Annabelle Archer BoxSet, page 152
part #1 of Annabelle Archer Series
Fern staggered over to one of the chairs and collapsed into it. “Poor Kate.”
“You weren’t worried about her before?” I asked.
“Of course I was.” Fern wrung his hands in his lap. “But it’s one thing to be taken by terrorists and quite another to be kidnapped by an insane wedding planner.”
“We don’t know she’s insane,” Richard said. “Having bad taste doesn’t mean she’s certifiable, although you wouldn’t get any arguments from me if that became the new litmus test.”
“You said she cut off her long, blond hair and now has a man’s haircut?” Fern asked.
“If it was her, then yes,” I told him. “And not a cute pixie cut, either. It looked like she’d gone to a military barber.”
“I rest my case.” Fern raised and lowered his eyebrows slowly. “In-sane.”
“If she is involved, what can we do?” Mack asked, holding his two spray bottles at his waist like guns.
“First we have to find her and make sure it’s actually Tina Pink,” I said. “There’s a possibility I’m wrong.”
“Wrong about what?” Daniel asked as he and his brother came into the room.
“Annabelle thinks she spotted Tina Pink posing as a waiter,” Mack explained.
Daniel’s face remained blank, but recognition crossed Mike’s face.
“The one with the husband and the big pool brouhaha?” he asked. “Isn’t she a wedding planner too?”
“Was a wedding planner,” Richard corrected him. “Past tense. I haven’t heard a peep about her since that day, not that she ever had much business in the first place. I honestly don’t know how all these new planners stay in business. Plan your own wedding, throw out a shingle, take a bunch of photos of pretty tabletops and selfies drinking coffee and, poof, you’re an Instagram star with no income.”
We all stared at Richard.
“Sorry. Sometimes I need to vent.” He gave a flourish of his hand. “Carry on.”
“So this former colleague is now here working as a waiter?” Daniel asked.
Richard put a palm to his chest. “I didn’t hire her. I have exceedingly high standards for my service staff. I highly doubt she’d make the cut.”
Reese walked over and put a hand on my waist. “So what are you thinking?”
I closed my eyes for a moment to keep from tearing up. When I opened them, I gazed up at him, meeting his hazel eyes. “I think this kidnapping may have nothing to do with the DOD or the ransom or the Hamiltons. It might be all about Tina Pink getting revenge on us for ruining her life.”
“We don’t know her life was ruined,” Fern said. “We don’t even know for sure her hair is ruined.”
“Yes we do.” The voice from the doorway was accompanied by a small yip.
Richard’s head snapped around. “Leatrice! Hermes! What are the two of you doing here?”
It took me a moment to realize my nutty neighbor was wearing Richard’s tiny Yorkie in a front-facing baby carrier, the dog’s brown-and-black head peeking out over the top, and his little legs extending in front of him.
“I heard you yelling about Tina Pink when I was on the phone with Richard, and then I heard you say Kate had been kidnapped.” Leatrice shook her head, but her jet-black Mary Tyler Moore flip did not budge. “We were already in my car on the way to the movies, and I knew you needed my help, so Hermes and I rushed over.”
I didn’t bother to ask how she found us since Leatrice considered herself to be an amateur spy and kept me under constant surveillance. It would not surprise me if she had a tracker on my car or phone or both. “How did you get past the guards?”
“They asked if I was performing the ceremony and I said yes.” She rubbed her hands together. “Do you need me to perform the ceremony?”
“No,” I said so forcefully she took a step back.
Richard’s voice came out as little more than a whisper. “Is Hermes riding in a Baby Bjorn?”
“I got the baby carrier from the nice family on the second floor who no longer have babies,” she told him. “Hermes loves it.”
I crossed to Leatrice, giving Hermes a rub on the head. “You can’t be here.”
“But you need me, especially all the information I got on Tina Pink.” Leatrice lifted Hermes out of the carrier and handed him to Richard, who still looked gob-smacked. “You were right; she has reason to want to get revenge on all of you.”
24
“All of us?” Fern asked as he rubbed Hermes under the chin.
