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“Don’t worry,” the bridesmaid said. “There won’t be a next time.” Then she hurried across the floor and out of the room.
The other bridesmaids were staring at the departing bridesmaid, looking dumbfounded, but they held their tongues, probably worried their heads would be on the chopping block next.
“I’ll be right back,” Kayla told the bride’s wedding coordinator. She headed out of the banquet room and found Roxie dealing with the bridesmaid, who was all in tears. Kayla joined them at the front desk and learned the girl was checking out. Kayla gave her a hug. “I love your hair, and I don’t blame you for not changing it. I wouldn’t have either. If she’d been a real friend, she wouldn’t have insisted on it.” Then she said to Roxie, “Give her the room for free last night. And no charge for checking out late today.”
Roxie smiled at Kayla. Her sister always said Kayla had too soft a heart, and they wouldn’t let her handle billing issues because of it. Any sob storywould convince her to allow someone to stay the night for free.
The girl gave her a heartfelt hug back. “Thanks so much.”
“You’re welcome. My sister would have given you a refund if she’d seen what the bride had said to you.” Kayla didn’t want the woman to think she was the only one with a heart.
Roxie was smiling at Kayla like she wasn’t sure about that.
“Do you want me to take over for you, Kayla?” Roxie asked her as the bridesmaid rolled her bags out of the lodge.
“No.” Kayla didn’t want Roxie to have to deal with Bridezilla just because she was ready to turn into a wolf and bite her. “Hey, when I get married, if I ever act like that, slap me so I can wake up and realize how important everyone is to me.”
“You?” Roxie laughed. “No way. I would be shocked if you were mean to anyone over anything. You’re never a drama queen, ever.”
“Well, just make sure I’m not. I would never want to treat anyone bad like that after all they’ve done to make my day special. Okay, I’m going back to the banquet hall.”
“Just text me if you need me to take over. Seriously.” Roxie gave her a hug.
“Okay, I will.” But once Kayla set her mind to do something, she did it. No matter how unpleasant.
Blake called Roxie, and she said, putting it on speaker, “Yeah, Blake?”
“Help me chase down two miniature schnauzers that have wrecked a guest room and got out as soon as I opened the guest room door.” Blake sounded frantic, out of breath, like he was running down the stairs.
“Ohmigod, there they are!” Kayla saw them dashing down the stairs and across the lobby. Rosco stood up, looking unsure what he should do.
“The two schnauzers are headed for the banquet room hosting the wedding!” Kayla said, tearing off to try to stop the disaster about to unfold.
Roxie was right behind her, calling Landon to drop whatever he was doing to help them catch a couple of runaway dogs. Kayla gave Rosco a hand signal to stay where he was near his dog bed so he wouldn’t chase after the schnauzers since the siblings were running after them and she was afraid he might think he needed to join the race. They sure didn’t need him in the banquet room adding to the havoc. She could just imagine what the bride would say about that.
Nate and Nicole parked at the Red Dog Pub. The place was open for lunch and was crowded with patrons. They started talking to the bartender whohad been on duty the night Phil had vanished. The pretty, dark-haired woman leaned on the counter and said, “Okay, the police have already been here, and I’ve talked to them.”
“Right, but we’re here as private investigators looking into the case for the family. We’ve heard there was an argument between Phil and a friend of his,” Nate said.
“Uh-huh.”
“There were words,” Nate said.
“And a scuffle,” the bartender said. “I had the bouncer throw them out of here.”
“Do you know what it was about, exactly?” Nate asked.
“A girl with them sat on Phil’s lap, and that’s when the other guy got angry. Then Everest grabbed a different girl that I’d never seen in the pub before and forced her onto his lap. That’s when Phil threw a punch at Everest. I called security to break things up and send them out of here.”
Which confirmed just what Phil’s sister had said.
“And you told the police this?” Nate asked.
“Yep.”
“Anything else?” Nicole asked.
The bartender shook her head. “I’ve never seen them fighting in here before. They’re in here a lot. And they drink a lot. They were drunk that night.”
