Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty
Jake and the other volunteers had managed to secure the window by the time Kate returned, trailing a good distance behind Kennedy and Juliette. They’d forgone the walk down the aisle in favor of expediency, which was just as well considering the wind howling through the heavy curtains they’d hung to block the broken window. Kennedy hurried to stand beside Spencer, and Kate slipped into her place beside Jake. Spencer gave his bride’s appearance a startled look, and ripples of gossip undulated through the crowd, but Kennedy only smiled bravely and signaled for the ceremony to proceed.
“Well, better get this over with before the whole place comes crashing down,” Spencer’s cousin and current officiant shouted over the wind. The joke cracked the tension in the room, drawing surprised laughs out of everyone. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to see this man and this woman engaged in holy matrimony. The sooner the better, am I right?”
“Are you okay?” Jake whispered to Kate, taking her hand. “What the hell happened?”
“Another attempt on Kennedy’s life, I think,” Kate said grimly. “And this time I had a front-row seat. Did you notice anybody leaving after the window broke?”
“I wouldn’t know. We were too busy trying to block the window with some old drapes. It was all I could do to get them up, with the wind gusting like it is.” He shook his head, frowning as he looked back over his shoulder.
“What?” Kate asked, sensing his discomfort. “What is it?”
Jake leaned in closer, his voice a ghost in her ear. “Somebody buggered with the wooden frame on the window. On all of them. I checked. The boards were pried apart, the glass hanging loose. That’s why it crashed so easily. Somebody sabotaged the frame.”
Kate’s brows shot up in surprise. “Richie and Steven?”
“They look awfully pleased with themselves up there, don’t they?”
Kate had to agree, the black sheep of the Hempstead family looked very conspiratorial with his partner in crime, smirking around the room at the other guests as Spencer’s cousin droned on. First the generator, then the water line, now the windows in the ceremony room. Not to mention the fire. Had they sabotaged the wiring down here? As a member of the Hempstead clan, Richie would certainly know about the secret passages.
“The, uh, the rings?” Spencer’s cousin/officiant asked loudly, nudging Cassidy. “Anybody got the rings?”
“Oh!” Cassidy said in surprise with a nervous little giggle. “Sorry. I have them right here.”
Cassidy fished around in the pocket of her bridesmaid dress—so convenient, Kate thought, putting pockets on everything these days—and pulled out a small wooden box. Something clinked to the ground as she withdrew her hand, flashing in the glare of a lightning strike, and everyone in the bridal party leaned down to look.
“Cassidy,” Kennedy said, her voice full of confusion. “Is that… my necklace ?”
“Oopsies,” Kate sang sotto voce. When she’d assumed that Kennedy’s dress was the poofiest garment bag, she hadn’t factored in Kennedy’s old Hollywood style. Her dress was smooth satin, nowhere near as decked out in crystal and tulle as Cassidy’s maid-of-honor dress.
Cassidy gasped. “I don’t know where that came from.”
“It came from your pocket,” Juliette said, loud and clear from the other end of the line.
Cassidy shook her head, looking around like she was just catching on to what this might mean for her. “Wait, that’s not… I didn’t take your necklace, Ken, I swear it! I have no idea what that was doing in my pocket. Someone must have planted it there!”
“I thought you said you put it back in Kennedy’s wedding dress,” Jake whispered in Kate’s ear.
“I thought I did,” Kate said out of the side of her mouth, unable to tear her gaze from the drama unfolding at the front of the room. “There were multiple bags. I picked the poofiest one and assumed it was the wedding dress.”
But in Kate’s defense… well, she didn’t really have a defense, did she? The necklace was definitely planted, and she was definitely the one who’d done it.
“Oh my god, I know what this is!” one of Kennedy’s bridesmaids, a friend from college, cried. “ You are the one who’s been trying to mess up Ken’s big day all along! What did you do, put something in the oysters? Make her sick on purpose so you could steal the necklace and hock it to pay off your food truck loans?”
“No, of course not!” Cassidy cried, focusing on Kennedy. “Ken, I would never— never —do anything to hurt you. You’re my… You’re like a sister to me. Really, you don’t even know. Please, this is some huge misunderstanding!”
“Kate, you have to say something,” Jake murmured.
“I know,” Kate said, gnawing at her bottom lip. But did she, really? The only defense she had was the truth, which was the exact same thing Cassidy was claiming right now. And Kate could see how well that was going. If she stood up and said it was her, that she’d planted the necklace, then she’d be the one everybody was yelling at now. And she’d had quite enough of that this weekend, thank you very much.
And there was still the business of Rebecca’s body in the fern upstairs. Someone had killed her, and Kate had seen Cassidy arguing with her aunt the day before. She might not have taken the necklace, but Kate was sure she wasn’t innocent here, either. Really, Kate couldn’t even be sure Cassidy wasn’t the one who’d taken the necklace in the first place. Someone had taken it and planted it among Kate’s things; who was to say it wasn’t Cassidy?
