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“She’s handling it better than I would be, if I were in her shoes.” Madelyn tried very hard to separate business from her worry about her daughter, but the worry was never absent. As the day had passed, that worry had been buried under a mounting anger. Anger was easier than worry; she could handle anger. Now, if she could just settle on one person with whom to be angry, but there were so many targets she couldn’t pick just one.
Should she be mad at Carrie Edwards, for being a supreme bitch and bringing this upon them all? Or should her target be Detective Eric Wilder, who had the absolute gall to treat Jaclyn like a criminal? At the moment it was easier to just be mad at everyone and everything.
“The murder itself is bad enough,” she growled, “but it chaps my butt that anyone could think, even for a
minute, that she could do something like that. I swear, if I could get that Eric Wilder alone in a room—”
“I know what I’d want to do with him if I had him in a room to myself,” Peach muttered, then she breathed a warm hum before she caught herself, and quickly added, “He needs a good spanking.” She stopped, pursed her lips. “Well, that didn’t come out sounding the way I meant it.”
Madelyn sighed. “Actually, it probably did. How can a trained detective be so blind? Jaclyn isn’t capable—”
Peach’s voice was unusually serious as she said, “I don’t know about that. Aren’t we all capable, somewhere deep down? With the proper opportunity and the right motivation? … Not that I think Jaclyn killed Carrie Edwards,” she added quickly. “Not for one second. But in the right circumstances, to protect someone you love, don’t you think you might be able to kill someone? I know I could. Maybe whoever killed Carrie is someone no one thinks is capable of such violence.”
“I suppose,” Madelyn said softly. Peach was trying to be reasonable, when Madelyn didn’t want to be reasonable. She was a mother, and her child was being threatened. Her anger flared to life again. “I can tell you this much: if Jaclyn had decided to kill Carrie Edwards, she would’ve done it in a way that didn’t draw attention to herself. She’s too smart to murder the woman right after being slapped and fired in front of a handful of reliable witnesses.” If Jaclyn had decided to kill Carrie Edwards—not that she would’ve done it, but in theory—the body never would’ve been found. Madelyn didn’t have a second’s doubt about that, because she and her daughter were so much alike, and that’s what she would have done.
Cars were pulling out of the parking lot now, as the wedding party made their way from the church to the rehearsal dinner. She and Peach waved to them all, smiling and calling cheerful goodbyes.
Madelyn very much wanted to talk to Jaclyn, if for no other reason than to tell her daughter that she was here for her, to ask, again, if there was anything she needed. But the rehearsal Jaclyn was handling had started an hour later than the bubblegum rehearsal, so now wasn’t the time to call. She had to wait for Jaclyn to call her.
With murder and suspicion in the air, and undirected anger building rapidly, Madelyn wasn’t anxious to be alone. She tilted her head at her friend. “Do you have plans for dinner?”
“Does Lean Cuisine count?” Peach asked wryly.
“No, it doesn’t. I have some lasagna in the freezer. Come home with me and I’ll crank up the microwave and open a bottle of red wine. We can kick off our shoes and relax for a while. You still haven’t told me all the details of last weekend’s date, and to be honest, I could stand to be distracted for a while.”
Peach sighed. “You silver-tongued devil, you had me at lasagna.”
Madelyn had hopes that Peach’s company and a couple glasses of wine would help to ease her toward a decent night’s sleep, but it was likely a hopeless cause. Until her baby was in the clear, she wouldn’t rest easy.
This wasn’t the first Bulldog wedding Premier had ever directed, but Jaclyn couldn’t help noticing that the participants of this one were more rabid fans than most, and that was saying something. It was the middle of summer, and for the rehearsal the groom and groomsmen were in the jerseys of their favorite football team. She was a bit surprised that someone hadn’t suggested—thank goodness—passing the rings down the aisle by way of a spiraling football festooned with red and black ribbon. She might’ve had to put her foot down. In her experience, throwing anything at a wedding wasn’t a good idea.
