BRIDE and DOOM (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 2) (5 page)

              “Excuse me,” she said, fearing to interrupt the woman’s unprecedentedly late lunch. “I’m here to see Erik Coburn’s vehicle, if I may.”

              “You with the police?” she asked with the vacancy of a slum motel.

              Kitty didn’t want to lie, but she saw an in and wasn’t about to blow it, so she simply stated a name, “Detective Sterling Slaughter.”

              “Ah, you’re with that guy? Go on through the back, follow the signs through to the lot marked Lot 12. You’ll find your boys there.”

              Her boys?

              So Sterling had been here, was here, or was soon expected.

              “Can you refresh my memory as to the license plate number?”

              The woman narrowed her gaze, but only because she felt put out to have to lift a finger. Then she sighed, jotted down the number, and handed it to Kitty.

              Kitty held her head high and walked briskly with her heels clicking over linoleum as she followed the signs as instructed.

              Erik Coburn’s car wasn’t stacked with the bulk of totaled vehicles. It was positioned in the middle of the concrete lot. There was no one around.

              Kitty approached the vehicle with caution. It was a BMW, certainly, and Kitty realized upon closer inspection that it was a blue 2015 M3 sedan. Its entire left side was crushed, where the other vehicle had collided into it, she figured. When she rounded the front of the car, she noticed the right side between the front bumper and right wheel had been badly grazed, perhaps where Johnny had careened into the guardrail. Seeing the damage helped Kitty to form an impression of what had happened. Whoever had sideswiped Johnny and caused the kind of damage that was present would surely have a great deal of damage on the
right
side of their vehicle. And that’s where her list of mechanics and car shops in the area would come in handy.

              Then Kitty realized a critical detail. The windows were tinted. Dark. There was no way to see into the BMW except through the front windshield.

              It was then that Kitty was one hundred percent certain that the candlestick had been meant for Erik.

              The killer was tenacious. They’d failed to run Erik’s vehicle off the road. They had been a guest of the bachelor party (or bachelorette, but Kitty feared to imagine a woman could’ve done this) and had
again
taken steps to take Erik’s life, but
again
attacked the wrong man.

              Suddenly, her head was reeling with overwhelming panic. If the killer wasn’t caught, they’d strike again.

              Kitty peered into the right window and had to press her nose against the tinted glass before she could see inside.

              “You’ve got to be kidding me?”

              Kitty jumped at the sound of Sterling’s deep voice behind her and she whipped around facing him. His eyes looked darker than usual and yet the light favored his rugged features, casting alluring shadows over his face and tattooed arms.

              If she needed anything in this moment, it was a copy of the accident report. She needed to know the color of the assaulting car. Johnny had known that much and the police had taken his account. So Kitty smiled and sank into her hip, helping her natural curves to accentuate. His eyes flickered at that.

              “How’s it going?” she asked, an edge of seduction in her tone that made her wonder if this would go well or terribly wrong. It wasn’t like her to flirt boldly and there was a reason for that. She wasn’t very good at it.

              “How’s it going?” he questioned, skeptically. “How about you tell me what you’re doing here.”

              “Just wanted to see you.” She felt nervous, which meant she looked nervous and that wouldn’t do. She forced herself to relax, but it wasn’t easy.

              Something in his gaze told her he wasn’t buying it.

              “You’re being a nosey busy-body again,” he pointed out with insult, but Kitty deflected by broadening her smile.

              She leaned back against the crushed car awkwardly. It was bent into such a deep divot that the angle caused her to slump into herself.

              “No, I really wanted to see you,” she went on, determined to get from him what she needed. “We probably got off on the wrong foot yesterday.”

              A strange smirk came across his face, but it was only a hint that soon disappeared. “How would we have gotten off on the right one?”

              As she shrugged and pushed away from the car, an alarmingly loud ripping sound filled her ears. Her mouth popped open, stunned, as she glanced down the back of her dress. It had caught on the jagged car metal. There was a giant hole down the back of her dress.

              Sterling laughed. “I could’ve done that if that’s what you came for.”

              Blowing her cool, Kitty glared and suddenly words were flying from her mouth. “Oh, Becca didn’t get it out of your system?”

