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“A hundred and thirty!” Aubree swings her gaze my way. “What the hell?”
“Don’t even talk to me about it.” I bring my hand up and run the pad of my thumb over my temple, attempting to stave off the tension headache coming my way. “Archer tried to downplay it all. Big, fat liar.”
We wander the hall, an awed Mia gleeful at the fact she’s included in the ladies’ night festivities; then I push through the crowd, since I’m the only one who knows this boat right now, and shove our suite door open.
“Jesus.” Aubree sets Mia on her feet and stumbles into the massive room. Her eyes get impossibly larger as they take in the king-sized bed filling just a small portion of the floor space. The couch. Table. Spa. The attached bathroom. The balcony doors. “Your bedroom on a boat is bigger than my entire apartment.”
“Bigger than my apartment, too.” I wait for everyone to pass through and enter the room, then I close the door and drop back to rest against the wood.Is it wood? Maybe it’s steel. “What the hell am I gonna do about all this, guys?”
“About how rich you are?” Aubree wanders to the bed, her hand brushing the fresh sheets and blankets, the crisp corners, the plump pillows. I didn’t make the bed. And I don’t think Archer did either. Which means Mary, or someone else, has passed through and freshened everything up. “You own a friggin’ boat, Mayet!”
“And a helicopter,” I sigh. “And a plane, too, I think. And a house in Copeland. And a waterfall. And staff and?—”
“Don’t forget the estate in New York,” Christabelle smirks. “And I know you didn’t ask, but you should know about Felix’s collection of cars.”
“Ishould know about them?”
“Well…” She walks to Aubree and takes the bottle of wine. “It’s all set up like a trust fund. A really big pool of money that all five brothers get to access. Which means Felix’s cars are Archer’s cars. And since you’re married to Archer?—”
“You own cars,” Fifi nods. “That’s not so bad.”
“Probably don’t ask about the Uhlenhaut, then. It’ll piss you off. And being pissed off will give you bags under your eyes.”
“Bags under your eyes on the night before your wedding is dumb.” Fifi sips her wine and wanders to the fridge. Tugging the door open, she searches its contents for a moment before turning back with two plastic bottles of water. “Here.”
I accept one and study it with a scowl. “Hydrate?”
“For your eyes.” She pushes me back and stops only when my ass touches the bed, then stealing the wine glass from my hand, she shoves me harder, slamming my always-aching shoulder until I lie back. Finally, she places her bottle over my eye, so the chill touches my skin. “I could probably whip up a mask for tonight. Get rid of some of this baggage before your wedding pictures make you look stupid.”
I exhale an exhausted sigh.Home sweet home.“I sure missed you, Fifi.”
“You did?” She takes the second bottle and places it over my eye until all I get is darkness. “That’s cute. My work week was exceptionally calm. Unchaotic. Which is a fun coincidence, considering the only difference this week was your absence.”
“Oh shush.” Aubree’s voice comes closer. “You’re being mean to her before her wedding day. That’s not nice.”
“How calm is calm?” I question. I’m blinded. Lying on a bed with three grown women pestering at me, and a little girl… well, she’s somewhere in here. Hopefully not drinking alcohol. “You have a killer on the streets who enjoys poisoning his vics.”
“So get this!” The bed compresses where Aubree plops down. “We’re up to sixty-three deceased. They’ve been dropping all over the country and the reports are only being put together now. I guess M.E.s are working slow, since a secret poison isn’t as easy as a severed jugular.”
“What’s a jugular?” Gentler than Aubree, Mia crawls up onto the bed and leans into me, her elbow digging into my stomach. “Are you talking about work?” Then her voice grows a little livelier. “Did you know my daddy and Uncle Arch and Miss Aubree and Aunty Minka all work together? And Fifi, too!”
The fact we—Aubree, Fifi, and I—know that, implies Mia speaks to Debbie. “They all work at the same place!”
“I did know that.” Debbie is society upper crust. She’s got that refinement to her voice none of the rest of us have. Not even Fifi, who is the fanciest of our Copeland circle of friends. She’s got that dancer experience and elite school history. She even wears a skirt suit and heels to work. But she’s from Bumfuck Oklahoma, which means her sheen was glued on and clutched in her hands out of desperation. Debbie, on the other hand, was born with gold in her mouth and a schedule of tea parties already lined up. “That must be fun, huh?”
“It’s fun when I get to go to work too!” Moo continues. “I get to go to the doctor’s office and look out the windows.”
She gets to go to the doctor’s office andnotsee dead people. Which, I think, is an extraordinary feat considering the building she’s in.
“So sixty-three down?” I draw us back to the case. “Any closer to the perp?”
“I was actually thinking…” Aubs pauses for a moment. Long enough to leave the room hanging for her next words. Long enough to have me knocking a water bottle to the side and blinking to clear my vision. I push up to my elbows and study her sky-blue eyes.
“What were you thinking?”
“Well… we’re so close to the function venue, right?” She drops a fast look at Mia. Then back at me. “Seriously close. And I have a hunch.”
“A hunch?”
