Crow chuckled. “Yes. Because I’m the best. In any room.”
“Don’t you have some random construction worker you could ask instead?” I asked Ryder.
He shrugged. “They were all booked up for that day.” He winked. “Weird.”
“Where’s your other groomsman?”
“He’ll be here in a minute,” Ryder said. “He said to start without him.”
“I’m here,” Odin said from the door.
Myra caught my elbow. “Come on, let’s go see where we should be standing, and when we should come in.”
“Wait.” I looked at Ryder. “Here? We’re having our wedding in the gym? Really?”
He grinned. “I’ll just say this was the best place to practice, especially since everything else is booked up due to the dead guy. Thanks for dying today, Rossi.”
Rossi gave him a thumbs up, and Ryder chuckled.
“Aren’t you supposed to practice the ceremony where the actual ceremony is going to happen?” I asked.
“I figured this would be enough. Besides,” he waggled his eyebrows, “maybe none of this is the way it’s going to really go. It’s a surprise.”
I shook my head. “You are something, Ryder Bailey. It’s a wonder I’ve agreed to marry you.”
“Yes,” he said. “I am a wonder, thank you for noticing.”
He took my hand, and we walked over to get our directions.
I expected arguments between the gods, but they were all far more congenial and respectful than I’d ever seen them. They treated this practice event with humor, but also as if it were important.
We got our walk down the aisle cues wrong half a dozen times, but finally got the hang of it, Odin with Jean, Crow with Myra, and me, walking down the aisle alone.
I was so focused on doing the step-pause, step-pause, which wasn’t as easy as it looked, that I didn’t even notice Patrick walk into the room.
Jean did, though, because she went stiff like someone had just slapped her. She was standing next to Myra, Hera between them, then Ryder, Crow, and Odin. They were all watching me, so they saw Patrick behind me.
I turned.
“Don’t mind me.” He held up his passport clue book. “I’m just here for the murder.”
“Delaney,” Hera said. “You’ll come down the aisle,” she reminded me.
“Sure. Right.” I went back to step-pause, step-pausing, but something was off now.
The room felt charged, as if there was a dangerous thing in the space that hadn’t been here just moments before. As if a fuse had been lit, and the flame was chewing its way toward the bomb.
I was aware of a man and woman coming into the room to make notes over Rossi, and then walking straight to the garbage can to find the glove. It seemed word had gotten out about some of the clues. Now it wasn’t so much a hunt, as just checking that it was still where people said it was.
They mumbled something that sounded like, “it’s him,” and, “he’s even taller in person,” and then they were gone.
Patrick remained. I could sense him in the room, moving around like he was casually looking for clues, but that felt fake. Planned. There was a tension in him too, and I wondered if I was sensing his soured luck.
I step-paused to my position next to Ryder, and Hera said, “Nicely done!”
Ryder offered his hand for a high five, and I slapped it.
“Dazzled,” he said.