“Weren’t you all responsible for what happened to her husband?” Leatrice asked, unhooking the baby carrier from around her waist and lifting it over her shoulders.
“What is she wearing?” Richard whispered to me.
Without the baby carrier covering her chest, I got a full view of Leatrice’s bright flower-print dress with puffy sleeves. So much for her flying under the radar.
Mack set his spray bottles on the counter. “But it was self-defense.”
“I doubt Tina Pink sees it that way.” Leatrice shuffled to the glass wall overlooking the terrace and pool. “Did you know her big house was repossessed as well as her fancy cars? And all her bank accounts were frozen.”
I swallowed hard. “So she went from being a wealthy Potomac wife to having nothing?”
“Maybe she shouldn’t have married a criminal,” Richard said. “I hope I’m not supposed to have sympathy for her.”
“We shouldn’t judge until we’ve walked a mile in the other person’s shoes,” Mack said.
Richard wrinkled his nose. “Wear someone else’s shoes? Not unless they’re the new Prada loafers, honey.”
Hermes yipped in agreement.
Leatrice spotted Daniel, and her bright-coral mouth curled into a smile. “You look familiar.” Her smile faltered. “You never appeared on America’s Most Wanted, did you?”
“No,” Daniel said, holding out his hand. “I’m Daniel Reese. Mike’s brother.”
“Of course.” Leatrice ignored his extended hand and gave him a hug. “I can see the family resemblance.” She darted a glance at his ring finger. “And you’re not married either I see.”
Daniel stammered while his brother looked on, grinning.
“So what has she been doing?” I asked, trying to steer the conversation back to Tina. “She disappeared from the wedding scene, and I assumed she left town. Even her BFF Brianna pretended she’d never heard of her.”
“Typical Brianna,” Fern said. “That wedding planner doesn’t have a loyal bone in her body.”
“You know she interviewed for this wedding,” I said.
“You went up against Brides by Brianna to get the Hamilton wedding?” Richard looked over his shoulder. “Are we sure she isn’t here with Tina trying to ruin us?”
Fern shuddered. “Don’t even joke.”
“From what my online buddies could find, Ms. Pink is living in a rented studio apartment somewhere near Mount Vernon,” Leatrice said.
I wondered if these were the same online buddies from Leatrice’s days hanging out on the dark net with hackers named Dagger Dan and Boots. After getting me in trouble for using her hacked information, and after her online pals had gone underground for a while, she’d agreed not to dabble in the quasi-legal. I suspected she occasionally used her buddies for intel, although she never admitted it, and I didn’t ask. Some things I’d rather not know.
Richard shook his head. “How the mighty have fallen.”
“Okay,” I said, pacing small circles as I thought out loud. “She loses everything, blames us, and comes up with a plan to crash one of our big weddings and kidnap Kate.”
Mack sucked in a breath. “I’ll bet she heard about the wedding from Brianna.”
“You know,” I said, “you may be on to something. We booked this wedding before everything went down with Tina, which means she and Brianna were still buds. I’ll bet Brianna mentioned losing this wedding to us and probably gave all the details to her friend without knowing it. The Hamiltons had the date and location settled before they interviewed planners. That would explain how Tina knew enough to infiltrate the event.”
“This is all well and good,” Richard said. “But we don’t know for sure if Tina Pink is here or behind everything.”
“Then who were we chasing?” I asked.
“A terrified waiter?” Richard suggested. “Tell me this, darling, how would Tina know enough about Mr. Hamilton’s work to ask for his nerve agent as ransom?”
I gave Richard an exasperated sigh. “Maybe she researched his pharma company and came up with the ransom scheme. Aren’t you always admonishing me for not learning more about my clients? It’s possible she found out about the DOD contract and concocted the plan from there.”
Richard gave me a look that told me he wasn’t convinced, but before I could argue with him any further, Reese put a hand on my arm.
“The first thing we need to do is track down this woman.” He twisted to face me. “You say she’s still blond but her hair is cut like a man’s, right?”
“Yes,” I said. “And she’s wearing black pants, a white shirt, and a long bistro apron like the rest of the waiters.”
