Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Nineteen
Kate spent a horrifying thirty minutes digging through a room that seemed to consist only of spare doll parts, old linens that smelled of what she swore was brimstone (even though she’d never smelled brimstone), and hulking pieces of furniture. But she emerged victorious and covered in cobwebs, the necklace tucked safely away in her pocket and her feelings pricklier than ever toward Jake and Spencer.
What right did Jake have to be mad at her about Spencer? He was the one who’d rejected her. Twice! And what the hell was Spencer thinking, talking about cancelling prenups and stirring up old feelings? Loretta wouldn’t take that kind of guff from Blake or Geoff. She’d have the two of them strung up and put down by chapter three. Besides, Kate had real problems to focus on—like how she was going to get Kennedy’s necklace back among her things before the bride noticed her precious family heirloom was missing.
The ship seemed to have sailed on that last one, at least, because Kennedy’s distressed voice filtered past the double doors of the bridal suite as Kate reached the second floor. “Have you found it, Cass?”
“Not yet, I’m checking the bed,” came Cassidy’s voice, muffled under layers of bedding.
Kate pushed the door open cautiously, not yet wanting to knock and announce herself until she knew what she was dealing with. The room was enormous and menacing, the dark wood walls overbearing and the curtains a heavy drape of deep purple that cast the corners in heavy shadows. It must have been the master suite at one point, considering the mural painted on the ceiling made to look like an evil Sistine Chapel, with devils instead of angels and a grinning satyr instead of a god. Kate wondered, not for the first time since arriving on the island, what Russell Hempstead and his Romanian bride got up to on their private island.
The bridesmaids must have camped out in there with Kennedy, at least for the previous evening. There were toiletry bags everywhere, makeup and champagne glasses and hair products on every surface, glittering dresses she recognized from the rehearsal dinner scattered throughout the space. There were several pallets laid out, mattresses that looked like they’d been dragged in from other rooms or sleeping bags and yoga mats piled up to make beds. But everything had been pulled out, turned over, and shaken up in their search for the missing necklace. It looked like someone had set off a bomb in a high-end shopping gallery, with lace bras and sparkling high-heeled shoes strewn everywhere.
“It has to be here!” Kennedy said, her voice pinched tight with worry. She popped up from behind a velvet divan, the light throwing ghoulish shadows under her eyes where Cassidy hadn’t yet applied makeup to hide her fatigue. She looked so fragile, with her big hair and her doe eyes and her bare neck, and she blinked in surprise as she spotted Kate in the doorway. “Oh, Kate! I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you knock.”
“That’s okay,” Kate said, skipping over the part where she didn’t actually knock. “Is everything… okay?”
“It’s my necklace,” Kennedy said, rubbing her hands over her bare chest where the diamond pendant usually hung. “It was my mother’s, and I need it for my wedding day.”
“Not here, either,” Cassidy announced, her hair sticking up from the static discharge of the sheets as they slid off. “I don’t understand, you never take that thing off. Where could it be?”
“I thought maybe it had fallen off while I was sleeping, or it got caught when I changed last night. But I can’t find it anywhere!”
“You think someone stole it?” Cassidy whispered. She looked meaningfully at Kate.
“Have you checked the wine cave?” Kate asked, giving what she hoped looked like a normal smile. The pendant felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, jangling around in her pocket, just waiting to give her away. “Maybe it came off last night.”
“Oh, the wine cave, of course!” Kennedy said, smacking the side of her head and grinning at Kate. “Good thing I have Loretta on the case, I’d completely forgotten to check down there. Cass, would you go ask the kitchen staff to give the cave a good once-over? Maybe it got kicked under a wine rack or something.”
“Why doesn’t she do it?” Cassidy asked, still eyeing Kate suspiciously. “We need to finish your makeup.”
“I’ll be fine,” Kennedy said with a wave, wincing as she stood. “I can do my own foundation, and you can finish my eye makeup when you get back. We have plenty of time!”
Kate knew they did not, in fact, have plenty of time, considering the state of the generator. Not to mention a killer loose on the island. But she kept all that to herself, instead nodding along in agreement as Cassidy moved past her toward the exit. She paused beside Kate, mustering up her best bulldog impression as she stared Kate down.
“Nothing better happen to Ken while I’m gone,” she said.
“Well, you’ll know who did it if something does,” Kate said before realizing how menacing it sounded out loud. “That was a joke! I’m not going to do anything.”
“Mm-hmm,” Cassidy said, moving to the stairs. “Stay away from stairs, Ken!”
“She’s very… protective of you, isn’t she?” Kate ventured as Kennedy shook her head with a soft smile.
“Cassidy? Oh, she’s more bark than bite. We spent all our summers together here on Hempstead Island when Grandpa Ferdinand was still alive. We were inseparable. I guess we were both kind of lonely as only children. We got to pretend we were sisters, and it didn’t feel so lonely. I never would have considered anyone else for my maid of honor.”
Kennedy turned and hobbled toward the bathroom door, wincing at the movement.
“What’s wrong with your legs?” Kate asked, wondering if the poison had any lingering side effects.
“Oh, it’s just my feet,” Kennedy said with a dismissive wave. “Too many hours in high heels, gave me blisters. That’s the last time I wear shoes embellished with Swarovski crystals.”
