Love, Laughter, and Murder Ever After (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 1) Read online

  The guard released her to seize the flowers, and as he did, Kitty slipped the bottle into her purse for safekeeping and then took off running.

  “Stop!” he yelled.

  He tore after her.

  And he gained on her, easily.

  She screamed when he grabbed her from behind, and together they fell into the grass and then rolled a few feet until the guard had her pinned beneath him.

  “Let me go!” she yelled.

  “Grave robbing is an arrestable offense!”

  “I wasn’t robbing anyone’s grave, you buffoon! Get off me!”

  “Taking flowers from a grave qualifies!” he said, yanking her to her feet. “And here at Greenwich Cemetery we maintain a zero tolerance policy.”

  He began carting her off toward the guard’s station as Kitty voiced her many objections.

  “Yeah, yeah,” he said, dismissively. “Tell it to the judge.”

  Chapter Nine

  “Well, I’ve had a hell of a day!” Kitty exclaimed, as she dropped into a heap of relief on Trudy’s couch. A statue of an African fertility God stared down at her from the ceiling. Kitty stared back for a beat then tossed her shoe at it.

  “Kitty!”

  “What? That would be the last thing I need!”

  “You’d have to have sex first,” Trudy teased. “I’m sure you’re in the clear.”

  “Oh, don’t remind me!” Kitty straightened up and took her other heel off. “Do you have any idea how furious I’d be at you if you hadn’t bailed me out of jail?”

  “Furious? At me?!” Trudy was so taken aback she nearly over poured the second glass of wine.

  “Yes! At you!”

  A staring contest ensued, each of their brows rising until the delicate arches could go no further.

  Trudy won, but only because she handed Kitty a glass.

  “Neil Salsbury?” she asked, and then gulped her wine on a sigh of relief.

  “He’s a very nice man!” snapped Trudy on the defensive.

  “A very nice man!” she snorted. “With a rage problem! I thought he was going to punch our waiter in the nose!”

  “You’re kidding.” Trudy slumped into an armchair across from Kitty and leaned forward with interest, which caused her green polyester dress to shift noisily at her waist. “I had no idea.”

  “I have no idea how you cut the man’s hair! He hasn’t got any!”

  Trudy shrugged. “Everyone likes being spruced up,” she said, swirling the wine in her glass.

  Kitty didn’t know what that meant so she turned her attention to the crisis at hand.

  “The wedding is in three days! The party is a mysterious mess of secrets and lies! That terrible man, Sterling, has a wild hair up his ass to arrest poor Harry Collins! The walls are crashing down all around me!”

  “Take a deep breath, Kitty," Trudy instructed. "You look like you’re going to pop.”

  “There’s so much to do. I’m overwhelmed and yet I can’t concentrate on the von Winkle’s wedding. I’m trying, but I just can’t seem to get the balls in the air.”

  “Well, maybe if you spent a little more time at Happily Ever After and a little less time gallivanting through cemeteries, there’d be enough hours in the day to get it all done,” she pointed out. “What were you doing there anyway?”

  “I followed Charles Astoria,” she confessed.

  “But why?”

  “I don’t know. He was acting peculiar and I had a hunch.”

  “Did your hunch tell you you’d get arrested?”

  Kitty glared at her sarcastic friend.

  “It’s a legitimate question.”

  As if it would speak for itself, Kitty pulled the black poison bottle from her purse and set it on the coffee table. Trudy’s jaw dropped and it was as if all the air had been sucked from the room.

  “Is that?”

  “The murder weapon? As a matter of fact...” Kitty gulped her wine to punctuate the revelation.

  “Where did you find it?” she asked, alarmed.

  “In the bouquet of flowers Charles had placed at Charlotte von Winkle’s grave.”

  Kitty watched as Trudy’s eyes clouded over with confusion and then intrigue and then alarm and finally circled back to immense cluelessness.

  “I don’t understand,” she muttered.

  “Trust me, I don’t either. But Charles had this bottle.”

  “He’s the killer?”

  “It certainly looks that way,” said Kitty, self-righteousness taking over her otherwise rattled demeanor.

