous about getting married, he didn’t see her running away. Oh, no, that was
his
MO. He’d been the one running for the last month.

Les wrapped her arms around herself, sending the sweatshirt slipping off her shoulder again. “I thought I checked it before I went to take a shower.”

“Sometimes we forget,” the officer said.

From the way the two of them inched closer to the door, Joe knew they were finished. “Wait a minute,” Joe said. “What are you going to do about Katie?”

The officer cut him a stern look. “Call around and check with some of her other friends. She’s probably waiting out the storm somewhere. If you don’t hear from her in twenty-four hours, give me a call, or make a report to Missing Persons.”

Les turned around and glared at Joe as if he knew the
magic words to make the cops do something. But as frustrating as it was, he didn’t know any magic words.

“This one is white cake with strawberry filling,” Katie told Carl, and passed him the Styrofoam plate.

He sat on the floor beside the cot. She’d told him he could sit beside her, but he’d refused, almost as if he thought it might lead to something. Of course, it wouldn’t have. She wouldn’t let it. She wouldn’t cheat on Joe, not even with Antonio Banderas. And that was about the fifth time she’d told herself that in the last five minutes.

After spending too long in total silence, her bladder had forced her to go check out the bathroom. While in there, Katie saw Carl’s gummy worms, which she’d left on the bathroom counter. Her stomach had growled with hunger, and that’s when she remembered she had brought her bag in here with her wedding cake samples. So here they were, feasting on worms and wedding cake.

He scooped up a bite with his fingers. She watched him close his eyes and savor the cake. “Damn, this is good. Even better than the last. You have to go with this one.”

Katie frowned, remembering Tabitha telling her she shouldn’t use Todd’s cakes. Then she frowned deeper when she remembered, due to Tabitha’s most recent situation—being dead—she wouldn’t be helping Katie with the wedding at all. Katie’s stomach roiled. She wasn’t sure if it was the thoughts of Tabitha being dead or the thought of the wedding that caused it. Then it occurred to Katie that due to the circumstances, maybe she and Joe should postpone the wedding. The thought sent a shiver of relief through her that left her shaken. Why would she feel relief?

“Try the red worm.” Carl smiled and pointed.

Katie looked at the bag and frowned. “I’ve had enough.” Then she remembered something he’d said before he’d gone into the bathroom. “Precious?” Katie
grinned. “You dog’s name is
Precious
?” She took the next sample out of the bag.

“Hey, I didn’t name him.” Carl held up his hands. “I tried changing his name. I even explained to him that no respectable male poodle would go by that name, but it was useless, he refused to answer to any other.”

“And he doesn’t like the green worms either?” she asked.

“He won’t touch them,” Carl explained, and he took the Styrofoam container she handed him. “You didn’t try it. You okay?”

“Yeah.” Glancing down into the bag, she said, “I think that one is white cake with buttercream icing.”

He continued to stare. “You sure you’re okay?”

“Yeah.” Leaning over, she looked in the bag. “We still have four more to try.” She met his gaze.

His tongue swiped across his bottom lip, and he held up his hand. “Actually, we probably should save some for later.”

Mesmerized by his tongue, a few of those Banderas fantasies came back to play with her sanity. But she didn’t look away from him. He didn’t look away from her. Suddenly, she was glad he wasn’t sitting next to her on the cot. Glad her parents had instilled the “keep your pants on” rule.

The whimpering sound came at the door again. “I remember Tabitha’s dog’s name is Baby,” she said, hoping to break the awkward moment. “You think it’s hungry?”

“I don’t know, but if you even try to give Baby some of that cake I’ll have to arrest you. That’s breakfast.”

The idea that they would be spending the night together made her nervous. “Arrest me? You’re not a cop. Remember?”

“I’ll make a citizen’s arrest,” he teased.

Their gazes met and held again. She looked away and tried to think of a safe subject. “I’m sure it has some food set out for him, don’t you think?”

“Yeah.” He cupped his hands together and breathed into them for warmth. The dog whined again.

“It sounds scared.” Katie went and sat down beside the door and wiggled her fingers under it. “It’s licking my fingers.”

“Lucky dog,” he said.

She cut her gaze back to him and saw the heat in his eyes. Heat she could use right now. His breath caused a puff of steam. She pulled her knees up to her chest and decided it was best to ignore his statement. She wished she could ignore the chill seeping into the butt of her jeans and the thrill his flirtatious remark had caused.

She wiggled her butt to keep the cold from freezing her buns. “Is it getting colder or is it my imagination?”

“Definitely getting colder,” he said.

