So Over My Head (32 page)

“What do you want
me
to do?”

“I don’t know! But think of something.” We come to a stop at yet another red light. Are there no green lights in this town? “I’m going to call my dad and tell him to wait, but I don’t know if he’s going to buy it. You find him and tell him you’ve talked to me, and I’m on my way.”

“Got it. I’ll wait for you inside the chapel.”

The minutes tick by, and at one o’clock, when we’re stopped yet again, I order the driver to pull over. “We’re getting out here.” I shove some cash in his hand. “Gonna have to run the rest of the way.”

“Follow me!” I yell to Ruthie, and take off down an alley on my bare feet. Three blocks later, my phone rings again. “What?”

“Bella, it’s no good,” Hunter says. “Your dad won’t even listen to me. He said he knew you weren’t going to show up, and he wasn’t going to wait. Something about Christina told him she knew you had made alternate plans for the day. I’ve been escorted out of the church.”

“
Un
-believable!” Oh, my lungs are about to explode. And don’t even get me started on my feet. “Go talk to him again. Tell him what I know. Tell him about Sadie.”

“I tried. There’s some big Brazilian goon guarding his door now. Says he’s a friend of Christina’s and the best man. He kicked me out and won’t let me back in to his changing room.”

Without so much as a good-bye, I end the call and punch in my dad’s number. Voice mail. I hit redial again and again. My own father won’t take a call from me. How do you like that?

As I pound the dirt-encrusted pavement, I glance at Ruthie. She runs beside me like a track star. Even pace. Bouffant hair defying the laws of gravity and hair spray. Not so much as breaking a sweat.

“It’s just around this corner.” I think. Five blocks later, I know I’m lost.
God, please help me. I need to get to my dad!

I screech to a halt as a woman passes by pushing a stroller of twins. “Hey!”

She casts a worried look and keeps going.

“Ma’am! Please stop, I need help.”

She turns around. “Your dress is beyond help.”

“I know that’s right.” Ruthie studies my torn frock, now minus the two bottom layers. I look like a flapper who got caught in a tor-nado of geese.

“Do you know where St. Augustine’s Chapel is?”

The short brunette lifts a hand to block out the sun. “Yeah. It’s two blocks north. Then turn and go four blocks east, and at the Y, head south.”

North, east, south? Is she kidding me? “I need landmarks. Turn at the red bud tree by the fire station, hang a left at the playground. I do not speak this directional jibbity jab!”

Ruthie grabs me by the arm and offers the woman a sympathetic look. “Don’t worry, ma’am. She just got cut from the Miss Manhattan Poultry model search, and she’s feeling a little crazy. I plan on slapping her at the next street.” My friend yanks me across the road and returns to running. “I can get us there.”

“You don’t know New York!” I scream over the passing cars.

She picks up the pace. “No, but I was a boy scout once, and I can tie a square knot, start a fire with gum wrappers, and know the difference between north and south.”

I hold the pain at my side. “Um . . . a
boy
scout?”

“What they didn’t know didn’t hurt them.”

So on faith and Ruthie’s internal compass, I follow my friend through the streets of the city that never sleeps. And judging from the sludge on my feet, the city that needs to work on its sanitation.

“There it is!” Ruthie calls many moments later. “I see it!”

Relief duels with sadness. We’re here . . . but it’s twenty past one. The wedding was to be a short ceremony. And I’m sure with Christina tipped off now, the service was cut down even more.

Just as we approach the small yard in front of the church, I notice an olive-skinned man standing in front of the antique entry doors. He looks like a member of a Brazilian mafia.

“Ruthie . . . that guy’s waiting for me. I know it. I’m going to need you to provide a distraction while I find another way in.”

She gives them the once-over. “I can take him. I’ve watched a lot of wrestling lately.”

Oh, Lord help us. “Just use your wits. Not your muscles. Or that slingshot tucked into the back of your pants.”

“You can see it?”

“That and your panty line.”

“That guy is kind of big.” She swallows hard. “Isn’t he?”

I pull her behind a nearby shrub. “Oh, no.” I shake my head. “No, you don’t. You are not wimping out on me now. You, Ruthie McGee, are my sidekick. And I have never needed you more than I need you now. Do you understand me?”

She nods—slowly at first, then more certain. “I understand.”

“You can do it. I believe in you.”

“I sure wish I had that book.”