  Suddenly Trudy turned white and her gaze snapped from the poison bottle to her friend. “Kitty! Why did you take it? Why didn’t you call the police—?”

  “Sterling? He’s useless! I absolutely despise that man!”

  “But Kitty! Now that the poison’s in your possession...”

  “What?” she asked blankly.

  “It’s going to look like you did it,” she said, terrified for her ambitious friend. “Isn’t it?”

  If Kitty had thought the walls were closing in before, it felt like they were crushing her now. She hadn’t thought of that. She realized she’d broken out into a cold sweat. There is no air in here! She sprang to her feet and opened a window, but it did little to cool her down. She began pacing.

  “Why didn’t you say anything to the arresting officers? Why didn’t you show the security guard that bottle? Why in God’s name didn’t you do anything to prove you’d found the bottle at the grave?”

  “I don’t know!” Kitty was panicking, shaking then wringing her hands, in a sudden explosion of heart pounding anxiety.

  “Ok, calm down, sit down,” ordered Trudy, getting practical. “Kitty, sit!”

  She plopped on the couch, but was rigid as a board.

  “Drink your wine,” was Trudy’s next instruction, so she did, nervously gulping the Shiraz.

  Trudy moved to sit beside Kitty on the couch and placed a reassuring hand on her knee.

  “Look at me,” she ordered.

  Kitty did, though apprehensively.

  Trudy took a deep breath. “You have to contact the authorities.”

  “Sterling’s not going to help!”

  “You have no choice.”

  “He doesn’t listen. He’s so arrogant,” she huffed.

  “Kitty!”

  She jumped.

  “Do it or I will.”

  “You don’t understand! I can’t stand him!”

  Trudy’s gaze shifted with understanding, not of Kitty’s declaration, but because of what her friend’s aversion truly meant. She smiled knowingly and patted Kitty’s knee.

  “You have a thing for him,” she concluded.

  “Excuse me?”

  “He pushes your buttons,” she went on.

  “He does, but I don’t have a thing for him. Quite the opposite,” she argued.

  “There’s a very fine line between love and hate and when you walk it passion can stir,” she explained.

  “Oh that’s ridiculous! I don’t love Sterling! I wish he’d leave Harry alone, leave Greenwich, and never come back!”

  “You hate him,” she pointed out. “And it’ll be easy to tip toward the other side of that fine line.”

  Kitty snorted a laugh, but was afraid her friend might be right.

  No, impossible.

  Trudy hopped up then dragged a 60’s retro, sea foam green telephone over to the coffee table.

  “Call him,” she insisted.

  Kitty narrowed her eyes and plucked up the receiver. Soon her fingers were working the rotary dial. Then Sterling’s deep tone seeped through the earpiece.

  “This is Kitty Sinclair,” she announced, holding her head high.

  “Oh yeah? What are you wearing, Kitty?”

  Smooth as a snake, that man.

  “It doesn’t matter what I’m wearing!” she snapped.

  Trudy’s brows shot up like a rocket and her red lips spread into a knowing grin, but Kitty waved her off. />
  “I’m calling from my friend Trudy’s apartment, and...well...”

  “Spit it out, Doll, this is eating into my evening off.”

  She was appalled. “How dare you take an evening off when Harry Collins is suffering in the dark?!”

  Trudy spun her finger in the air as if to say, get on with it.

  “Listen...” Kitty started again. “Just meet me at my house.”

  “Now?” He groaned.

  “Yes, now! I have important news.”

  “News you can’t tell me over the phone?”

  “Be there in five minutes,” she demanded and then hung up. She didn’t like how Trudy was smiling at her. “See what I have to deal with?”

  “I do. Do you?”

  She huffed. “Oh please.” Kitty swiped the poison bottle off the coffee table, tossed it into her purse and then wrestled her high heels onto her sore feet.

  “Wish me luck,” she said, dryly.

  “You don’t need luck,” said Trudy. “A spritz of perfume maybe.”

  She rolled her eyes at that and was out the door in a wink.

  Chapter Ten

  Sterling Slaughter rapped on the front door, as his imagination ran wild with visions of Kitty Sinclair answering in a pale pink slip, or maybe a black negligee, or maybe she’d be wearing nothing at all. It made him grin.

