No Happily Every After (Mia and Roman Psychic Suspense #4)

Chapter Twenty-five

“Crap and double crap. This cannot be real,” Mia said, reading the emails on Brooke’s phone. “I promise, I didn’t do this. And if the wedding was off, you’re the first person I’d call. For sure.”

“So … but … how did this happen then?”

Mia’s gaze lifted from the phone and her eyes narrowed, the hazel color shimmering closer to feral green.

“Good question. I’m pretty sure I have a good answer too. We’re investigating this woman who’s about to get married. We’ve only had one actual conversation and I told her the name of the tent people and the caterers. Brace yourself to get something from Palmer Vineyards next, ’cause I’m pretty sure I spilled that name as well.”

“But … I mean … it’s diabolic. Who does that?”

“A murderer with everything to lose. My brains are basically scrambled right now. Did it say when I supposedly cancelled my wedding?”

Brooke took back her phone. “Let’s see. Well, these came in this morning, like I already told you. There’s no previous email in either chain. The murdering, wedding-ruining wench must have set up a dummy account and done the cancelling from there. Obviously, I wasn’t CC’ed on that. Wait. These confirmation emails were sent to her too, so we do have the address. OMG, her email is [email protected]. That’s super aggressive.”

“Yeah. It is. But so is setting fire to an office. I wonder how easy it is to trace an email account?”

“I have no idea. They do it in movies all the time, but I’m betting that a big company like Google doesn’t just hand over client info without a court order or something.”

Mia sighed. “And so far we can’t even prove she committed a crime. I guess we’d better contact the vendors and see if we can get things back on track for my wedding.”

“I’ll help as much as I can, but you signed the contracts, so I think you’re the one who’ll have to do most of the work,” Brooke said.

“And I’ll bet it’ll be the biggest hassle ever, but the sooner done the better.”

***

In fact, it took Mia most of the day to get the wedding back on track. Apparently, anyone could cancel with a simple phone call and follow-up email, but now she was required to show up with ID in hand and re-sign all the contracts. Best Eats Catering even had the nerve to demand a new deposit.

“Are you kidding me right now?” Mia said. “Because of your shoddy standard operating procedures, the food for my wedding was cancelled through no fault of my own. Now I have to waste my time re-setting the whole order, and on top of the stress and hassle you expect me to pay a second deposit? I should be calling my lawyer and starting a suit against you.”

The Best Eats woman frowned and pursed her lips. “No, wait. Don’t do anything hasty. It’s just how the software works. This is going through as a new order, and it won’t let me confirm until you make a deposit.”

Mia pushed down her temper, which was no small feat, and crossed her arms over her chest. “Okay, Mary. You’d better get the owner in here, because there’ll be no second deposit.”

Things went more smoothly at Big Top Tents, but Palmer Vineyards could no longer give them the tasting date on September eighth, so she had to push it until early October which made her nervous that there could be a potential problem getting enough product in time for their November first wedding.

By the time she returned home, her head was pounding, and a rage simmered through her blood. It took every ounce of restraint to stop herself from driving to Nashville and punching or strangling a confession out of Eliza.

“Sorry about all this, babes,” Roman said, rubbing her shoulders while she sipped a rare glass of wine.

“Has it been ruled arson, for sure?”

“Yep. Grant signed off on it and Kevin and Franco are all over the case. Of course, no solid evidence to implicate Eliza. The feed from Treasure Chest only caught the shadow of a person. She—or it could still be someone else, I guess, but fuck it, we know it was Eliza—was smart enough to approach through the alley from the other side. They’re going to try to enhance the image, but I doubt they’ll get anything usable off it.”

“She must have knowledge of alarms, right? It’s not something you can look up on the internet.”

Roman moved over to sit beside her on the couch. “You’ve got that right. It’d be deadly for alarm businesses if any Joe or Jane could easily figure out how to disable their product. Still, if Eliza had the same system on hand, she could potentially figure it out, I guess.” He snapped his fingers. “Why didn’t I think of that before? I’ll see if I can trace Eliza buying a First Defense fire and/or alarm system. You’re brilliant.”

“Except it was your idea.”

“The wedding’s all okay again?”

Her smile was grim. “As far as I can tell. I also contacted every other vendor we’ve hired and gave them a heads-up just in case. I don’t know what she was hoping to accomplish other than pissing us off.”

