ENGAGED TO BE MURDERED (The Wedding Planner Mysteries Book 4) (5 page)

              “We were in the supermarket,” she went on. Trudy took a shaky sip of wine, as the memory returned, and all Kitty could think was that she couldn’t picture Sadie doing anything so domestic as pushing a shopping cart through a grocery store. “I recognized her right away, of course, so I said hello and asked about my engagement ring.”

              So far the recollection didn’t imply malice or death threats, but Trudy was growing more nervous with each word. Kitty placed her hand on her shoulder just as Trudy exhaled a shuddering breath.

              “It’s okay,” Kitty said kindly. “Take your time.”

              “She told me the ring had been ready for over a week.”

              Kitty blinked. “She did?”

              Trudy nodded and searched Kitty’s eyes for answers.

              “That’s not what Sadie told me,” she retorted. “I called her every day about it and all she had to say was that it was coming along and she’d let me know.”

              “When I questioned her about it, she said that resizing it was so subtle it was beyond her expertise so she called in a consultant. She didn’t give me a name. She only told me that it was the consultant who finished the job.”

              Kitty wondered why Sadie hadn’t allowed her to pick up the ring from Adorned if it was in fact ready.

              “Maybe she didn’t want anyone to touch it,” Trudy suggested. “If she delivered it to me then only I would put it on. There’d be no mishaps.”

              “But there was a mishap,” Kitty noted. “But it’s a good point. Maybe the poison needed a lot of time to dry or work its way into the silver band?”

              “Why would Sadie allow Margie to put it on her finger?”

              “She couldn’t very well intervene without revealing her dark motives,” Kitty said, thinking out loud. “Did you tell the police officer any of this?”

              “How could I? It’s hardly a smoking gun. It’s speculative at best.” Trudy took a nervous gulp of her wine. “It just gave me a very bad feeling at the time. It wasn’t only what she said. It was how she said it. She sounded conniving, as if she enjoyed telling me. Oh, it’s hard to describe.”

              “I believe you,” said Kitty, reassuring her friend that she didn’t seem crazy. “And it’s particularly strange that she was forthright with you, but blatantly lying to me. She knows we’re close. She wasn’t concerned we’d talk? It’s very strange.”

              Kitty mulled that over, drinking her wine then asked, “Did Sadie know Margie very well, or at all?”

              “I really don’t know for sure, but I doubt it. They seem on opposite sides of the track if you know what I mean.”

              “They do,” she agreed. Then again, Sadie was on the wrong side of the tracks compared to just about everyone.

              “Should we tell Sterling?”

              “No, not yet,” Kitty quipped with an easy smile so as not to alarm Trudy. “If I know Sterling, he’ll dismiss this sort of thing and it’ll be harder to convince him of anything later down the road.” Kitty chose not to mention that she had no plans of cluing Sterling into any of her discoveries. “Let me see what I can find out.”

              “Kitty,” she said, tone dropping low with anxiety. “Do you think that ring was meant for me?”

              “I can’t imagine anyone who would want to harm you.”

              Trudy nodded as if the statement would only give her solace if she could force herself to believe it.

              “You never know,” she said, worried, but Kitty grabbed her hand.

              “No one would want to hurt you. There’s just no way. Margie was different. She rubbed people the wrong way.”

              “But enough that someone would want her dead?”

              The last thing Kitty wanted to do was let on that if she looked at this thing logically—and gave proper consideration to the fact that Margie had intercepted the ring meant for Trudy—then it stood to reason that Trudy had been the intended target.

              “Let me see what I can find out from Sadie. If there really was a consultant, someone else who had direct access to the ring, then I might be able to figure out who they are and who they know. See if there’s any bad blood between them and Margie.”

              “Be careful.” It wasn’t a suggestion. It was a demand.

              “I will,” she promised. “For the mean time, you stay safe and in the company of other people, okay? If you’re not at the salon, then make sure you’re with Ronald.”

              “But I just called in sick. Ronald is at the hospital. He won’t be home for ten hours.”

              Trudy couldn’t very well tag along with Kitty when she swung by Adorned, but she could come to Happily Ever After in general and spend the day.

              “Let’s see,” Kitty said, thinking out loud. “We have some decisions to make about the wedding decorations, the cake, and we need to be sure your wedding gown was taken in properly and fits right. Let me make a few calls and schedule appointments for you. I’ll drop you off and pick you up.”

              “You don’t mind?”

              “Not at all. You’ll spend the day with me if you’re not at one of those stores.”

              Trudy gave her a feeble smirk then her expression drooped.

              “I’m so sorry I blamed you, Kitty.”

              Kitty gave Trudy a little squeeze. “It was understandable.”

              Trudy nodded and tried to shake her sense of shame.

              “Get dressed,” she suggested, as she plucked the Shiraz bottle off the coffee table and refreshed her glass. “And I’ll make those calls.”

              Setting appointments was a breeze and by the time Kitty returned her cell to her purse and buttoned up her peacoat, Trudy was dressed and bundled up as well. Together they worked their way around her apartment making sure every window was locked just in case, and soon they headed out. Trudy locked her apartment door, even the dead bolt, which she usually didn’t bother with. When they got to the street, Kitty made doubly sure the building door was securely locked, and then they padded up the sidewalk, as freshly fallen snow crunched under their boots.

              Kitty wasn’t one to drink nearly half a bottle of wine before eleven in the morning, the effects of which were hitting her now. She braced Trudy’s arm, realized her friend was just as tipsy, and had an idea when she saw the corner coffee shop, its holiday lights twinkling against the falling snow.