  Nosy, busy bodies weren’t the sort to do it for him, at least not until he’d met Kitty. She was so annoying and yet her determined conviction was strangely arousing—or maybe it was her rump that got his heart pounding. Well, whatever the cause... he liked being alone with her.

  The door drew inward, and Kitty was lit in soft light that turned her skin to cream on the other side.

  “What took you so long?” she huffed.

  “I wasn’t dressed.” He leaned on the doorframe since she hadn’t stepped back. “I was in bed, relaxing, savoring a fine whiskey.”

  Her brow furrowed at that. She was cute when her feathers got ruffled.

  He looked her up and down, drinking in the sight of her purple dress. Was it satin? It clung to her curves in such a way that made his mouth water. And she smelled good, too. Freshly perfumed. For his benefit, he thought confidently. She wanted to smell nice for him. Good.

  “You want to have this conversation on the portico?” he chided, staring deeply into her hazel eyes.

  “No, of course not,” she grumbled, stepping inside, though reluctantly, so he could pass.

  He stalked down the familiar hall then rounded the corner where he remembered the living room was, as if he owned the place. As he did, he was sure to roll his shoulders with just enough swagger to give her a good show, and then pivoted in the center of the room to face her.

  She looked scared now, all annoyance having drained from her face. She drew in a deep, stuttering breath, but didn’t say anything.

  “What is it?” he asked; his was tone gentle but firm with concern.

  Her eyes widened and her cheeks turned flush.

  “I’m afraid I’ve made a terrible mistake!” she exclaimed.

  Not by inviting me here, he hoped.

  “Calm down—”

  “Don’t you tell me to calm down!”

  “Fine! Freak out! But get on with it!” he barked, matching her intensity in such a way that caused her pretty mouth to float open.

  She snapped it shut then padded over to the couch where her purse was resting. He could see her hands were trembling as she opened her purse and produced a little black bottle, which she then plunked onto the coffee table.

  He saw the skull and cross bones.

  “I’ve incriminated myself!” she cried with distress and no tears.

  “Stop it,” he ordered, taking the bottle in his hand. “Where did you find this?”

  “It’s a long story,” she stated.

  “Well, make it short,” he demanded.

  “Would you please sit down? You’re putting me on edge.”

  Sterling held her gaze and assessed her state. He liked her riled up, but she was distraught and he wouldn’t have that, so he stalked over and then sat flush beside her on the couch, the length of him resting against the length of her. Maybe a good roll in the hay would calm her jitters?

  She seemed displeased he’d sat so close, but she didn’t move away.

  “I noticed Charles Astoria in town. He was holding that bottle though I couldn’t really see it clearly. He tucked it into a bouquet of flowers and then drove to the Greenwich Cemetery and set the bouquet down onto Charlotte von Winkle’s grave.”

  He mulled that over and tried to disregard the implications that Kitty was perhaps out of her mind. She’d followed the guy? Nosy indeed. But it was curious.

  “Do you suppose Charles is the killer?” she asked nervously. “He had the bottle.”

  “You had the bottle,” he countered.

  “This is why I didn’t want to tell you!” she exclaimed, overtaken by a fresh wave of panic.

  Sterling squeezed her thigh to shut her up and left his hand there, but her breathing was still aflutter.

  “Can anyone corroborate you were at the cemetery as well as Charles?” He asked, working first and foremost to clear Kitty of suspicion.

  “Yes,” she said, breathy and worried. “Would you please take your hand off my leg?”

  Sterling did, and then used it to wrap her shoulder.

  “That’s hardly what I meant,” she said, straightening away from his lounging repose.

  She shifted in her seat to face him.

  “There was a security guard who would surely remember me.”

  “And Charles?”

  “That I can’t be sure, but can we please focus on the mystery at hand?”

  “Stop,” he ordered. “What’s the security guard’s name?”

  “Oh, I’m not sure. I’d have to look at the police report.”

  “Police report?”

  “I was arrested.”

  “Christ. Why?” He laughed.