“Well, I’d say she distracted us good and proper. I’ve been working with Kevin all day and I’ll be back on site or at the station tomorrow. Meanwhile you’ve been chasing from one wedding vendor to the next. I’ll bet you didn’t have time for anything else, right?”

“Not even a proper dog walk.” She glanced down at the pack who lay scattered around the kitchen floor enjoying the cool tiles on a still hot evening.

“Which meant we weren’t investigating her at all today. Smart. But hardly a long-term strategy. Maybe she just wanted to get the message across.”

Mia worried her finger back and forth over her lower lip. “Do you think she might escalate again? Like setting the house on fire or hurting one of the dogs?”

“It’s possible, I guess. But—” He laid a hand on Mia’s arm when she started to surge to her feet, “more likely she’ll wait and see what we do next. This felt like a warning shot. Especially because she used the ‘don’t mess with me’ email address.”

“Did you fill Jennifer in?”

“Yep. She was horrified and very sorry for our trouble. And she’s also seriously scared now. I reminded her that Eliza has nothing to gain by hurting Scott until after September eighth and as long as she and Thomas appear to be endorsing the marriage, they should be fine too. Scott still hasn’t asked, but if he does, I’ve instructed her to deny any knowledge of us and to plant the idea that maybe it’s someone from Eliza’s past who hired PIs.”

“Okay. That’s good. But—” she paused and shifted to face him. “I think we need to up our game. Eliza has come after us on a very personal front. And she’s threatening to do worse. I don’t care if we break the law or not, we need to shut her down whatever it takes.”

His deep brown eyes gazed into hers and after several seconds passed, he sighed, and his shoulders slumped. “Maybe you’re right. I just hate doing it that way. I should be able to solve this by following the evidence.”

“Well, we don’t have enough right now, do we? I can get you more if you’ll let me. And then we can use it to build an even better case that’ll lead to a warrant or subpoena or whatever it is you need to make this feel like a legitimate solve by your standards. Bottom line, I just want her off our backs, our property and dogs safe, and Scott not to be dead because we didn’t stop her in time.”

“You make a good point. But I want to table that for a sec. I have one more thing to show you. And it’s weird.” He pulled out his phone and swiped through several screens before handing it to Mia. “Read this.”

Hey Roman. This is Eliza Wentworth. We haven’t met but I talked to your fiancée , Mia, the other day. I know you’re ‘friends’ with Scott’s parents. Maybe we could be friends too? There’s a party at the Lambs’ lake house on Saturday night. A pre-wedding celebration. I’d love it if you and Mia could come. Six o’clock. Semi-formal. Hope to see you then. Eliza .

Mia’s eyes pinged back to Roman’s face. “What the actual fuck? Why would she do this?”

He shrugged. “Hard to say. I can’t seem to work my way into her thought process. I think we should go.”

“What if it’s a diversion and she’s trying to get us out of the house for some reason?”

“I thought of that too. Kevin offered to be here while we’re at the party, so it should be safe enough. And my office is already trashed, so no point in going there again. I think that covers our bases.”

Her heart rate slowed and she turned her attention back to the email. “Could this be an actual peace offering? Maybe she realized she went too far?”

“I guess we won’t know until we get to the party.”

“What if we show up for an hour or so, see what’s what, then slip away and drive to Nashville. If I can get into her condo, chances are I’ll find something to help us.”

He blew out a breath. “Yeah. If nothing breaks before Saturday night, it might be the best course of action. One step at a time. First we work the party, okay?”

Now Mia was the one sighing. “Of course, if I could somehow get my hands on her phone while we’re there, that could work too.”

“Okay, my little criminal. Let’s take it easy on planning a crime spree.”

“Do you still want to go to Darby?”

“Yeah. I do. But not tomorrow. I want to work with Kevin again. Let’s pencil the college trip in for Sunday or Monday. One more thing. I think it’ll lighten the situation. Maybe give you a laugh. I brought our prenup to the office and left it on my desk.”

Although Mia didn’t actually laugh, a big smile spread over her face. “You mean, it’s nothing but ashes now? OMG, how is that not a signal from the universe?”

“I know. Ironic, huh?”

“I’ll sign another one if you want. I know it’s important to you.”

He collapsed back on the couch and closed his eyes. “Right now, I really don’t care. It’s been a hell of a day and all I want is to hold you.”

“Aw. That’s so sweet.” She shifted closer and pulled his arm from his side so she could snuggle in against his chest. “I love you too.”