No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding (The Vacation Mysteries #2)

PROLOGUE

If a Body Drops in a Broom Closet, Does It Make a Sound?

My name is Eleanor Dash, and I’m the bestselling author of the Vacation Mysteries series.

That’s not immediately relevant to my current situation, but it feels like something you should know about me from the jump.

I write murder mysteries for a living. I think up ways to kill people and then I do it. On the page, that is. I haven’t actually killed anyone.

Not yet.

Oh, wait, that’s not true. Not technically .

But that was a story for another book. So.

Moving on.

Despite the fact that I wing most things, you should also know that I always figure out the who, what, when, where, and why of the murder(s) before I start writing. I enjoy doing this. It’s a fun puzzle to me. To figure people out—their motivations, hurts, and resentments. Why are they striking out? What was the last straw? How are they going to do it?

It’s fascinating.

I mean, have you ever thought about it? What might push you to the brink so you’d see the most terrible act as a solution to your problems?

You don’t have to answer that, but it’s not a rhetorical question.

Not entirely, anyway.

So, why am I telling you all of this before we even get to the first chapter?

There’s a method to my confession, I assure you.

Let me, as they say, set the scene.

I’m at Emma Wood’s wedding to Fred Winter, her co-star in a movie called When in Rome . Emma’s been my best friend since childhood, and this movie is based on a book I wrote ten years ago that’s been (finally, and oh my God, I can hardly believe it!) adapted into a film. They wrapped filming two days ago in Santa Monica, and then the entire cast and crew came to Catalina Island for the wedding.

Because Hollywood.

It’s been a balmy October day on this lush island one nautical hour off the coast of Los Angeles in the Channel Islands. But though you can’t tell from the lingering sunset bathing the Descanso Beach Club in a warm orange glow, there’s a hurricane heading our way, because of course there is.

You didn’t think we were going to be at a wedding on an island without a storm, did you?

Okay, good. Because this is that kind of book.

Everything that can go wrong will.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

Anyway, a lot of shit has happened since we got here yesterday, but the most important thing is that, just now, when I was trying to find the bathroom during the wedding reception, I ended up finding a dead body in the broom closet instead.

I know, right?

No one’s supposed to die at a wedding.

But the person lying next to a stack of boxed toilet paper with a cake-cutting knife sticking out of their back is dead.

I’ve had some drinks, but not so many that this fact escapes me.

The large pool of very red blood forming a halo around their body is one clue.

Their open-eyed gaze into the middle distance is another.

There’s no doubt about it: I’m staring at a freshly dead person in an eight-by-ten room. And the smell of their death—the iron tang of their blood, the fluids the body releases at that pivotal moment, the anger that drove the knife that deep into their back, right up to the hilt—is almost overwhelming.

I put a hand out to steady myself, then stop before it touches the wooden doorframe.

Fingerprints. I don’t want to leave any, my murder-writer brain tells me even in this moment of panic.

I take a couple of shallow breaths and try to clear my thoughts. I need to tell someone about this, someone in authority, so they can call the cops and start up all of the things that come with a body.

Police. Suspicion. Fear. Questions.

So, first of all, fuck .

And second of all, again ?

And most of all, though it’s not strictly my job, I’m probably going to have to solve this thing.

I mean, I’m right here on the spot. I told you I like puzzles and planning murders. Untangling the knot isn’t the same as tying it, but they’re related activities. And, as the “ again ” above suggests, this isn’t my first non-literary homicide. Three months ago, I was involved in a whole thing in Italy when I was on a tenth-anniversary book tour for When in Rome . I almost died and three people actually did.

I figured out who the murderer was just in time.

To save my skin, that is. Too late for the other victims, unfortunately.

Bygones.

I have some expertise in this department, is all I’m saying.

Some of the other guests do, too.

Plus, on closer inspection, I know the victim, so...I’ve got to do it. I have to at least try to figure out the who, what, where, when, and why.

I get that you might have some questions, potentially about my choice to rhyme in a situation like this.

I do, too.

But I promise that everything important will be explained in due course.

And hey, we can solve this together, right? You’ll help me out?

Great.

Let’s begin. 1

1 Hello again. Eleanor here. Welcome to the footnotes. Yep, this book has them. Why? Because they’re awesome. But they’re also optional . If you want to skip them, do. I promise not to drop too many clues in here.