  “It’s not funny! I took the bouquet to get the poison!”

  “Let me see the report. I’ll call the guy,” he offered.

  Kitty fished the report out of her purse and handed it to him.

  As he read it through, chuckling at the good parts, Kitty succumbed to her overly inquisitive mind.

  “So Charles killed Duke von Winkle, but why? He had the poison in his possession then panicked. Then he stuffs it into a bouquet to leave at Charlotte’s grave. Why her grave? What does Charlotte von Winkle have to do with Duke’s death? Or Charles for that matter?”

  Sterling’s gaze snapped up to meet Kitty’s. She looked like an angel in this light. He found himself toying with a ruffle of purple satin on her shoulder.

  “I’ll have to speak with Charles,” he determined.

  “Why are you being so casual about this?”

  He frowned, considering. “Freaking out isn’t my nature.”

  She turned cross at the implied insult and then asked, “Does this clear Harry Collins?”

  “I can’t say. Not yet.”

  “But maybe?”

  “Kitty, I can’t say.”

  She stared at him then brightened. “You didn’t call me Doll.”

  “Is that a problem?” he teased.

  “No,” she said demurely, as her gaze rolled to his hand, the one that was playing with the smooth edge of her dress, grazing her shoulder, skin on skin. “Please stop doing that,” she asked softly, but all he heard was take me.

  “I like doing this,” he stated with total nonchalance, but then relented.

  “The von Winkle - Astoria wedding is in three days,” she contemplated. “If we don’t solve this case in time for I do—”

  “We?” He grinned.

  “Oh, you haven’t noticed that I’ve been the one leading this charge?”

  “Have you now?”

  “I certainly have,” she announced. “You’ve done nothing.”

  “See now, if you’d follo
wed me instead of Charles you’d know that’s not true.”

  “If I followed you instead of Charles, you’d still be pursuing the wrong suspect. Harry is innocent.”

  “And you think Charles is guilty?”

  “You don’t?”

  “I don’t jump to conclusions. I investigate. I wait until I’m positive before I declare anything.”

  “You didn’t do that with Harry. You’re ruining that man’s life.”

  Kitty was suddenly staring at his lip, the corner of it that had split thanks to her wielded fist.

  “It looks better,” she observed.

  Those hazel eyes eyeing his mouth stirred the strangest passion in Sterling. He wanted to reach up, cup the back of her head, feel those brown locks between his fingers, and kiss her. Did she want that as well? Was that what that look was about?

  “It feels better,” he said, his own gaze locked on her mouth.

  “I wonder how Charlotte von Winkle died and how Charles knew her. Maybe they were close. Maybe Charles thought her death was foul play and he took his revenge out on Duke.”

  Her lips were moving, but he didn’t hear a thing.

  “I’ll take care of it, Doll,” he whispered, slowly drawing near. “You just focus on the wedding and leave the case to me.”

  He went for it.

  But her palm was striking against his cheek almost as fast as their lips had met, and in the next instant she was on her feet, finger pointing hard in the direction of the front door.

  “Out with you!” she demanded.

  He gazed up at her. His cheek stung. But he could still feel the softness of her lips on his mouth. It was worth it, he thought, for him and for her.

  Slowly, he got to his feet and in an even slower manner stalked toward her.

  “I told you not to interact with those families,” he began, tone dropping an octave to convey how serious he was. “But you disregarded me and being kind I haven't said a thing.”

  Now they were chest to chest. He stared down at her.

  “I’m only going to say this one more time,” he warned. “Stay out of my investigation.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Kitty’s morning flew by in a torrent of hurried arrangements. The wedding was in two days, but she had weeks’ worth of planning to accomplish. She hustled and bartered and begged during every phone call. She organized and unorganized and reorganized the seating charts for the rehearsal dinner (Tomorrow? Yikes!) and booked the caterer, photographer, and videographer then signed contracts with the chapel, secured the priest to officiate, and lastly, put in the orders for the flowers and doves (Doves? Contessa was impossible!); all the while pushing Sterling’s bold kiss from her mind. The softness mixed with strength, the scent of his skin, the determination in his grip—oh! She had to reel herself back in.