And here they were. As he worked, he saw well-dressed men and women arriving and gathering in an area at the side of thepool where a bar had been set up. One of them was Stephanie’s father who was holding a glass of clear liquid.
Water? He remembered that the old guy drank too much. Maybe he was trying to be on his best behavior today.
Craig saw Reynard at the edge of the crowd and sent him a message.Go get yourself a nice big drink.
He was elated when the man approached the bar and got a glass of whiskey. But instead of drinking, he looked at it for a long moment and left it on the bar.
Craig felt his stomach muscles tighten. It looked like Reynard didn’t want to repeat last night’s nonperformance.
He was focused on Reynard and his guests when he felt a tingling at the back of his neck.
Turning, he saw one of Reynard’s guards stoop to pick up the knapsack he’d left at the edge of the patio. When the man started to open it, Craig strode over.
“That’s mine,” he said aloud. Silently he added,There’s nothing you have to worry about in there.
“What’s in it?”
“I’m from the florist. That’s extra stuff I might need.”
Nothing to worry about.
“I’ll just take a look.”
Too bad the mental push wasn’t working on this guy.
“We should step around the corner so we don’t disturb the guests,” Craig said.
The man looked toward the crowd at the bar where Reynard was chatting to a group of men and women. “Yeah.”
They rounded the corner of the house.
When the guy bent to look inside the knapsack, Craig chopped him on the back of the neck, and he went down. Now what?
He pulled the guy into the bushes and opened the knapsack, where he’d stowed some duct tape. He used it to tape the guy’smouth and secure his hands and feet. Then he hit him on the back of the head with the butt of the Sig, hoping that would keep him quiet.
His heart was thumping inside his chest as he rushed back to the pool area.
Men in uniform moved through the crowd, telling the guests to take their seats, and they began to find chairs.
When everyone was seated, a rotund gray-haired man clad in black walked to the front area and stood between the tall vases Craig had placed there.
Then the music switched to the traditional wedding march.
As all eyes turned to the patio door, Craig’s breath caught. Stephanie was standing just inside the entrance in a long white dress, gripping her father’s arm. She looked achingly beautiful, and also pale and breathless. Beside her, Dad looked like a cat who had finished a saucer of cream.
From the corner of his eye, Craig saw Reynard take his place at the front of the assembly and look back toward his bride, his expression a mixture of relief and satisfaction.
Stephanie and her father were about halfway down the aisle when one of Reynard’s guards came running toward his boss—shouting “Intruder alert. Intruder alert.”
Reynard looked up as the man scanned the crowd, then pointed to Craig. Oh Lord, maybe they’d caught the incident with the other guy and the knapsack on a security camera.
It wasn’t time for the diversion he’d planned, but he had no choice now.
Reaching into his knapsack, he pulled out some of the fireworks he’d bought in town, touched a lighter to the fuse of one and tossed it beside the pool. He did the same with several more.
They began shooting off sparks and smoke, sending panicked screams through the crowd as they mowed down chairs in their haste to get to safety.
Craig could hear furniture crashing to the ground. One of the fleeing guests bumped into a table and tipped it over. And at least one splashed into the pool.