Still, it was hard to watch the woman get raked over the coals about it now.
“Kennedy, please,” Cassidy sobbed. “Just let me explain.”
“I bet this is about the money, isn’t it?” said another of the bridesmaids. “You blame Ken for not backing you up to get access to the inheritance fund!”
Kate winced, and Jake gave her a hard stare. “Kate.”
“Shhh, I can’t hear,” she said, putting a hand over his mouth.
“It’s not a soap opera, Kate!” he said, his voice muted beneath her fingers. His lips did feel nice, though.
“I know,” she hissed. “But this whole scene could force a confession out of Cassidy, and wouldn’t that be in everyone’s best interest? I don’t want to derail them now.”
“If anybody was going to hurt Ken for the money, it wouldn’t be me!” Cassidy said, her voice pitching above the growing noise in the room. “It would be Richie. He’s the one who needs more cash to pay for his addictions!”
The room swiveled as one to where Richie sat, looking like he was watching a soap opera. He was caught mid-grin, which Kate figured wasn’t about to go well for him.
“Uh, excuse me, I don’t have anything to do with any of this,” Richie said, putting up his hands with an affable expression. “I don’t know anything about any oysters or a necklace. I just came for a show, wedding or otherwise.”
“Except that’s not all you’re here for, is it?” Cassidy said. “You and your lawyer boyfriend have been trying to strong-arm Aunt Rebecca into selling Hempstead Island for the past year for some kind of dumb luxury development.”
“My suggestion to Rebecca about selling the island was in her best interest,” Steven said, putting on his best lawyer voice. “Just look at the safety issues we’ve had this weekend alone. Kennedy could have been seriously injured. This house should never have been put up for an inspection, and I can’t imagine it will pass now that—”
“We know about the gambling debts, Steven!” Cassidy said, practically hysterical by now. “Everybody knows, okay? Richie told us about how you got in over your head with your bookie and now he’s forcing you to make Auntie R sell him the island to pay off your debts.”
Kate turned in triumph to Jake and mouthed ponies.
“It was a lucky guess and you know it,” Jake whispered.
“Any alleged debts would not be anybody’s business but mine,” Steven said stiffly, but there was noticeably less wind in his sails. “The real estate proposal is a sound investment, and the house is in a hazardous state.”
“Why don’t we all just calm down,” Simon said, his voice projecting cool control through the space. “I’m sure if we all discuss this like reasonable adults—”
“What would you know about reasonable, Simon?” came Serena’s voice from the doors, where she’d appeared in a dramatic clap of thunder. Kate imagined she must have been waiting for such a cue to announce herself. She puffed up like a songbird preparing to give the greatest aria of its little life span. “You thought you could silence the lion’s roar, but we’re too mighty. We know you’re selling off Simon Says and sending us all down the river in the meantime! Some family business you turned out to be. You’re as ruthless as the big boys in New York!”
“What?” Simon said in shock. “What gave you the idea—”
“Who’s our new overlord?” Serena demanded. “Is it Kennedy? Is that why you’re here this weekend, schmoozing? So you can convince Kennedy to buy you out?”
Simon put his hands up defensively. “Now, if we can just take a beat, this really isn’t the right place to discuss—”
“Where is the right place, huh? Because you’ve been avoiding us for months! The joke’s on you, bub, because we’re unionizing and we’re not going to allow you to sell! And certainly not to Kennedy Hempstead. She’s already hosed our books with her crappy marketing.”
“Serena, please,” Kennedy said, her voice soothing. “I know you’re upset about the delay in contract negotiations, but as we told you last month, marketing a series is a very different beast from a brand-new book. Series fatigue is real, and your readers—”
“Don’t you dare try to lecture me about my readers! My readers are loyal and reliable, which is more than I can say for you, little chippy. If Simon thinks he can put you in charge of the whole shebang, all you can guarantee is that we’ll be bankrupt by Christmas!”
The small cadre of Spencer’s authors behind her dissolved into boisterous outrage. The lights took the advantage and dropped out again, and Kate felt like a flower pressed between two steaming hot rocks.
“We need to get out of here,” Kate muttered as the atmosphere in the room ratcheted up to unbearable heat levels. She pushed into the aisle, intent on making a discreet and graceful exit, but unfortunately it only put her in Juliette’s crosshairs as the lights pulsed back on.
“There’s your real culprit,” Juliette said, pointing a finger square at Kate.
“Me?” Kate squeaked.
“Look at her, she’s even trying to flee,” Juliette pressed. “I mean, come on, Kate is the most obvious culprit here. This whole weekend is literally the plot of her book. She’s the one who conveniently ‘found’ Kennedy passed out. And I just caught her holding Kennedy hostage in a room where a fire conveniently started. Plus, she’s Spencer’s ex-fiancé. He dumped her for Kennedy and she’s looking for revenge. She’s clearly still in love with Spencer.”
