BRIDE and DOOM (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 2) Read online

  If Kitty had flirted with an interested guy at a party, Becca swooped in and stole his attention. If Kitty returned to the dorms after a heart melting date, Becca was sure to pursue the guy the next day. During their senior year, Kitty had even experimented with her theory that Becca was hell bent on destroying her love life. She’d taken up an unlikely interest in the geekiest guy she could find. She hadn’t actually liked poor Joshua, but performed her attraction to bait Becca into sleeping with him. It worked. And when Kitty confronted the girl about the great lengths to which she’d go to ruin Kitty’s chances, a war between them was waged, but to this day never won. The only saving grace was that Becca lived in Hartford and therefore was no longer in geographical proximity to steal Kitty’s dates.

  Becca hung up in a huff after promising to hustle over, and Kitty quickly dialed Johnny as promised.

  “Johnny? This is Kitty Sinclair, the wedding planner!” she announced as soon as his distressed voice came through the line.

  “Kitty! I’ve gotten into a terrible accident!”

  “Oh no! Are you hurt?”

  “No, thank God,” he exclaimed out of breath.

  Kitty could hear police officers shouting orders in the background and a siren blared through.

  “This car came out of nowhere, whizzing up from behind then around my vehicle, and then for no reason at all it swerved in front of me! I had to slam on the brakes!”

  “My God!”

  “I missed his bumper, but only because I pulled the wheel hard. I nearly crashed into another car. Oh Jesus, Erik’s going to kill me!”

  “No, no, we’re just glad you’re Ok. Not being able to make it over here is no problem at all, Johnny,” she assured him.

  “No, I was driving his Beemer,” he explained. “I totaled the car.”

  “But I thought you missed the other car,” she pointed out.

  “I did. Then the offending driver hung back until our cars were aligned and sideswiped me. What a maniac!”

  “On purpose?”

  “I have no idea. I thought the guy was drunk.”

  “At two in the afternoon?”

  “He pushed me into the guard rail then drove off!”

  “What?!”

  “Yeah, insane. I didn’t even get a good look at his car I was so panicked. It all happened so fast. I only know the color and general description.” Then Johnny pulled his cell away and said something to the medic. “Look, I got to go. Give Mandy and Erik my best. And Kitty?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Don’t tell Erik about his Beemer?”

  “No, of course not. I’ll let you break the news. Let me know if you need anything.”

  Then he hung up. Kitty lowered her phone, as a strange feeling swept through her.

  Someone had tried to kill Johnny Gibbons.

  Chapter Two

  “I can’t believe I let you talk me into this.” Trudy wasn’t a tall woman, but with her beehive styled hairdo she stood at well over six feet. The thing was growing by the day and Kitty wondered if birds might start nesting in it come autumn. “How do I look?”

  “Fantastic,” she said, eyeing the twelve inch pillar atop Trudy’s head before her gaze snapped down to meet her friend’s. Trudy looked annoyed. “Maybe show a little skin next time.”

  “You don’t like my dress?” Trudy stopped just shy of the terrace, suddenly second-guessing her choice of attire.

  “Well, it’s not really a dress,” said Kitty kindly, taking a gander at the lime green, polyester skirt suit Trudy wore. Though it hugged her curves well, it also screamed rigid career woman, which Kitty happened to believe men didn’t exactly respond to. “But at least he’ll get a clear sense of your personality.”

  Trudy gasped. “Is there something wrong with my personality?”

  “No!”

  “See? Do you see what you’ve done to me? My hopes are up! I’m a nervous wreck!”

  “You’ll be fine,” she assured her as they made their way across the terrace, veering between the cafe tables that lined the restaurant just beyond the lounge. The sun was lowering on the horizon, casting the most heavenly shades of pink and orange across the sky.

  “I should’ve taken a cue from your wardrobe,” she mused. “You’re the one who looks fantastic.”

  Kitty glanced down at her dress, a bright pink cocktail number that cut low on the chest and high at the hem, showing off her shapely legs.