              She immediately regretted the snide accusation.

              Sterling had a real poker face about him. “No, I guess she didn’t.”

              Was that a confirmation that her nemesis had once again succeeded at stealing her man? Or was that his way of saying nothing transpired between them? Kitty couldn’t be sure.

              “Jealous of Becca Motley, are you?” He pressed.

              “Hardly,” she said, dryly with a bit of an eye roll. She couldn’t properly focus on shaming him, not with her torn dress in her hand, her fanny exposed for all the world to see should she ever step away from this vehicle.

              “I asked you a question,” he pushed.

              “You did?”

              “If you wanted to get off on the right foot, what would you have done differently?”

              “I was insulted you left without saying a word,” she admitted. “But, well, what I would’ve done differently is let you know I don’t actually care.”

              It hurt her to lie like that, but if he wanted to be cold, she could be colder. Anything he could do she could do better.

              He stared at her in such a way that made her shrink even more than leaning into the car dent had. And for a second she thought his heart was aching.

              “Good,” he said, cutting her down at the knees. “Then we’re on the same page.”

              Well that backfired.

              Kitty didn’t want to stand there and grimace or get teary eyed or say something she’d soon regret, so she did what she could to hold her dress tightly and started to round the car in the direction of the impound, anything to escape the back lot that clearly wasn’t big enough for the both of them.

              “Why’d you really come?” he called out.

              She turned slowly. “What do you want me to say, Sterling?”

              “I want you to tell me the real reason.”

              She felt like they were talking about so much more than a totaled vehicle, but knowing Sterling, it was probably a one-sided conversation, her hopes swelling beneath the surface and his miles away and completely unrelated to her. Which was why she couldn’t tell him that she’d thought about him nonstop since he'd left, that she was mad at him for disappearing, that she wished they could be together now that he was back, that if she had a regret in life, it was that she hadn’t worked hard enough to win his heart. That was her real curse. She couldn’t go to bed with a man she wasn’t sure loved her. She hadn’t gone there with Sterling, and underneath it all it had been her biggest insecurity. She felt like if she’d allowed him to take her he never would’ve left.

              Kitty realized they’d been staring at each other for far too long without words.

              “I wanted to see the accident report. I need to know the color of the vehicle that hit Erik’s BMW.”

              Sterling held her gaze for a long moment and she anticipated he’d tell her to stay out of his investigation.

              “It was black.”

              He’d told her the color, but what Kitty heard was that some part of him still wanted her. She smiled.

              As she walked away she did a poor job of holding her ripped dress closed, a strange way of saying thank you that she knew only Sterling would appreciate.

*

              “He doesn’t know what the hell he wants!” Kitty exclaimed as she plopped onto Trudy’s couch.

              “Aren’t you glad he’s back?” Trudy poured two glasses of Merlot and handed one to Kitty then tucked herself into a cozy armchair, readying herself for the long tale to come.

              “Glad. Frustrated. Excited. Heartbroken. I’m feeling so many things about it I could jump out of my skin!” Kitty tried to calm herself by taking a long haul of her wine, but as good as it tasted she was only getting more riled up. “And I know he did something with that trollop Becca Motley, I just know it!”

              “He didn’t.”

              “How would you know?” she snapped, which caused Trudy’s eyes to widen in a warning. “Sorry, but how on earth would you know?”

              “She left before him,” Trudy said easily.

              “Oh, that means nothing. She has ways.” Kitty truly
was
furious, but not at Becca. Her old college nemesis was an easy outlet to vent her anger so she wouldn’t have to deal with the underlying anguish Sterling had caused. Kitty took to muttering and grumbling and sipping her wine like a wound up crazy person, as Trudy looked on in wide-eyed alarm.

              Then she popped up from the armchair and scurried behind her Chinese folding screen.

              “If you need to turn in,” Kitty began as she watched Trudy’s silhouette rummage around behind the screen. “I can take off. I have some calls to make anyway.”

              Trudy appeared with a sage smug in her hand and proceeded to light one end until it began smoking.

              “What’s that?”

              “We need to clear your negative energy away,” said Trudy.

              “Oh, I have every right to be negative. That man is infuriating!”

