Read Weddings Can Be Murder for Free Online Page A

outside?”
    Ron headed for the front window.
    “Don’t do it,” Drake said. He pulled the
drapes shut. “They’re already setting up cameras.”
    “I’m gonna tell them—”
    But Drake grabbed his arm, reminding him
what Ben Ortiz had said earlier.
    “Shh,” I hissed. “Let’s listen.”
    Channel 12 finished with a short clip of
Blake Moore standing in front of the building where we’d been this
afternoon, footage obviously taken shortly after we’d bolted. As is
too often the case no real news was given, just a lot of
speculation about what authorities may be investigating. As
far as I could tell, their only hard facts were that police were
called to Victoria’s home this morning when the bride-to-be was
reported missing and the fiancé had been questioned. Of course,
those tidbits were bad enough. Our phone immediately rang.
    “Don’t answer it,” Drake advised. “It’s
probably reporters from other stations.”
    A sinking feeling hit the pit of my stomach.
How could our lives have changed so much in the last twelve
hours?
    I heard a sound at the back door and
immediately felt myself go on the attack. But when I raced in
there, ready to bean some reporter with my handy brass candlestick,
it turned out to be Lorraine, looking clueless as ever.
    “Who wants pizza?” she offered. “We ordered
two but you better get there before it’s been devoured.”
    “You’ll have to ask the others,” I said.
With an iron grip on her arm, I gave her the twenty-second version
of how we needed to lock ourselves in and not answer doorbells or
calls.
    “Seriously? Even at Elsa’s place?”
    “Especially at Elsa’s place. They’ll try
their best to get the neighbors to talk to them. Do not do
it!”
    “Thank goodness the pizza guy got through
before all this happened.”
    Whatever. I followed her into the living
room, where Paul was the only person interested in eating.
Repeating my warnings, I saw the two of them out the back door and
locked it behind them. We agreed that anyone wanting to go between
the two houses should call ahead and we’d each do our best to sneak
through the hedge in the dark of night.
    The TV was off when I went back to the
living room with Ron, Drake and Elsa sitting in gloomy lumps on the
couch.
    I joined them. “I feel like we have to do
something. We can’t just let this whole thing happen without taking
any action.”
    “You three weren’t here for the chile
earlier. You need food,” Elsa announced. “No wonder you have no
energy.”
    She got up, went to the kitchen and I heard
cupboard doors opening and closing.
    “She’s right.” I followed, discovering she’d
already located fruit, cheese and crackers.
    “It’s not the wedding buffet but at least it
might give you the energy to think straight.” Once again I knew why
I adored this lady.
    We called the men and all sat around the
kitchen table. Ron looked like an already-condemned man; Drake kept
sending glances my way, silently asking how to handle this. I
hadn’t a clue. Luckily, Elsa began to recover first.
    “I say we spend the evening making posters
with her picture. We’ll go around all over town tomorrow putting
them up.”
    It felt a little embarrassing that a private
investigator, a search-and-rescue pilot and little old me had not
thought of this much earlier.
    “All we need is a good picture of her,” I
said. “I can lay out a flyer on the computer and I’d bet Drake
would let us have some of his office paper.”
    “Take all you want.” At least we had a few
bright eyes around the table as enthusiasm picked up.
    “While I’m doing the computer stuff, Ron,
you and Drake start calling her friends.”
    The plateful of cheese and crackers quickly
disappeared as we now had tasks ahead of us. The phone had not
stopped ringing since the news story hit the airwaves and, much as
I hated to, I volunteered to listen to the messages. One of them
could be from a friend who knew something or, ideally, maybe