  “I’m dressed for a bachelorette party,” she said, brushing off the compliment. “And I look tame compared to what the other girls will surely show up in.”

  Kitty spotted Michael stepping out from the fray around the bar.

  “There he is,” she whispered.

  Trudy’s gaze locked with Michael Rivett, who smiled easily and started toward them.

  “Christ, he’s attractive,” muttered Trudy, turning slightly ill with anticipation.

  “Ladies,” said Michael when he reached them.

  “This is Trudy,” said Kitty happily, as he drank in the lime green sight of her retro friend.

  “It’s nice meeting you.” Trudy offered him her white, gloved hand.

  “A bit warm for gloves, isn’t it?” he mused.

  “Fashion over function, I always say.”

  He cocked his head at that, and then invited them to have a seat at one of the tables closest to the marina where the setting sun sparkled across the water.

  “I have champagne coming,” he mentioned as they sat, Kitty being sure to sit across from the potential lovebirds.

  Michael was doing a good job of keeping his focus on Trudy, who seemed to shrink under his gaze. Her cheeks turned flush and she was slouching so Kitty rolled her shoulders back demonstratively, hoping Trudy would get the hint.

  She did.

  “So, how many dates has your mischievous friend set you up on?” he asked Trudy, giving Kitty a quick wink.

  “Too many!” Trudy laughed, just as the waiter deposited a chilled bottle of champagne and three glasses. Michael did the honors—relieving their waiter of the task—as he listened. “But she’s only returning the favor. I made quite a match for her this past spring.”

  “Did you?” he said with interest.

  “It’s over,” Kitty interjected, eager to change the subject.

  “It’s far from over,” Trudy stated, brows rising. “He’ll come back eventually.”

  “Was it love at first sight?”

  Kitty said no at the same moment Trudy exclaimed that it was.

  When Michael handed Kitty her champagne she wasted no time draining the glass; anything to escape this terrible topic.

  “I understand you’re a hairstylist,” Michael commented, as he handed Trudy a flute of champagne.

  The conversation got under way and Kitty’s eye wandered toward the lounge where she noticed Johnny Gibbons was just now entering.

  “Excuse me,” said Kitty, getting to her feet. “I see someone I must talk to for the wedding.”

  Trudy nodded, but her gaze was locked on Michael, as Kitty padded off through the terrace cafe and passed into the candlelit lounge.

  Johnny lowered into a bar stool, his back to Kitty, and motioned for the bartender. His arm was in a sling, and from what she’d gleaned through the window, his face was badly bruised.

  “How are you?” She asked, placing a warm hand on his shoulder, all of which startled him.

  “Oh, you scared me,” he said, shifting in his seat, and then shouted to the bartender who’d wandered off, “Make it two! You like whiskey, right?”

  “I like everything,” she said easily, as she took the stool next to him. “You don’t look so good.”

  “You should’ve seen me yesterday,” he said with an eye roll to indicate he’d looked much worse. “I was so hopped up from adrenaline I didn’t even know that my arm was broken and I’d dislocated my shoulder.”

  “Johnny, I’ve lost sleep over this,” she confided. “The way you described the accident... It see
med intentional.”

  He drew in a deep breath as though he’d considered the possibility.

  “Have you talked to the police?”

  “Not outside of the responding officers,” he admitted. “It’s a felony, you know, driving from the scene of an accident. They’re taking it very seriously.”

  “But are they taking it as a premeditated attack?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, dryly. “I didn’t go there, you know? I haven’t got a clue who’d want to hurt me.”

  The bartender placed the whiskeys on the counter and Kitty was quick with cash.

  “It’s okay if you drink?” she asked, concerned he may have received medication at the hospital—painkillers and such that could react negatively with alcohol.

  “It should be fine if I take it easy.”

