“Ah, sorry.” Raina shuffled awkwardly. Then she brightened. “Nice that you can still be friends, though!”
“Can we buy you a drink?” Ziya asked, shifting over one seat and patting the now-vacant chair between them. “We saw you’re with your friends, but I know I’d need a break from all the activities if I had the week you’ve had.”
Amie raised an eyebrow. If Ziya had a boss who’d been murdered, she woulddefinitelybe out doing as many activities as she could to keep her mind off of things.
Raina glanced over at her friends, hesitating briefly. “Ah, sure,” she said, climbing onto the chair. “Not like I’m the maid of honor. And everyone’s too drunk to play the trivia game I planned, anyway.”
“It looks like a fun party,” Amie offered as Ziya waved down the bartender. “You did a good job.”
“Thanks,” Raina said, smiling sheepishly. “I’m sure I sound so bitchy complaining about the maid of honor thing. I’ll get over it. What’s important is that the bride has a good time, right?”
She leaned forward to study the menu as the bartender took Ziya and Amie’s orders. A silent conversation took place behind Raina’s back as they waited for the newcomer to decide on her drink.
It’s going well so far, Ziya communicated with raised eyebrows.
Could still fall apart at any moment, Amie responded with a grimace.
It willdefinitelyfall apart with that attitude, expressed Ziya with an eye roll.
Okay, okay, you’re right, Amie agreed with hunched shoulders.
They snapped to attention as Raina finished ordering her drink and sat back in her chair with a heavy sigh.
“How’ve you been holding up?” Amie asked, interpreting the sigh as an open invitation to ask about Raina’s emotional state.
“Just stressed,” Raina said. “Weddings are exhausting, and …” She glanced at Amie, realization shaping her features. “Oh. Savannah.”
“I mean, I was asking in general, but … yeah.”
“Yeah.” Raina folded her hands on the countertop, shoulders slumping. “It’s been tough. When I left the store on Monday, I didn’t think that’d be the last time I’d ever see her.”
“You left the store before she did?” Amie asked, already knowing the answer. She caught Ziya’s eyebrow twitching at the interrogative nature of the question, and hurriedly added, “I just ask because I know Andrew was wondering if Savannah had forgotten to lock the door to the shop when she left.”
“You talked with Andrew?”
“We’re neighbors,” Amie explained. “He’s having a rough time, understandably.”
“I feel so bad for him,” Raina said with a sad grimace. “He asked me that, too. About Savannah locking up. So did the police. She’d told me I could leave early, and that she would close up. Ishouldn’t have gone. She seemed preoccupied with something. I should’ve stayed to make sure everything was okay.”
“You spoke with the police?” Ziya asked.
Nodding, Raina said, “They just asked me where I’d been, how Savannah had seemed when I left, if anyone suspicious had been hanging around the store, all of that.”
“Did they happen to ask you about David?” Amie asked.
Raina frowned, trying to remember. “No, I don’t think they did. Why?”
Amie was too occupied with her disappointment to answer right away, so Ziya stepped in.
“The cops found out that Savannah and David had a big argument earlier that day,” she explained. “We’re trying to figure out who told them about it.”
“Oh,right,” Raina said, her eyes widening. “Savannah was complaining about it for most of the afternoon. I never thought to mention it. She was always picking fights with people; it wasn’t even her first fight with David. It didn’t seem out of the ordinary.”
Her expression went solemn. “You guys don’t think … you don’t think thatDavidkilled her, do you?”
“No!” Amie and Ziya protested in unison.
“We think someone might have been trying to frame David,” Amie explained. “He’d never do that.”
