“He’s… he seems to be… very… dead.”
Not taking my word for it, Charlie got on the ground and moved through the same routine I’d just performed: feeling for a pulse, a breath, any kind of hope. He went one step further and slipped a hand underneath the body, feeling along the head and then down to the spine when he stopped suddenly, a look of horror overcoming him as he pulled his hand away and lifted it to the moonlight.
Sticky and red. Blood.
Charlie froze and blinked twice as he processed the information, and his hand went instinctively to the holster he always woreon his hip. “This is an active crime scene. Do you have any gloves? Something we can use so we don’t contaminate the evidence?”
I did actually. Since undergrad, I’d always kept a bag of latex gloves in my purse in case I came across an animal in crisis. I hurried back to the car, grabbed them, and made my way back to Charlie and Savilla, handing them over as I slipped my hands inside my own pair.
After gloving up, Charlie felt inside the man’s jacket and then lifted the body only enough to get a quick look. “It’s a gunshot wound from behind. Into the chest, near the heart, maybe even lodged in the sternum since there’s so little blood and there doesn’t seem to be an exit wound.” He narrowed his eyes, thinking. “I parked around the side of the house, but I didn’t see or hear anyone else around.”
I tried to order my thoughts to ensure I didn’t overlook any details before an entire team of officials arrived. I turned to Charlie. “Can you check his coat pockets?”
He hesitated a moment before beginning to rifle through each of the man’s four pockets—the two on the outside and the two concealed pockets on the inside.
Charlie pulled out a phone, a wallet, and a piece of paper that he unfolded and held up to the light. As my eyes scanned the words, the ground dropped from beneath me.
On it was written two words:blame Charlie.
TWO
FRIDAY
7 p.m.
Welcome, wedding party!
Please enjoy our Friday evening schedule before settling into your rooms for the night.
Cocktail reception in the Carriage House at 8 p.m.
Respective bachelor and bachelorette festivities from 9 p.m. to midnight
(or until we party ourselves out!)
Lacy stood in front of the mirror in the Sweet Briar suite at the Rose Palace, wearing a Jenny Yoo dress with large, dark blue peonies splayed across it. She’d thrown a knee-length white satin jacket on the back of her chair, and though it appeared to be a simple outfit, I was certain it had cost more than I would make in a month as a vet tech.
Lacy clutched her stomach and hurried to the bathroom, calling as she went, “Oh God, I feel like I might be sick.”
Savilla and I stoodin the room, helpless to intervene.
“Is she okay?” Savilla whispered. “I hope it’s not the flu. That’s been running rampaviously through the staff.”
Rampaviously?I guessed “rampage” and “pervasive”, with a “ly” thrown in for fun.
Savilla and I listened, relieved when we didn’t hear any awful sounds coming from the bathroom. A moment later Lacy emerged, pale but put together.
I went to her and put an arm around her shoulders. “You okay?”
“Maybe.” Lacy’s words and her expression were both uncertain. “I didn’t think wedding nerves would hit me like this.” Her eyes widened. “Do you think Anton’s feeling this way? Do you think he might change his mind?”
“Never.” I led her to the chair in front of the vanity and sat her down so we could both see her reflection. “Look at you. Radiant inside and out.” Because of the late December season, the sun had already set and she was relying on the LED lights of the armoire to prep for the night ahead, the evening of her bachelorette soirée and Anton’s bachelor party.
“More like wrung out.” Lacy laughed before picking up a mascara wand and reapplying it to her already thick lashes.
“All you need is a bit of bronzer and you’re as good as new,” Savilla said, picking up a brush and moving in to apply it with expert precision.
We were in a suite in the old wing of the house, but with a substantial life insurance policy that had come through a week after her father’s will reading, Savilla had already started renovating the space for a more modern look.