In the South, college football was practically a religion, yet she was still surprised when the bride requested a team theme. It was Premier’s job to give the bride what she wanted, but finding the exact shade of Georgia Bulldog red fabric, ribbon, and flowers was a bitch.
And Diedra had been forbidden to mention, at any point during the planning or execution of the wedding, that she was a diehard Georgia Tech fan. Wedding planners had been fired for less. Jaclyn had been to more than one event-planner convention where discussions centered around the dicey subject of college football and how to deal with the intense rivalries and loyalties. In Alabama, for instance, no one with any sense scheduled a wedding on the same day Auburn and Alabama played, because no one would attend the wedding other than family members, and most of them would be pissed at missing the game, which wouldn’t make for a happy time.
Diedra would be with her tomorrow night, for the wedding, but one representative was enough for the rehearsal unless Diedra had just wanted to be here, which she hadn’t. Nevertheless, Jaclyn could have easily begged off—she was the boss—and let Diedra handle tonight’s chores, but she wanted to stay busy. No, she needed to stay busy with something, anything, other than thoughts of dead brides and annoying cops.
No, she wasn’t going to think about the annoying cop. That horse was dead, and she was getting frustrated because she couldn’t seem to stop kicking it. Being angry was okay. Being angry was probably healthy. Being hurt was silly and unreasonable, two words she didn’t like when applied to herself. All day she’d been telling herself to just get over it, with limited success. Hell, how about no success?
Her attention was yanked back to the rehearsal when the groom barked, a distinctive Bulldog woof of pleasure, excitement, and gratification. Jaclyn fought to keep her face still, her expression bland. Was this the groom’s normal way of expressing joy? Did he bark during sex? The mind boggled. The good thing was, the bride laughed; the bad thing was, several other men barked in response.
It was going to be a long night. Jaclyn simply wasn’t in the mood for barking.
Two of the younger children, the bride’s niece and nephew, were entertaining themselves by running up and down the aisle, playing some game only they could understand, but it involved a lot of shrieking and giggling, which blended nicely with the barking. Because the mindless activity kept them busy, and they weren’t too loud—too loud being subjective—everyone let them have their fun. The family was accustomed to the chaos. Even Jaclyn had tuned them out, as she instructed the wedding party and then stood back to watch the rehearsal. If the processional had to dodge around the youngsters, no one seemed to mind. The mood of the evening was boisterous and happy.
She supposed it was too much to ask that the evening continue without some sort of disaster. The little boy—four years old or so, Jaclyn would guess—rounded the end of a pew at a dead run, tripped and fell forward, landing facedown in the center of the side aisle just in front of her. For a long, heart-stopping minute, he didn’t make a sound.
Her heart in her mouth, she hurried to the little boy to assess the damage. Good Lord, was he unconscious? That fear was banished when he abruptly began to wail, a sound that grew in volume and pitch until it resembled a steam whistle. She knelt beside him, touched his back, which if anything sent his screams into a dimension she couldn’t quantify. Everyone began hurrying toward them, while the recorded music continued to play.
“Come on, sweetie, let’s sit up and see where you banged your head,” she said, hoping there wasn’t any blood. She wasn’t overly squeamish, but—Bracing herself, she helped him to roll over and sit up, then she literally breathed a huge sigh of relief when she got a look at his face. There was a lot of tears and snot, but no blood.
“You’re going to be just fine,” Jaclyn said gently, brushing his hair back to see if there was a knot on his forehead.
Upon hearing her voice, and realizing that it was not his mother or grandmother who had come to his rescue but was instead a stranger, the kid squalled even louder.
Did she really want one or two of these? Jaclyn thought as she rose to her feet and backed away to allow the mother, who was very calm given the volume of the scream, to take her place. There were no small children in Jaclyn’s life; she had no brothers or sisters and so no nieces or nephews. If this was what she had to look forward to, maybe she was better off getting a gerbil. Or a fish.
Which was a very sad thou