              “I’m not doing this because of Sterling or his effect on you,” she explained, as she waved the sage smug around Kitty’s head. “You’ve had two murders at two weddings in the past two months, and that ain’t right.”

              “I know!” Kitty wailed. “What the heck is going on?!”

              “I don’t know, but we have to nip this thing in the bud. We don’t want you to get a reputation.”

              “Oh, God forbid!” Kitty was truly scared. She’d never get another client so long as she lived if people started thinking of her as a conduit for killing.

              “Breathe it in, Kitty,” she instructed. “Let it wash away the bad mojo.”

              Kitty did what she could to inhale the thick strings of smoke, but they smelled funky and made her cough.

              “At least you hit it off with Michael,” she said, eager to hear about love working out for once.

              “We did!” Trudy exclaimed as she plopped back down into her armchair, ready to dish. “You have to find me another!”

              “Find you another? I thought you liked Michael?”

              “I did,” she said with a smile, getting lost in the memory of him.

              “Well if you like him... I mean... Aren’t you going to keep seeing him?”

              Trudy shrugged. “Men are different after you sleep with them. What can I say, the spark is gone.”

              “Gone? Where did it go?”

              “I don’t pretend to understand men, Kitty, I just accept how they feel.”

              Kitty pondered that a moment then needed some clarity. “You’re saying men don’t like women once they’ve slept with them?” Sterling came to mind.

              “Not really,” Trudy said, dryly, but with ease. “They lose interest. Hey, I don’t blame them. It’s on to the next one!”

              “Christ, Trudy, it was hard to find Michael. Think about how many guys I had to find that you hated before I found a good one.”

              “But now that you know what a good one looks like—for me, that is—it should be easy. So climb back on that horse, girl, and get me a man!”

              Kitty glared at her. “I’ll see what I can do.”

              Trudy seemed satisfied with that, set the sage into an ashtray then plucked her wine off the table. They drank, deep in thought for a long moment, and Kitty reflected on the possibility that what she feared had been her greatest mistake might really be her saving grace. She hadn’t slept with Sterling. That meant there was still a chance.

              The summer sun cut through Kitty’s bedroom window the moment it pierced the horizon. She winced at the stark light then rolled to her side hoping to steal five more minutes. Logic prevailed, however. She was awake and knew herself well enough to understand there would be no falling back asleep.

              She lifted up in bed and glanced out her window. The suburban landscape was brightening up. Birds chirped. Tulips eased open. It was the morning of the Maple - Coburn wedding rehearsal. Tonight would be the rehearsal dinner, tomorrow the wedding. Time seemed an ocean she was drowning in. She needed to work fast and work harder, and not in regard to the wedding, which she was thoroughly prepared for.

              With coffee on her brain, Kitty rolled out of bed and snugged her white nightgown down over her rump. It had gotten bunched around her waist, thin cotton twisting around her with every toss and turn. And she padded through the house toward the kitchen.

              She hadn’t gotten so far as to scoop ground coffee into the basket when she heard pounding on her front door. It was barely 6:15 a.m.
Who on earth would be out there?

              Too groggy to be concerned with grabbing her robe or otherwise getting decent, she opened her front door and found Erik, bleary eyed and breathing heavily at her front door.

              “Erik! My God, what’s wrong? Come in!” Kitty pulled him inside and a warm summer gust blew in with him before she could close the door.

              Erik wrung his hands and paced around the kitchen islet.

              “They asked me to come to the station for questioning.” He looked ill with worry.

              “But you already spoke to the police,” she pointed out, confused. “Did they find your fingerprints on the candlestick? Oh! I told Sterling anyone could’ve touched those!”

              “No, it’s worse, Kitty.”

              She grabbed his arm to anchor him. “Tell me.”

              “It’s my car,” he started, but got choked up, the stress of it all wrapping his throat like two hands.

              “What about your car?”

              “In the trunk...they found more candlesticks.” He was staring at her, desperate for answers neither of them had.

              “What? That doesn’t make any sense!”

              “I don’t understand it either, but that’s what they said. They found two more candlesticks in my trunk. The exact same kind as the one used on Johnny.”

              Kitty pondered that. “Johnny was the one who borrowed your car.”