“You don’t need that stupid thing.” I tap her temple. “Everything you need is right here. And in your heart. The truth is, you’re all I’ve got here. But you know what?” I look into the heavily lined eyes of a girl who has become my closest friend. “I wouldn’t trust this moment to anyone else. I’m glad you’re here with me, Ruthie.” I can’t resist a slap to her butt. “Now go get ’em, partner.”

She clutches her chest on a gasp. “Partner? Really?”

“Of course. Who wants to be a sidekick when you can be a dynamic duo?”

Ruthie lets out a happy sigh. “McGee and Kirkwood—mystery solvers.”

Let’s not go crazy. “Um, that’s Kirkwood and McGee.” I give her a playful shove and run toward the back of the chapel.

But not before I hear my partner in action.

“No way!” she squeals. “It’s Brad Pitt! Oh my gawwwsh—I loved you in
Twilight
! Can I have your autograph?”

Limping like a peglegged pirate, I jog around the brick building. Pink-dyed sweat trickles inside my strapless bra. I find a metal door and yank with all my might. Nothing. Locked.

At the back of the church, yet another door. Sealed tight as one of my dad’s eyelifts. With clenched fists, I beat the entrance, but no one answers.

“Are you kidding me?” I yell.

“You always were a drama queen.”

I spin around, tripping on a remnant of the skirt. “Hunter! Why aren’t you in there stopping this?” I’m too late!

“Because I knew you’d want the pleasure. Need a boost?” He points upward. Above us hangs a folded fire escape, leading to a window. “The bodyguard wouldn’t let me near any of the other exits. He’s sure not going to let you in.” He squats low and holds out a hand. “May I?”

“I just want to tell you that I had a lot more dress on when I started.”

My ex-boyfriend casts a doubtful look at my outfit. “I’m not judging.”

I step onto his thigh and swing my other foot over his head until I’m sitting on his shoulders. With rubber knees I rise on Hunter’s shoulders. “Don’t even consider dropping me.” He walks us beneath the window. “And don’t even
think
about looking up what’s left of my skirt.”

“Wouldn’t dare.”

Hunter wraps his hands around my wobbly calves, and I reach my arms overhead. I feel the warm metal of the ladder and pull it down. “Look out below,” I call as it grows toward the ground. I leave the safety of Hunter’s perch and jump onto the rungs.

“Good luck,” Hunter calls.

I shimmy up the rest of the way and push the partially opened window with dirt-streaked hands. Throwing a leg over, I crawl inside. Running out of the room, my feet slap all the way down a dim hallway as wedding music comes to a crescendo. The ceremony must be over. They’re probably walking arm in arm down the aisle together as man and wife now.

“Dad!” I bellow. “Dad!” Must get to him.

I whisk down some steps, only tripping on one. “Dad! Wait!”

The stairs empty me into the small lobby. Smack into the burly man.

“Going somewhere?”

I look up at the beast. “You have to let me in there. That’s my dad.”

“I know all about you. Christina told me you’d try and stop the wedding.” He shakes his bulldog head and smiles. A gold tooth winks back. “Not going to happen.”

“Oh, yeah?” Ruthie leaps out of nowhere, her slingshot poised. “Take this!” She fires away at the brute, pelting him with one rock after another. “Go, Bella! Go!”

I jump around the shrieking thugs and yank open the sanctuary doors. “Noooo!”

Two hundred heads swivel my way. Whispers skitter across the aisles.

My dad stands at the end of the church, his hand over Christina’s.

It isn’t too late! They’re not married yet!
Thank you, Jesus! I sooo
owe you one! Or fifty. Okay, a million
. “You have to stop!” My voice echoes in the rafters as I speed toward my dad. “Christina isn’t who you think she is.”

“Get on with the ceremony,” she hisses to the preacher. “I warned you his daughter might try and sabotage this.”

I stop before them, and the balding minister nods my way. “It’s true. She did.”

“Bella, this is madness. I waited for you. You said you were coming, and I wanted to believe it.” Dad takes in my disheveled state, his mouth tight in fury. “I held this ceremony off for twenty minutes hoping my only daughter would come through for me. And this—
this
is what I get?”

“You don’t understand, I—”

“Christina was right. She said you’d try and ruin this day, and I didn’t believe her.”

“Of course she said that.” I glare the woman down. “She’s a liar!”

Gasps bounce all around the room.

“Bella, you need to leave.” Dad lowers his voice. “Now.”

