Chapter 41
To Do:
- Find a Wendy-esque dress
- Work on keynote speech
“That was Mei.”Claire slid her phone back onto the charger. “She said everything is a go for the Walker house. One of the historical society members will meet us there to get things set up.”
Rosie walked out of the rows of warehouse shelving dragging a ten-foot garland of silver tinsel.
Mindy looked up from the conference table. “I don’t want to jinx us, but this might actually work.”
Nicole walked out of the office. “The magazine just confirmed the event. They’re scrambling to put together some marketing, so I offered to help. Can I use your laptop?”
“Go for it. It’s on the desk in there.” Claire glanced at her watch. “Where are the boys? They’re behind schedule. It’s like they’ve never planned an event before.”
“Excuse me,” a snotty-sounding voice interrupted from behind the closed bathroom door. A bookcase, a life-size statue of the Venus de Milo, and half of the broken Eiffel Tower barricaded the door.
Claire groaned. “What, Wendy?”
“This yogurt is lemon flavored. I hate lemon,” Wendy whined.
“You know what you’ll hate more? Being brutally murdered by a cult of homicidal frat boys.”
“And the only thing on TV is Stepwives of Secaucus. I’ve already seen this season. And this beanbag chair smells like a dog.”
They ignored her.
“I’m going to sue all of you, you know,” she called again. “You can’t just hold me here against my will. It’s false imprisonment.”
Nicole waved a hand. “Don’t worry, false imprisonment is only a misdemeanor.”
“And kidnapping?” Claire said grimly.
“Let’s not worry about that right now.”
Claire turned up the brainstorming music and drowned Wendy out. There was a very real chance she would face jail time for kidnapping Wendy. But at least her life would be spared.
Claire reached into Mindy’s purse and pulled out Wendy’s phone. There was no passkey for her phone, which seemed a bit risky for someone who was cheating on her boyfriend with half of the town council. But what did Claire know? She scrolled to Wendy’s message with Jason. A surprise dick pic elicited a full-body shudder.
Wendy: Working late tonight babe. Keep the bed warm for me.
Sending that message was only slightly less nauseating than that time she and Nicole had ridden the Vomit Comet four times in a row during Campus Carnival freshman year. The last piece of the puzzle in making this a believable lie meant impersonating Wendy on social media. She navigated to Wendy’s Instagram and posted a gushing message about being honored at the Women in Business networking event. It would have to be enough. She turned off the phone and set it on the conference table.
The door banged open. Claire screamed and unstrapped Taser #2 from beneath the conference table. Was it ESA? Had they somehow found out where Wendy was hiding?
Kyle burst into the room, bouncing on his toes. “All right, ladies, what can we do? Give us a job.”
Claire breathed a sigh of relief.
“He had four lattes,” Luke explained. Five-o’clock shadow had spread across his sharp jawline, and he looked exhausted. Sawyer pulled up the rear.
Luke dropped the rapidly filling binder onto the conference table. He had even added a label. His bedazzling could use some work, but his preparation skills were definitely igniting something beneath her belt.
Claire looked at Mindy. “What do you think, blush and champagne? Lilac and lavender? Navy and sage?”
“I was thinking cobalt and coral,” Mindy said, brows furrowed.
“Tie breaker?” Claire called to the office.
“Champagne and blush. Make it glam,” Nicole yelled.
“I would have gone with watermelon and lemon,” Wendy called from the bathroom. “It is a summer event.”
“Nobody asked you,” Claire and Mindy said.
“Okay, boys, follow me.” Claire walked down one of her rows of shelving. She pulled carefully labeled totes down from the shelves and slid them across the concrete floor. “We’re trusting you with an incredibly important job. I need you all to go to the Walker house and start setting up for the event. Someone from the historical society will meet you there. They already have chairs and banquet and cocktail tables, but you’ll need to add tablecloths, vases, and floral arrangements.”
She dropped several more boxes and shoved them toward the boys.
“You want us to…decorate?” Luke asked.
“I want you to decorate for a trap that will help us catch a ring of serial killers,” Claire clarified.
“Let’s do this!” Kyle shouted, picking up three boxes at once and sprinting headlong toward the exit.
“Don’t let Kyle hold anything breakable,” she whispered to Luke. He nodded.
“Sawyer, were you able to borrow those nanny cams from your inventory?”
Sawyer nodded. “I have six. I’ll do front and back entrance, event room, and anywhere else that looks like it might be a point of entry. They’re a little spotty with outdoor service, but I think they’ll work.”
“Perfect. Thank you. The police might be able to ignore our theories, but they can’t ignore a 911 call from an event with multiple witnesses and video evidence. I couldn’t do this without you guys.”
“You sure we shouldn’t be telling the police what we’re up to?” Luke raised an eyebrow.
“I have barricaded the woman who’s suing me in my company bathroom. I think we’re gonna skip giving them a heads up this time.”
“You should at least let Jack know.”
Claire groaned. “Fine. Give me a minute.” She stomped back along the row of shelving to the far end of the warehouse. Rosie followed her and sat on her foot.
Her heart rate kicked up a notch as the phone rang.
“Hello?”