              “How about some coffee and muffins, and then I’ll drop you off to try on your gown?”

              “Oh, but I’ll be all bloated!”

              Kitty stopped and held Trudy by her shoulders.

              “You look great. You looked amazing before and there was no need to lose weight, Trudy, but now that you have its time to recognize that you’ve reached your goal. You don’t need to keep slimming down. Do you believe that you look really good and can stop losing weight now?”

              Trudy nodded, but it wasn’t convincing.

              “How many times do you want your gown taken in and your ring resized?”

              Trudy’s gaze fell under the weight of Kitty’s rhetoric.

              “Maybe a yogurt muffin,” she said. “Something low fat. And black coffee, no cream and sugar.”

              “As long as you eat,” Kitty said.

              When they reached the coffee shop Kitty held the door open for Trudy then followed after. By the grace of God there were two yogurt muffins behind the glass. Kitty ordered them along with coffees and a few cookies, which she knew Trudy wouldn’t eat.

              As they waited for their order, Kitty looked around the quaint little coffee house. There were a good number of college students pouring over their late breakfasts and books, fiction she imagined. The winter break lent itself to reading for pleasure. There were a few couples as well, and of course the lone customers who monopolized entire tables with their laptops, bags, and cell phones wired to the outlets nearby.

              Her gaze continued on, sweeping toward the storefront window where she noticed a muscular arm and leather pants. It was Sadie. Her back was to Kitty and she appeared to be speaking with a man who was seated across from her.

              The juxtaposition of Sadie and the man was jarring—tattoos and leather versus a crisply pressed, black suit and fashionable tie, two very different worlds clashing.

              The man had dark, deep set eyes and cheekbones that could cut glass, and there was something about the severity in his expression, the clenched jaw, the brown hair buzzed so close to his scalp it looked more like a dusting of color than a mop of locks; that told Kitty he wasn’t from around here. Sure, Greenwich had some wealthy residents and he certainly appeared to come from money, but that’s not what indicated he might be from out of town. The rich residents had an easy demeanor. They weren’t generally pressed for time. If they were in a coffee shop in the late morning, they’d lounge, relax and take in the scenery. And this man was doing none of those things. He seemed to be staring Sadie down. He looked wound up, unnerved and anxious.

              “Let’s go,” Kitty whispered to Trudy when the cashier indicated their order was ready, placing a paper bag on the counter beside the two cups of coffee.

              Trudy grabbed the bag and her coffee, and Kitty plucked up hers then ushered her friend out of the store before she could spot Sadie in the throes of her dark conversation with a strange man.

              Once she’d gotten her Fiat idling and the windshield wipers flapping to clear the snow away, Kitty stuffed the bigger cookie in her mouth and threw the car in gear, while Trudy blew on her coffee and buckled up.

              With any luck, Sadie would be back at Adorned by the time Kitty pulled up in front of Happily Ever After, but if she wasn’t, Kitty would have to devise a real plan. And it couldn’t involve breaking and entering.

              “Call me if you need anything,” she offered, as Trudy popped her door open, readying herself to hop across the snowy sidewalk into Glamorous Gowns.

              “I will. Be careful.”

              She affirmed with a soldierly nod then added, “Call me as soon as you’re done and I’ll come pick you up.”

              “Thanks, Kitty.” And with that Trudy climbed out.

              Kitty watched the shop owner, Nancy—a plump woman in her fifties, who like Kitty, had built a career around other people’s happiness with little hope she’d ever get married herself—press her nose against the window and smile at Trudy’s gingerly arrival.

              Once Trudy was tucked inside the little store, Kitty drove off, strategies of how to broach dangerous topics with Sadie forming in her mind.

              She pulled in front of Happily Ever After, tires crunching over packed snow as she rolled to a stop. After killing the engine and snugging her hat down over her ears, Kitty climbed out and braved the elements to walk three stores up the block where Adorned was situated.

              As she did, she noticed quite a few cars parked in front of the jeweler’s shop. It was nearly noon. One of them had to be Sadie’s.

              The overhead bell chimed, as Kitty passed through the entrance, her gaze darting between the few customers that milled about the store, eyeing the merchandise that was locked behind glass.

              Kitty swiped her hat off her head and fluffed her hair as she trekked deeper into the store toward the sales counter in the back where a young man leaned casually on the counter, a book in his hands. It was a slow enough day that he could read as he waited for customers to make decisions about what they might like to try on or buy.

              “Is Sadie Francis in?” Kitty asked when she reached the glass counter.

              The kid eventually looked up after he’d found a good stopping point in his novel. Lazily, he rose from the counter he’d rested his elbows on, and Kitty was taken aback to discover he towered over her.

              “I’d have to see,” said the young man, who was just as pierced and tattooed as the store’s owner. “She comes and goes through the studio in the back.”

              Kitty smiled her acknowledgement. “Much appreciated.”

              Rather than actually disappear into the back room, the cashier merely poked his head behind the curtain that separated the front of the store from it, and shouted Sadie’s name as though it was a question, causing Kitty to start with a little jump.

              “Hold on!” Sadie called out from the bowels of her studio.

              “She says to hold on,” he told her, facing Kitty and flipping through his novel to find his place.

              Kitty wondered how long she’d be expected to hold on, and after a solid minute that felt like an eternity, she began inching along the counter and checking out the various rings, necklaces and bracelets displayed under glass. When she reached the end of the counter she noticed many rows of small bottles featuring handmade labels.