  “Will you? I mean, bachelor parties tend to get a little wild,” she pointed out.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  Johnny ran his fingers through his dark hair, a gesture quite similar to Erik’s, Kitty noted. The two were close and had taken on each other’s mannerisms over the years, which they were often teased about, especially since they were very much alike in other ways: nearly identical in height and weight, similar build, the same boyish good looks and charming nature. In a lot of ways they looked more closely related than Erik did with his own brother, Derek.

  “I don’t want Mandy to see me like this,” he said darkly.

  “Technically, she shouldn’t,” Kitty offered. “The two parties aren’t supposed to mix.”

  “But they will,” he stated. “How could they not?”

  Well, that was Kitty’s job tonight, to prevent such an occurrence—Erik’s orders.

  Like all men, Johnny had a deeply seeded attraction to Mandy Maple and Kitty couldn't blame him. Her old college friend really was a perfect ten, inside and out.

  “They’re just happy you’re okay,” she assured him.

  “Erik’s not happy about his car, I’ll tell you that much.” Johnny knocked back his whiskey and ordered another to Kitty’s surprise. There would be plenty of beverages at the bachelor party. What was his rush?

  She wondered if he was keeping something from her. Perhaps he had suspicions about who the hit-and-run driver could be, which he was too terrified to accept.

  “I should get up to the penthouses,” Kitty explained as she rose from her stool. “And make sure everything’s in order for when the guests arrive.”

  “Are you going to drink that?” Johnny was staring at her untouched whiskey, but Kitty thought it a bad idea for Johnny to knock it back. He’d already had at least two by her count.

  “Certainly,” she said, lifting the glass to her mouth. She held her nose, figuratively speaking, and shot back the fiery liquid, which seemed to impress Johnny. “Pace yourself,” she warned, though kindly. “It’s going to be a long night.”

  He snorted at that, but agreed, and soon Kitty was padding off through the lobby and growing mildly irritated that Becca Motley had yet to arrive. The woman was good for absolutely nothing except stealing other people’s dates.

  Kitty stepped out of the elevator on the penthouse floor and was met with a torrent of strippers—men and women in seductive regalia—who were blocking the way for the caterer, servers and bartenders, as well as the decorator who was rushing from suite to suite to put on final touches.

  “Can I please have everyone hired for the bachelor party go to the east suite,” Kitty shouted over the commotion. “And everyone here for the bachelorette party in the west suite?”

  Gradually the herd separated, milling slowly in their respective directions, though it seemed a few of the lady strippers were hesitant to part ways with their male counterparts. Love was in the air…or at the very least the hope for sex.

  Kitty dove into the bachelorette’s suite, knowing that arrangements would be lacking on this side if Becca couldn’t be bothered to show up on time.

  But she had.

  Becca stood in a slinky pink dress, not unlike to Kitty’s, and regarded the wedding planner with cool disinterest despite the fact that they hadn’t seen each other in upward of ten years.

  “Hello, Becca,” said Kitty, trying to keep a lid on her irritation. “I didn’t realize you were here.”

  “Kitty?” she asked. “I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  Kitty feared to imagine why that would be.

  “How much weight have you gained?”

  Kitty’s mouth pinched into a furious line, but she reminded herself that she’s never looked better.

  That was Becca for you. The irony was that they had the exact same body type. Kitty feigned a smile and asked if she needed any help.

  “No, I’m sure I’ve got a handle on it,” she said, declining.

  Kitty doubted that.

  “Well, I’ll be right across the hall in case you need me—”

  “I won’t,” said Becca, snide yet smiling.

  “The guests will start filtering in in fifteen minutes,” she reminded the redhead, and then started off for the door.

  “Still single, aren’t you?” Becca called out. The simple question had sounded a lot like an insult.

  “And you?” Kitty asked.

  Becca shrugged. “I’m having too much fun to settle down.”

  Stealing other people’s men, Kitty thought, but didn’t say.

  The guests came sooner than expected and they didn’t filter in. In the blink of an eye, the bachelor suite was overrun with drunken jocks and rowdy businessmen, the tightly knit network of Erik Coburn’s closest friends. Kitty kept to the task of taking people’s coats and laying them in a small office tucked away from the hullabaloo.