“Listen to me. This woman”—I jerk my finger toward his waiting bride—“is the sister of Sadie Vasquez, your former accountant. Sadie, also known as Mercedes, is the woman who was staying at the hotel all this time.
She’s
the woman I saw your fiancée plotting with. They’re going to take your money—again.”

Dad’s brown eyes travel back and forth from me to Christina. “This can’t be true.”

“Believe it.” I yank my phone out of my bra and pull up a picture. “Check out this photo.”

He squints and holds the phone close. “It looks like the face of a rhino.”

“It’s her sister!”

“Bella, I don’t know, I—”

Ruthie takes that moment to charge through the doors. “Wait!” She plows right down the aisle. “I have proof!” She squeals to a stop and with heaving chest, pulls the framed photo out of her shirt.

“How does she do that?” Dad mutters.

I shake my head. “I don’t know. It’s like a Mary Poppins bag down there.” I shove the picture into his hands. “Does this woman look familiar? It’s Sadie. And you—” I growl at the woman who would’ve been my stepmother—“are her sister.”

Marisol latches onto Christina’s leg and begins to cry.

“I love you, Kevin,” Christina says. “Please believe me. I love you.”

I pull the picture from the black frame and show my father the names on the back. “She lied to you. This whole time, it was all a lie.”

The evidence dangles in Dad’s hand. “What about our future? What about the show in Brazil? Was that just a lie, too, Christina?”

She shakes her head, her eyes brimming with tears. “Yes. At first. But I could’ve made it happen—somehow.”

“But that wasn’t the plan you and Mercedes had, was it?” I challenge as the pieces fall into place. “You had dad sign that ridiculously generous prenup where you got a lump sum. An amount that would’ve been chump change to a guy who thought he had a multi-million dollar television deal.”

Dad’s eyes could freeze dragon fire. “You were going to leave me before the final round of contract negotiations were finalized, weren’t you? Trump up some excuse for a quickie divorce?”

Christina throws herself on my father, her hands clutching his shoulders. “I didn’t mean to fall in love with you.” She rubs a manicured hand over her wet cheek. “You had that careless fling with my sister and just discarded her.”

I glare at my dad. “You had an affair with your accountant? No
wonder
she took all your money!”

Christina continues. “Mercedes got away with your money, but it wasn’t enough for her. She became obsessed. Desperate. Nothing I could say would reach her and her broken heart.” She sniffs loudly. “I feared daily she would take her own life. One day . . . I promised her I would do whatever it took to avenge her honor.”

What is this—honor-code according to
Sex and the City
?

“We formulated a plan. And I was to marry you, convince you there was a show.”

“She knew where my weak spot was.” Dad drops his head and pushes Christina’s hands away. “Seduce my ego first, right?”

I glance back at the wedding crowd. They sit motionless on the edge of the pews, taking in every morsel of this living soap opera.

“I didn’t plan on falling in love with you.” Christina’s voice is a weak whisper. “But I did. Do you have any idea how this has killed me?”

Ruthie cracks her knuckles. “Want to brainstorm some ways we could make that happen?”

“You don’t love my dad. Stealing his money isn’t love.”

Christina lifts pitiful eyes to my father. “I do care for you, Kevin. We could still work this out.” Her voices lowers to a whisper. “Please don’t send me to the police.”

“You were actually going to go through with it.” Dad glances down at a weeping Marisol. “Was it worth it? How could you do this to your little sister?”

“She’s not her little sister.”

Everyone pivots toward the doors. Mercedes Vasquez saunters down the narrow aisle. People rotate as she passes by, turning like dominos.

“You’re supposed to be on a plane,” Christina hisses.

“I couldn’t leave without you.” She ambles forward and joins our awkward grouping. Her wild eyes cut to me. “Nice dress, by the way.”

“More of your sister’s good taste.” Even a crazy woman recognizes this frock is hideous.

Dad’s laugh is ripe with disbelief. “What are you doing here, Sadie?”

“Mommy!” Marisol runs to Mercedes and clings to her pant leg.

“Mommy?” the church crowd echoes.

“That’s right. This is my daughter—Christina’s
niece
. If Marisol was Christina’s sister, you wouldn’t go looking for any long-lost rela-tives.” She shakes her bleached-blonde head. “I knew this was over. First of all, I knew my sister couldn’t pull it off.” She stumbles to Dad and stabs him in the chest with a pointy nail. “And since your bratty kid here”—she tips her chin toward me—“messed everything up, I wanted to at least be here to see your face when you realized the woman you loved didn’t love you.”