              “I know.” He was stumped and dazed.

              “The decorator and I used all the candlesticks she’d ordered. They were along the mantle and one of the bars in the bachelor suite. We knew that night that one had been taken and used to kill Johnny. So why would there be two more in your car?”

              Erik shrugged at a total loss for an explanation.

              “When did you lend Johnny your car?” she asked, thinking the first priority would have to be distancing Erik from any goings-on his Beemer had been involved in.

              “The night before the car accident and bachelor party,” he supplied. “He said he needed to get a number of errands done.”

              “And I can’t exactly ask him when he’d left the car unlocked and unattended,” she pointed out, frustrated. She fell into deep thought then brightened up. “The only people who knew the decorator and I had rented those candlesticks were her and me, her assistant, and of course the rental store we got them from.”

              “What are you saying?”

              “I’m saying my list of black vehicles that could’ve sideswiped Johnny just got a heck of a lot shorter.”

              “And that’s a good thing?”

              “I hope so.” she trailed off into acute concentration. “The killer was at the party, but somehow involved in the planning.” Then it hit her. “This is terrifying.” Then something else hit her. “Unless the killer planted them in your trunk after the car accident
and
after the murder.”

              “Why would they do that?”

              “To frame you.”

              “But why?”

              Kitty locked eyes with Erik. “They want you out of the way, Erik. Out of Mandy’s life so they can have her for themselves. Second best to killing you would be putting you behind bars for the rest of your life.”

              “It’s getting harder and harder to see a way out of this,” Erik said, losing hope.

              “You have to stay positive. You didn’t do it and the police will believe that eventually.”

              “Stay positive? I’m supposed to get to the precinct at eight. They have a right to hold and question me for twelve hours. I can’t be in two places at once, Kitty! How am I supposed to go through with this wedding?”

              “Let me see what I can do.”

              Kitty walked Erik to the door. As she opened it, she gave Erik a big squeeze, rubbing his back and assuring him she’d make this right.

              “What’s this?”

              Startled by a woman’s voice, Kitty jumped, releasing Erik, and found Mandy standing there with her hands on her hips. She looked irate.

              “Mandy! This isn’t what it looks like,” said Kitty, suddenly realizing her white nightgown was much too short and much too thin given the early hour.

              “You don’t come home all night, and then I find you leaving Kitty's house just after sunrise?” she yelled at Erik.

              “Oh, don’t be insane!” he yelled back, dismissing her.

              But all Kitty heard was that he hadn’t gone home all night. What had he been doing?

              “I’m the crazy one?!” she screamed, grabbing her fiancé's arm and dragging him down the walk. “I cannot believe the things you put me through!”

              “I won’t be yelled at first thing in the morning!”

              Kitty watched them climb into Mandy’s Mazda and drive away. What kinds of things had Erik put Mandy through? And who else was of the same opinion?

              She rushed into the house and found her cell on the living room coffee table. Grabbing it and plopping onto the couch, she dialed Sterling.

              Ugh, he’d never be up at this hour! He was probably dead to the world, she thought as she listened to the ring tone blare and blare in her ear.

              “Come on, pick up!”

              On the fifth ring the call went to voicemail so she hung up and redialed. Still no answer.

              Arg! Sterling!

              Time was of the essence, but she couldn’t exactly show up unannounced in her skivvies, so she threw on a mauve summer dress and ballerina flats and brushed her teeth quickly. She’d come back and get properly changed later. For now, she only had to look halfway decent and when she rinsed her mouth and glanced at her reflection, she decided she'd accomplished just that.

              Sterling lived in an old apartment building off Main Street in downtown Greenwich, not far from her store. Realizing that, Kitty kicked herself for not getting properly ready for her day, or at least tossing her work clothes and cocktail dress into her Fiat. It was about to be a very long day.

              She pulled to the curb, killed the engine, and jumped out then hurried over to the glass apartment door between her friend Harry Collins’ bakery, Delectable Desserts, and a flower shop.

              As she approached the glass, she realized the door was propped open with a telephone book so she pushed on it and began climbing the first flight of stairs.