  Soon Kitty was sweating, rushing from suite to suite to tend to matters as they arose. When the bachelorette party ran low on Cristal, Kitty hurried down to the restaurant on the first floor and ushered up seven more bottles. When the bachelor party got so boisterous that one of the guests dove through the glass partition that separated the lounge from the terrace, Kitty was quick to quarantine the mess and contact the repairman, who worked diligently, as strippers attempted to distract him, doing things with coco-butter that no woman should do.

  As Kitty maintained a classy environment, she did what she could to keep an eye on Johnny. The man seemed stressed and he was drinking far too much because of it. His dark demeanor showed. He was the only guest not smiling, though he put forward a decent effort whenever Erik burst over, declaring his love for the best man and playfully roughing him up.

  It wasn’t until two in the morning that true chaos broke out. There was just no enforcing the no-crossover rule Erik had established to keep the bachelorettes from spilling into his party—try though she certainly did. It was like facing a buffalo stampede, not that the ladies were that hefty, but they were a formidable mass and swept her up like a tidal wave as they careened through the entrance door.

  “Aw, hell!” she exclaimed, giving up when she’d gotten cornered by two male strippers, who seemed to have plotted against her with goals of making her blush at the forefront of their shameless mission. After a few minutes she wasn’t sure she minded. They were putting on quite a show.

  But her attention was stolen when she spied Johnny through the crowd. He was stumbling drunkenly down the corridor and then disappeared into the coatroom.

  Kitty managed to extricate herself from between the gyrating strippers and barreled after him, but from out of nowhere, Trudy blocked her path.

  “Hell of a party!” Trudy yelled over the booming music. “I love this song!”

  It wasn’t until Trudy grabbed her hand and started dragging her toward the dance floor that Kitty realized Michael Rivett had his grasp on her friend’s behind. What began as thrilled dancing quickly turned into heated making-out between Trudy and Michael, which put Kitty in a terribly awkward position, though it occurred to her she might not feel that way if she was drunk like they were.

  Suddenly, she heard glass sh
attering.

  “Not another sliding door!” She panicked, but when she looked in the direction of the sound she saw Erik and Mandy in the furious throes of an argument.

  Kitty pressed through the crowd, which seemed joyfully oblivious to the fight, and made a solid attempt to separate the arguing couple.

  “Calm down!”

  “She wanted this!” Erik screamed. “She always gets her way!”

  “Everyone’s having a good time!” Mandy yelled back.

  “I’m not! I wanted to have this night! Just me and the guys!”

  “And you had it! For the last four hours you’ve had it! It’s time to merge the parties!”

  “Mandy!” screamed Kitty. “Erik, just calm down! The parties are merged, there’s nothing anyone can do about it!”

  But Erik wasn’t calming down. He grabbed another bottle of Cristal and smashed it on the floor. Kitty shoved them apart again.

  “Go to the coatroom!” she ordered, pushing Erik in that direction.

  “This isn’t over!” he said, as he stomped off.

  Kitty held Mandy by her loose shoulders. The woman was soggy with booze and Kitty was sure this argument wouldn’t have escalated if either of them had had the good sense to drink less.

  “Let him cool off,” she instructed. “I’ll go check on him.”

  “He’s always like this when he doesn’t get his way!” cried Mandy.

  “Try to have a good time,” she suggested. “I’ll be back in a minute!”

  Kitty bounded off down the corridor where the pounding music eased into muffled booms. As she crept toward the office where she’d heaped the coats, her eyes were glued to the door and the light that trickled out into the darkness.

  Her heart started beating hard against her sternum and she didn’t know why until she pushed the door open and found Erik standing as still as a statue with his back to her. Something was wrong.

  “Erik?” she asked, shutting the door to ward off the music.

  He didn’t respond. He didn’t turn. She realized as she came beside him that he was staring at the floor.