Neither of them spoke for several moments. She got up from the cold concrete and went back to the cot.

“Why did you stop being a cop?” She tried not to shiver.

He stood up and paced across the room—a man who didn’t want to be here. “I tell you what: you tell me why you aren’t wearing an engagement ring, and I’ll tell you why I gave up my badge.”

The moment the police walked out the door, Les glared at Joe. There were a thousand different emotions running marathons inside her, tangling up her thoughts, playing mind games. Anger. Fear. Helplessness. Worry. Anger. And, oh yeah, anger.

She drew in a breath. “You’re not going to do anything?”

“Do what?” He backed up as if he was afraid of her.

“Anything to convince them to find Katie.”

“I think I pretty much lost my credibility with them when you called and said I was a serial murderer/rapist.”

“Like that was my fault.” She stared at him.

“If you’d listened instead of coming at me like a wildcat with its tail on fire, I would have told you who I was.”

“Listen to a naked guy who stepped in the shower with me? Well, excuse me—my bad!”

“I thought you were Katie.”

“Not at the bar you didn’t. Or are you blind?”

“Almost, thanks to you.” He pulled at the bottom of his eyelids and showed her his red eyes. “Or do they just feel like they’re the color of blood?”

“You know what I mean,” she said. He’d
flirted
with her. Maybe it had only been very light flirting, but—

“Right now the only thing I know is—”

The phone rang, and they both ran for it. She got there first and snagged it up. “Hello?”

Nothing.

“Hello?” She pressed her ear closer to the receiver and heard music. Just like the phone call earlier.

Katie watched Carl pace around the room. Every breath he took left a wisp of fog.

She hadn’t answered the question about her engagement ring. Not only because she didn’t want to talk about it, but because thinking about it made her stomach quiver. After only having a few bites of cake and two worms for dinner, she didn’t want to lose it.

Slipping the gloves back on, she wrapped the scarf back around her neck and face. She tightened her legs together, seeking warmth. “The news said the cold front wasn’t supposed to arrive until tomorrow.”

“Well, they lied,” he said, sounding annoyed. At her or the situation, she didn’t know, but suspected both. Then, all of a sudden, she remembered the rest of the broadcast, about how four people had frozen to death in Dallas as a result of this front. Surely, it wouldn’t get that cold here.

She looked at Carl, who’d ripped off a few box tops and was placing them on the floor to sit on. Steam continually rose from his lips. The floor was like ice; her own butt hadn’t warmed yet.

“Your ears are red from the cold,” she said. “You should wear the scarf.” She picked it up where she’d set it beside the cot and tossed it to him.

“And with my luck we’ll freeze to death and I’ll be found dead wearing a pink, glittery, fuzzy scarf. I’d rather chance losing an ear to frostbite.”

“Are you that unsure of your masculinity?”

“My masculinity is doing just fine, thank you,” he growled.

“Then put it on!” she challenged.

Frowning, he snatched up the scarf and wrapped it around his neck. “Happy?”

“Doesn’t it feel better?” If she didn’t think he’d take it off, she would have laughed at how the pink scarf looked on him.

Then his words
freeze to death
rang in her ears. “You don’t think we could really die from the cold, do you?”

The phone went dead. Les stood there, fighting the sense that something wasn’t right.

“Was that Katie?” Joe asked, his tone impatient.

“No. It was…They played music.”

“Probably the wrong number,” he said.

“Maybe.” An unnatural chill climbed her spine. “But…”

“But what?” he snapped.

His tone sent her mood plummeting down a level. She considered insisting he leave, but remembered Katie was missing. So maybe he had just as much a right to be here at Katie’s as she did. “That’s the second time I’ve gotten a call with someone playing music.”

“And you think that has something to do with Katie being missing?”

“I don’t know, I just think it’s strange.”

“Everything is strange.” He took the phone from her hands and started dialing.

“Who are you calling?” she asked.

“Katie’s cell phone again.” He punched in the number, listened, then dropped the phone back on the charger.

“Anything?”

“Voice mail.”

“Something’s wrong.” Les forced the words out.

“I know.” He did another pace around the room. “Do you know where she was going today?”

“Yeah. She was going to the cake maker, the wedding planner, and then—”

Les bit off her words.
To pick up the new ring
.

“Then to where?” he asked.

“Nowhere.” Lying had never been her specialty, but this time she knew she’d failed at it miserably.

Suspicion twinkled in his blue, bloodshot eyes, confirming she’d been right. “It doesn’t sound like nothing,” he said, and took a step closer. “What are you not telling me?”