              According to what she’d learned last spring, Sterling lived on the second floor, but she couldn’t remember the apartment number. She’d half a mind to start knocking on doors, but that could be time consuming, not to mention rude given the hour.

              Kitty dialed up Sterling again and pressed her ear to the first apartment door she came to, hoping like hell he’d left the ringer on instead of putting his cell on vibrate.

              She couldn’t hear anything except for a TV blaring the morning news.

              There was no way Sterling would be up this early watching TV.

              She moved on to the next apartment, dialed his cell again, and pressed her ear to the door.

              She couldn’t tell if her brain was playing tricks on her, but she thought she heard a faint ringing coming from deep within the apartment. It sounded thin and tinny the way cell phones often did.

              She knocked, and then pounded on the door.

              “Sterling! Wake up!”

              Then she listened.

              Silence.

              She lifted her cell to her ear and heard Sterling’s canned voice trying to be funny about leaving a message after the tone.

              Ugh!

              She hung up and dialed again, and then something occurred to her.

              Kitty put her hand on the doorknob and turned.

              It popped right open.

              “Such a reckless man,” she mumbled, entering quietly and closing the door behind her.

              It occurred to her that if this wasn’t Sterling’s apartment, she’d have a lot of awkward explaining to do. Well, she’d cross that bridge if she ever came to it.

              As she crept deeper inside, she saw a mess of discarded clothes—a black tee, weathered jeans, a dark leather belt, and a gun in a holster on the coffee table. She definitely had the right place.

              The apartment wasn’t large and it became clear that his bedroom was up the hall on the left so she ventured, stepping softly. Her heart was in her throat.

              Maybe she should’ve brought coffee?

              Sterling was asleep on his back, stretched out like a starfish in the middle of a queen-size bed. A thin blue sheet was lain across his lap in messy bunches, but left his chest and legs exposed. It was stuffy in here, hot. Kitty noted a fan was aimed at him from the nightstand, but there was no air conditioner. How did he survive the long, humid summers?

              “Psst! Sterling!” She whisper-yelled from the doorway. “Psst!”

              Dead to the world, indeed.

              She tiptoed to the windows and drew the blinds open. Sunlight poured into the room, brightening every inch of the disheveled mess of clothes that covered the floor, but more importantly Sterling’s face.

              He cringed and groaned then threw his arm over his eyes.

              “Oh, for Pete’s sake!” Kitty padded over to his bed and began tapping then shoving his shoulder. “Would you wake up?!”

              At the sound of her stern tone, he whipped his arm down and his eyes popped open with a jolt. When their eyes locked she could tell sleep was slow to leave him and it took a second to place where he must be if she was here. He scrambled upright until he was leaning against the headboard, but the issue of the bedsheet had escaped him.

              Kitty cleared her throat loudly and kept her eyes on the ceiling until he covered himself. When she returned her gaze, Sterling was grinning. His head had tipped to one side. He looked her up and down.

              “Come here,” he said in a soft tone, raspy with sleep.

              “Oh, please! That’s not why I’m here!” she snapped backing away.

              “Why are you here?” he asked in the same dreamy voice.

              “You can’t bring Erik in for questioning today!” she demanded. “We have a big day at the Delamar planned! The wedding rehearsal then the rehearsal dinner, and it’ll all be ruined if Erik isn’t there!”

              Sterling ran both hands through his gray hair that was full of cowlicks, but the gesture only drew Kitty’s attention to his flexing biceps and not his frustration at her pushy nature. Then he squinted up at her, dark eyes straining to meet hers.

              “You’re backlit,” he pointed out, glancing down to rest his eyes from the glare. “Would you sit down so I can see you?”

              Kitty looked around for a chair, but there wasn’t one. She had no options except for the bed, so she lowered to its edge, keeping as far from Sterling as possible.

              “I don’t see why you need to talk to Erik again. He didn’t do it!” She tore into a strong defense.

              “Evidence shows otherwise,” he shrugged.

              He’d placed his hand dangerously close to Kitty’s leg and it distracted her.

              “The candlesticks in the back of his BMW? Johnny was the one who had Erik’s car. Erik had nothing to do with those!”

              “So you think Johnny put them there? The very weapon used to kill him? Come on, Doll, you’re smarter than that.”