She gave a little laugh, showing off one heel. There were deep scratches running from the back of her ankle to the bottom of her heel, with spots of blue and purple bruising around the edges. Kate could only imagine the other foot looked just as bad. She knew all about blisters, considering the ones her own heels had given her last night, and those weren’t blisters caused by any shoes. Loretta would never miss a detail like that, not when the investigation was just heating up.
“Barefoot,” Loretta murmured to herself as she examined the bride’s body. The groom had said she’d been complaining about her shoes all evening. Had she taken them off? But no, Loretta remembered the way her feet had sparkled as she’d spun around the dance floor. Custom-made in Italy. A bride didn’t shell out for footwear like that only to ditch them halfway through dinner. There were scratches, too, along the backs of her heels, as if someone had dragged her bare feet over a rough surface.
“How is that possible?” Loretta asked, pivoting to glance up the stairs. Even if the bride had been poisoned and taken a tumble down the stairs, her feet wouldn’t have looked like that. And she’d have more bruising all over. No, the bride didn’t fall down those stairs at all, but someone certainly wanted to make it look that way.
“Kennedy, what do you remember about last night?” Kate asked, moving toward the bathroom where the other woman had disappeared to finish her wedding day preparations. She sat at an old-fashioned vanity, complete with a little wooden stool carved to look like a bloom of tulips. “After the rehearsal dinner, and the uh… the speeches. Where did you go?”
Kennedy pursed her lips in thought, taking the opportunity to paint a coral pink on them. “Well, I remember taking photos with the wedding party, and I started to feel sort of sick. I came in here to change, but I was so dizzy I could hardly stand. I thought it was the champagne at the time, you know? I don’t drink often, so my tolerance isn’t very high. I thought I’d lie down for a minute. And the next thing I knew, I was in the wine cave.”
“So, you don’t remember going down to the wine cave?” Kate asked. “Maybe to get another bottle of Dom?”
Kennedy shook her head slowly, frowning. “No, I don’t think so. The last thing I remember is lying down on the bed over there.”
Kate examined the room more closely as Kennedy layered on her foundation. There were several garment bags hung up at various points around the room, most likely the bridal party’s dresses. If Kate could figure out which one was Kennedy’s wedding gown, maybe she could hang the necklace on the hanger without anyone noticing.
“What about your shoes?” she asked, using the excuse to edge closer to the floofiest garment bag. She figured it stood to reason that the bride’s dress would have the most floof. The zipper made a loud, horrendous sound as she struggled to open it, and she pitched her voice louder to mask it. “Do you remember taking them off, or what you did with them?”
“You know, that’s funny,” Kennedy said, coming to the door. Kate snapped her hands to her side, trying to lean casually against the nearby wall before realizing it was a good half a foot farther away than she’d thought. She stumbled, catching herself on the bag and wincing at the flash of diamond clutched in her fist. Kennedy gave her a look of concern. “Are you all right?”
“Yep, just great!” Kate said enthusiastically, recovering her balance and clasping her hand behind her back. The zipper on the dress bag gaped immodestly, and she moved to block it from Kennedy’s view. “You were saying, about your shoes?”
“Oh, right. Yes. The funny thing is, I haven’t been able to find them either this morning. I don’t remember taking them off, but I must have, right? Only they’re not anywhere in the room.” Kennedy gave a little laugh, touching her forehead. “I swear if my head wasn’t attached to my neck, I’d lose that, too!”
Kate gave a weak laugh, figuring that the joke wasn’t as far off as Kennedy thought. Kennedy turned back toward the bathroom, and Kate took the momentary advantage to tug at the zipper of the dress bag again. Except Kennedy pivoted just then, and Kate’s sleeve got caught in the toothy little bastard, and so she had to twist into a thoughtful position, her fist positioned under her chin while she tried to tug her sleeve loose.
“And now all this business with the generator!” Kennedy exclaimed, politely ignoring Kate’s ludicrous impression of Rodin’s The Thinker . “And, apparently, the water is acting up, too. The toilets won’t flush. I know weddings never go as smoothly as you imagine, but I didn’t think we’d be fielding this many disasters. And now I’ve lost my necklace and my shoes!”
Kennedy shook her head and turned back to the vanity, giving Kate the opportunity to finally rip her sleeve loose and stuff the necklace deep in the folds of the dress inside the bag. She tugged the zipper into position before it could give her any more trouble.
“I’m sure they’ll turn up somewhere,” Kate murmured, though she didn’t think Kennedy had misplaced them like she’d thought. Kate figured that Kennedy lost her shoes when her poisoner dragged her down into the wine cave. It was the only way to explain the scratching and bruising. And the only stairs she’d encountered so far that weren’t luxuriously carpeted were the rocky stairs leading down into the wine cave. Which meant nobody could have dragged her down from the second floor, across the entryway, into the kitchen, and down into the wine cave without being seen.
“This weekend has me all turned around,” Kennedy said ruefully, sweeping a makeup brush across her cheeks. “I even dreamed that someone was trying to choke me. I couldn’t breathe. I woke up with my pillow over my face. I was so stressed I tried to smother myself! Can you imagine it?”
Kate could imagine it, but she didn’t think Kennedy was responsible for the late-night smothering. She recognized a second attempt on Kennedy’s life, even if Kennedy laughed it off. And she knew that whoever was after Kennedy wouldn’t stop until they saw the job done.