“Hi, Jack. Listen, I can’t explain how I know this, but that frat I was telling you about? Turns out they are definitely Barney’s homicidal besties and they’re going to try to kidnap someone today. There’s an event at the Walker house this evening. The intended victim is the keynote speaker. I know you think this frat isn’t related to Barney and the missing women with the mark, but you’re wrong. Anyway, just thought you should know.” She hung up the phone without waiting for a reply.
Her phone immediately rang, but she silenced it. She had work to do. She walked back up the aisle, straightening a box full of extension cords on her way.
“Boys are gone?” she asked when she emerged at the conference table.
“Yes,” Mindy said. Her previously unkempt hair was swept into a bun, and she was wearing lipstick. She totally had the hots for Sawyer. He was a way better choice than Gavin the non-participator.
Claire took a deep breath. “So, there’s one other part to the plan that I didn’t mention.”
Nicole groaned from the office. “What now?”
“I’m going to impersonate Wendy at the event.”
Mindy slammed her pen down. “Absolutely not. You’ve already been abducted this summer. Let someone else take a turn.”
Claire shook her head. “You guys have risked enough for me. This is my plan, and I have to see it through. I’m not putting either of you in any more danger than I already have. Besides, you’re both too tall. They’re going to notice when ‘Wendy’ grew five inches overnight. That’s final,” she said when Mindy opened her mouth to undoubtedly argue.
“You and Wendy don’t look super similar,” Nicole said slowly.
“I’ll wear a short dress and a wig and sunglasses. Maybe splash on a little eau de tequila. No one will notice the difference.”
“How dare you!” Wendy screamed from inside the bathroom. The door handle rattled. “No one in their right mind would mistake you for me.”
“I think that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Claire called back. She rolled her eyes.
“I don’t like this,” Mindy said.
“Me neither. But it has to be done. If ‘Wendy’ isn’t physically there, they’ll get suspicious. They have to be stopped.”
“Done!” Nicole walked out of the office. “I did some quick graphic design and sent over some images for them. The event should be looking legit in just a few minutes.”
“Nice job, Coli.” Claire collapsed into a chair and dropped her head to the table. This was shaping up to be one of the longest days of her life. Would things ever go back to normal?
“What are you going to do with yourself when you can just focus on planning proposals instead of preventing murders and taking down cults?” Nicole asked, apparently reading her mind.
Claire’s head popped up. “I’m going to start accepting out-of-area proposal inquiries.”
Mindy’s tablet fell over. “You are?”
Claire nodded. “If we can pull together all of this in less than twenty-four hours, we can totally plan something a couple of time zones over. Big-ticket proposals only for now, though. We’re going to need the capital if we’re going to expand.”
Mindy clapped her hands together. “Oh my god, I’m so excited. I have a couple emails flagged that we should start with?—”
“Later, Min. One thing at a time.”
“Fine,” Mindy grumbled.
A lineof cars wound around the circular driveway in front of the Walker House. The house was built in the 1800s by wealthy merchants and had stayed in the family for several generations before it was left to the Haven County Historical Society. The house backed up to Skylight Lake, and forest shrouded it on every other side.
Claire pulled the company van up to the service entrance. She, Nicole, and Mindy unloaded a couple more boxes, then Mindy parked.
They walked through the house to the ballroom.
“Holy shit,” Nicole said, taking a step back and bumping into Claire.
“I know. It looks…”
“Amazing,” they said in unison.
A fleet of cocktail tables cloaked with glittering champagne tablecloths were scattered through the room in a half circle. Gold bunting hung from the stage. Star-shaped pastries were already laid out along a banquet table in the back of the room. Sawyer and Luke were in the heart of it all, seemingly having a heated conversation.
“I really think the Pacific rhododendrons would be best for the cocktail tables,” Luke said, holding a vase full of trembling faux flowers. “It adds violet tones and a pop of interest.”
Sawyer shook his head fervently. “No way. The blush peonies are more elegant, and they fit the color scheme without being too loud.”
“Are you calling my flowers too loud?” Luke thunked the vase down onto a table.
“Gentlemen,” Claire interrupted, stepping between the two of them. “They both look great. Why don’t you do both and alternate tables?”
Luke and Sawyer both humph’d and went to opposite ends of the room. Glittery gold ribbon was hanging out of the back pocket of Luke’s Levi’s. Never a dull moment.
Claire followed Sawyer, half-jogging to keep up with his gigantic steps. “Hey. Where’s Kyle?”
Sawyer pointed to one of the long banquet tables lined with pastries. “He crashed. He tied a tablecloth around his neck like a cape, said he was going to Birmingham, and laid down under there.”
She nodded. “That sounds about right. Did you have a chance to plant the nanny cams?”
“We’re all set. They’re hooked up to the network, so I can monitor them from the van outside later on.”
“Perfect. Thanks again.” She scuttled across the room to Luke. “You didn’t bring your camera?”
“For what?”
“I assumed you would want footage of a chapter of ESA getting brought down.”
Luke shrugged and picked up a pair of scissors. He measured the gold ribbon from his fingertips to biceps and cut. “I told you, I quit the documentary. I’m going to find something else that doesn’t bring back the worst memory of your life.”
Claire put her hand on his. She gently tugged the ribbon from his grasp and turned him to face her. “Luke. You have to do the documentary. This isn’t about me. It’s about the victims. And tonight, we’re going to get a little bit of justice for each of them. Bring your camera.”