Page 51 of The Wedding Party

The TV is back on the home channel, and the very idea of all it represents punches me in the gut. I motion to the screen. “Can you please turn that to something like cooking?”

“Of course,” the nurse replies, graciously doing as I ask. She’s young, maybe twenty-five, new to her life and career, probably full of all the dreams I’ve now lost. Because Oliver is dead. I have to repeat this in my mind, Oliver is dead, just to actually grasp the content of the words and as a way to force myself to adjust to this reality. I have to believe it is real to accept it and fight through it. I know this. I’ve been through grief counseling.

I dip the bread into the soup and start eating, little moments of the past flickering in my mind, far back in my past. I start reliving that day me and my brother, Eric, rode our bikes to Dairy Queen in the scorching heat. Our reward had been the delicious chocolate-covered cones we’d ordered, the ice cream beneath the rich chocolate cooling us off. The laughter in between each lick, nothing but pure joy. My parents wanted two kids but were only able to have one: Eric. I was adopted at only two years old. At that point, we’d been together ten years. We were family, brother and sister. Nothing could touch us. And we were young and had not a care in the world. We could never have known how it would all end. How soon it would end.

That memory shifts to the joy I felt with Oliver last night at the party. We’d shared a shot of whisky and toasted to our party, our friends, our future. He’d been so handsome in his suit, and I’d felt prettier than I’d ever felt in my red gown. Red. I’d chosen red. Almost as if I’d been foreshadowing the blood that would follow.

“You ate every bite.”

With those words, my gaze jerks to the nurse. I glance at my bowl and realize she’s right, but I barely remember eating. I do, however, feel better, the haze lifting at least a hair. “I think I should go to the bathroom. Am I allowed to walk myself?”

“Of course,” she says. “Let me help you just to make sure you’re steady. You do have a concussion and plenty of drugs in your system.”

“No more drugs,” I say. “I can’t stand how I feel right now.”

“I’ll talk to the doctor,” she promises, lowering the railing next to me and helping me rid myself of the heavy blankets. Rotating and setting my feet on the ground brings a head rush, but I fight through it. I need control. I need to stand.

It’s a bit of a battle, but a few minutes later I’m in the bathroom, though of course, she makes me leave the door cracked. I don’t know if she thinks I’m going to fall or kill myself. There’s a part of me that craves that relief, to just end the pain of living life without Oliver. I don’t know how I will ever bury him.

This idea stabs at me, and I barely manage to go through the motions and finish why I came in here in the first place. I’ve just washed my hands when I hear voices outside in the room, muffled as if the nurse is speaking to someone in the hallway. I shove open the door and enter the room. She shuts the main door and turns to face me.

“Your parents are here,” she says. “Are you up to visiting?”

I now remember her and the doctor asking me if I wanted them to call anyone. No had been my answer. Why in the world would I want to put my parents through this hell? They lost a son. I don’t want them to feel they’ve lost me. I wanted to somehow make everything okay before I talked to them. But the truth is, now, as my mind clears, I know nothing will ever be okay again.

“Yes,” I say. “Please send them in.”

“Do you want me to help you get back in bed first?”

“No, thank you. I’ll sit in the chair.” I motion to the light-blue leather seat in the corner.

She nods and hovers to ensure I’m safely seated before she hurries to the door. I steel myself for my parents to enter, for the rush of emotions. Yes, I’m adopted, but I have never in my life felt I didn’t belong, like they weren’t my real parents. I’m loved almost too much. My mother especially worries to the extreme. It’s hard to live under that much scrutiny. It’s hard to ever live up to the expectations of that kind of attention. They didn’t want me to leave Texas. They didn’t understand why I couldn’t stay. They don’t know everything there is to know about why I left, and they never will.

The door opens and my fingers dig into the arms of the chair, and when my visitors appear, my lips part in shock. Adrenaline and emotions, even fear, surge. The two people standing in my room are not my parents.

They’re Oliver’s.

Chapter Forty-Three

ANDI

Both sets of parents—Oliver’s and Carrie’s—will arrive later this evening. To protect them from the press, York and I will be meeting them in their hotel rooms, or in the Phoenixes’ case, the private house they arranged.

With this knowledge in mind, and the need to just feel fresher and sharper, I take a quick shower and change clothes. With not a lot of options in my bag, I manage a professional-enough look in black slacks and a button-down white shirt. Yes, the FBI agent in me sneaked in some basics last minute that I swore I wouldn’t bring for a weekend of fun. Almost as if I had a premonition. Talking to the parents of both Carrie and Oliver will be explosive and emotional. They need to feel confident in more than my badge. They need to feel confident in me as an agent.

Since they aren’t expected until this evening, my goal is to be armed with knowledge for those encounters.

On that note, York and I spend quite some time chatting with forensics, with not much new discovered. The ME pretty much summed up what there was to be discovered, at least before the evidence hits the lab for processing. The cause of death will be obvious. Oliver was stabbed to death. The security checks contain no grand revelations beyond Trevor’s DUI back in college. There are a few other hits related to hotel guests, but no one with any real connection to the case, at least on the surface. Per the investigator covering Natalie, her being a bitch is apparently legendary, but so far there are no red flags.

With all of this in mind, the key question for me is whose DNA is in that room, or on Oliver’s person, that might not belong to Carrie. Investigation is, at its core, a process of elimination.

I’m sitting at a table in a small conference room where I’ve been doing one-on-one interviews on my own, reviewing my notes, when York enters and sets a cup of coffee in front of me. “Don’t you just hate the process of building a case when it’s obvious who did it?”

“Is it?” I ask, lifting the cup and adding, “Thank you. I need this.”

“What does that mean?” he asks, sitting across from me. “Isn’t it?”

“Is it obvious who killed Oliver Phoenix?”