“I knew it,” Spencer said, so fucking smug Kate could punch him. “You do still have feelings for me, don’t you? That’s why you asked me up to the attic.”
“No, that’s not… I didn’t…” Kate put up her hands. She needed to organize the chaos. “I just… I just wanted to get through this weekend without…”
Without what? Making an absolute fool of herself? Becoming the object of everyone’s pity? Losing her cool in front of an audience? Loretta would never .
“Everyone sit down and shut it,” Loretta snapped, glaring down the assembled crowd. A more diminutive, soft-spoken woman might have had to stand on the bar or wave her arms around, but Loretta had plenty of height and volume to command the attention of the room. “What we’re not going to do is lose our cool right now.”
“Let’s not… lose our cool?” Kate said, but the ending sounded an awful lot like a question.
“Oh, Katelin,” Spencer’s mother scoffed, and something in Kate snapped. Clean in two. Forget Loretta, forget her dignity, forget saving face for the weekend. Kate had absolutely had enough.
“My name is not Katelin!” she shouted. “It has never been Katelin! I have tried to correct you so many times, until I was sure you were doing it on purpose. But you’re not going to be my mother-in-law, so I don’t have to be nice to you anymore! You were never kind, never welcoming, and frankly it always felt a little icky how much you fawned over Spencer. He’s an ordinary man! He can’t drive a stick shift, he doesn’t know how to tie his own tie without watching a YouTube video, he overpronounces every Italian word he speaks because he spent one summer there in college, and he was only mediocre at oral sex!”
None of that was meant to come out, but that last little detail was definitely one she had strictly instructed her tongue to keep inside her head. It was Jake, standing there, being sexy as hell and just casually mind-blowingly good at oral sex, that must have rattled that fact loose. Still, she clamped her hand over her mouth as soon as she’d said it. Spencer’s brother, Eric, gave a braying laugh and slapped his brother on the back, still smacking that obnoxious gum.
That was nothing compared to Spencer’s mother, though. She had long since passed red and dipped into disturbingly purple. “How dare you, you awful woman.”
“That’s not true,” Spencer declared, glancing at Kennedy. “Right, Ken?”
“Oh, Spencey,” Kennedy said, patting his arm like she was consoling a grieving relative at a funeral. “We’ll talk later, honey.”
“Oh,” Spencer muttered, looking deflated as he glanced sullenly at Kate. “You never complained.”
“I never knew better,” Kate said, her gaze automatically flicking to Jake, who couldn’t have looked more pleased with the whole outing.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Spencer said. “At my wedding?”
“Yes, Spencer,” Kate said heatedly. “At your wedding. To someone else ! You don’t get to be self-righteous about this!”
“She admits it,” Juliette said, crossing her arms. “She’s jealous about the wedding and only came this weekend to get rid of Kennedy.”
“Juliette, we’ve been over this,” Kennedy said, giving a hasty smile. “That was all a big misunderstanding. Kate would never hurt me.”
“Exactly!” Kate said with a nervous little laugh. “I’m not jealous, and I definitely wasn’t the one who poisoned Kennedy!”
“So you admit Kennedy was poisoned?” Juliette pressed.
“You’re twisting my words—”
“Your exact words were ‘I’m not the one who poisoned Kennedy,’ how am I twisting that?”
She needed Loretta, her strength and confidence. What would Loretta say?
“You’re acting awfully guilty for someone so loudly proclaiming their innocence,” Loretta said. “Pointing fingers at everybody so nobody points one back at you, huh?”
Right, Juliette was still a suspect here.
“I saw you, sneaking around with Veeta last night—”
“Now you admit you were spying on people, too?” Juliette charged. “Is that what you’re here to do this weekend? Stick your nose where it doesn’t belong?”
“What? No! I wasn’t spying—”
“She’s a scab, too!” Serena declared. “Kate doesn’t support the working author!”
Kate rolled her eyes, exasperated. “Serena, that’s not—”
“I caught her creeping around the family pool room, too,” Richie said, looking far too gleeful about his part in the accusation makings.
This was rapidly getting out of hand. What would Loretta do? Grab Abraham’s alarm app and force everyone into silence? Make a Molotov cocktail out of a vodka bottle and escape in the disarray? Kate’s Loretta connection was short-circuiting, visions of her heroine jumping out of burning buildings and fighting wedding guests flicking through her head like broken film. And interspersed between it all was a very real vision of Rebecca Hempstead, her skin so cold and rubbery, her expression frozen in grim surprise. Kate pressed her hands to the sides of her head, wishing for one moment of silence.
“Admit it!” someone shouted—probably Juliette. “Admit you tried to kill her!”
“I didn’t kill her!” Kate exclaimed, exasperated. “I didn’t kill Rebecca Hempstead!”