Javi paled. “I think we got married.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have had that sixth shot of tequila!”
“What are you doing?” Javi asked as she tugged fiercely at the plastic spider on her finger.
“It’s fine. Everything’s fine. We’ll just get an annulment.” She whirled to me. “We can do that, right?”
“I don’t think you need an annulment, Vero. Your name isn’t even on the—”
Javi threw off the sheet and launched out of the bed. I covered my eyes, convinced several parts of him were now burned into my memory as he followed her to the bathroom. “What if I don’t want an annulment?”
“Then I’ll hire a divorce lawyer. And for the record, if we everdoget married again, I am not walking down the aisle to ZZ Top, and we’re not doing it in some cheesy hotel chapel with a discount Dolly Parton drag queen for a witness and a stoned justice of the—” Vero gasped. I peeked between my fingers as she jabbed a finger at the enflamed, raw tattoo on Javi’s chest, making him wince. “What the hell is that? Did you… Did we…? Oh, god!” she cried, shoving him aside and turningher backside toward the mirror as she lifted up her shirt. TheJtattooed high on her rump had been joined by the remaining letters of Javi’s name. “No. No, no, no!” she said, storming back into the room for her clothes.
I shut my eyes and handed Javi his pants as he chased after her, waiting for the whine of his zipper before opening them again.
“What are you doing?” he asked as she tried once more to rip the spider from her hand.
“We’re not married. You heard Finlay. Our names aren’t on that certificate. It’s not real.”
“Well, it’s real to me! I made a promise to you before, and I broke it. I’m not doing that again. I meant what I said in thatcheesy hotel chapel,and I’m going to honor that promise until death do us part!”
“That can be arranged!”
“Will you two stop!” I shouted. They both turned to scowl at me, hands on their hips. “I know who murdered Marco and Louis! It wasn’t Ricky. It was Charlie. And if we don’t find him soon, Ricky and Cam might be next.”
“So let me get this straight,” Vero said as she hurried to get dressed. “You think Charlie showed up at the Villagio after Marco and Louis got back from their meeting with us?”
“It all makes perfect sense,” I said, handing her her shoes. “Charlie could easily have impersonated a police officer to get access to Marco’s suite.” I could see the entire scene play out in my mind. “When the killer arrived at the suite, Marco was in the bathtub. Louis must have been the one who answered the door.”
Vero nodded, catching on. “Charlie probably flashed a badge and pushed his way inside that bathroom, demanding to talk to Marco. But there’s no way Marco would have told Charlie the location of the car,” Vero said. “Marco would have told Charlie to get the hell out.”
“No.” I shook my head, seeing the scene a little differently. “Marco was vulnerable. He was still in the bathtub. Louis probably confrontedCharlie. That’s probably how Louis hit his head on the marble vanity top—Charlie must have pushed him,” I reasoned. “Then Charlie strangled Marco to keep him quiet.”
“It all tracks,” Vero said thoughtfully. “Charlie probably assumed the keys to the Aston were somewhere in Marco’s suite, but by then, Ricky must have already taken the car to the chop shop. So Charlie took Marco’s black book and Louis’s phone, determined to find the car on his own.”
Charlie must have seen Louis’s phone sitting out in plain sight and assumed it belonged to Marco. Meanwhile, Marco’s own phone had been left undiscovered, hidden under his boxer shorts on the bathroom counter.
Vero frowned. “But if Charlie killed them, why didn’t he call Kat and have Feliks’s cleanup crew cover the whole thing up?”
“Probably because he didn’t want Kat to know.” I thought back to the suitcase in Charlie’s room, still bursting with the cash Feliks had sent him to take from us. Charlie hadn’t bothered to deliver it on his way here. And he obviously hadn’t been communicating with Kat. If she had been able to reach him, she wouldn’t have bothered calling me.
Charlie must have seen that stolen thumb drive as more of an opportunity than a threat. With fourteen million dollars in his pocket, he could go anywhere. All he had to do was be the first person to find it. “He probably assumed he’d get his hands on the thumb drive and make it out of town before anyone else was the wiser, but he couldn’t find the car. And then we stumbled into the crime scene and tainted all the evidence.”
“Making you two the perfect patsies,” Javi said. He popped two ibuprofen and chased it with a palmful of water from the tap.
“Well, that’s just great,” Vero said. “How are we supposed to get a murder confession out of Charlie if no one can find him?”
“Charlie hasn’t left town,” I suspected aloud. “Charlie only wants one thing, and right now, Kevin Bacon has it.”
Vero, Javi, and I crept past Georgia and Sam’s room and knocked on Steven’s door. He opened it, still wearing his pajamas. The children sat on one of the beds, watching cartoons with Kevin Bacon. They barely glanced up as we pushed our way inside.
“Who the hell is that?” Steven glared around me at Javi, who had yet to put on a shirt.
“I’m Vero’s husband,” Javi answered. “Who the hell are you?”
Delia’s head snapped up. She leaped out of bed, gasping at the bright green spider on Vero’s finger. “Vero, you got married?”
“No!” Vero said as Javi said, “Yes!”