“This shouldn’t be too hard,” Fern said. “Most of Richard’s waiters are tall, dark, and hunky. From what I remember, Tina is a string bean.”
Leatrice rubbed her hands together. “I love a good search.”
I took another look at her boldly patterned dress, the fabric shiny and the puffy sleeves larger than her head. “I can’t have you wandering around like that.”
Leatrice dropped her eyes to her dress. “This is the dress I wore to the last wedding I attended. You don’t like it?”
“You haven’t been to a wedding since the Reagan administration?” Richard asked, reaching out to touch the floral print fabric like it was radioactive.
“Not unless you count the wedding you planned on the yacht,” she said. “And at that wedding, I wasn’t dressed as a guest since I was helping you track down a killer.”
“No, you weren’t.” No amount of hypnotherapy could remove the image of Leatrice in a sailor suit. “But I can’t pass you off as a guest since the guests aren’t here yet, and the family is crawling all over the place.”
Richard tapped his chin with one finger. “We could hide her in a closet.”
I took Leatrice by the elbow and leveled a finger at Richard. “I’m going to put her in a costume. You’d better figure out how to explain Hermes.”
Richard looked down at the tiny dog squirming in his arms. Hermes wiggled up to lick his chin and yipped.
“The rest of us will spread out and look for Tina Pink,” Reese said. “Don’t try to apprehend her on your own. Text me, and Daniel and I will come to you. I don’t want anyone trying to be a hero.” He leaned down close to my ear. “Especially you, babe.”
I felt chills travel down my spine, and I couldn’t stop my eyes from lingering on his backside as he and Daniel headed outside. I looked away quickly when Richard caught me staring.
“I’ll go tell Buster,” Mack said. “He still holds a grudge against her for stealing away one of our best employees.”
“I thought to forgive was the Christian thing to do,” I teased. “Tina isn’t on your prayer list?”
Mack picked up his spray bottles on his way out of the kitchen and paused in the doorway. “Oh, she is. Buster prays she’ll get what’s coming to her.”
“Now that’s the kind of praying I can get behind,” Fern said after Mack had left the room. “Maybe I should start going to their prayer meetings.” He smoothed the shoulders of his black-and-white-striped top. “In the meantime, I’m going to search upstairs and finish the bridesmaids’ hair.”
As he sashayed out of the kitchen, I tried to imagine the prim hairstylist at one of the gatherings of the Road Riders for Jesus, but the thought of Fern in leather and chains made my head hurt.
“Come on.” I pulled Leatrice with me toward the French doors. “The costumes are in the pool house.”
“Wait for me.” Richard hurried after us, his dog jiggling in his arms. “Maybe I can find something for Hermes to wear.”
I highly doubted Sidney Allen stocked dog-sized costumes, but I didn’t want to burst Richard’s bubble. We skirted the length of the pool with me pulling Leatrice by the sleeve to speed up her pace. I wanted to spend the least amount of time possible outside in the heat, even though I suspected it was a lost cause and my makeup had melted off ages ago. We reached the pool house, which had glass-paned French doors exactly like the ones on the main house.
“I’ve never been in a pool house before,” Leatrice said as I opened the door and ushered her inside. “Is this where the pool boy lives?”
“Pool boy?” Richard gave her the side-eye. “Have you been watching reruns of Desperate Housewives again?”
“It’s where people change into suits or shower after they’ve been swimming,” I explained, stepping aside for a man in a red page boy costume trimmed in gold braid to pass by.
Leatrice gaped at the main room of the pool house with its wet bar to one side, pair of sofas covered in pale-green twill and piled with striped cushions, and flat-screen TV mounted on the wall. “They have a separate house for that?”
“Yes, but it’s normally not this chaotic.”
A metal garment rack, holding costumes in a range of colors from burgundy to black to ivory, stood to one side of the wet bar. Plastic dry cleaning bags and duffels littered the couches and floor. People milled about the space, some of them in elaborate Venetian garb, and some barely wearing anything at all. The trays of food on the wet bar had been decimated, and small glass soda bottles filled the trash can next to one of the sofas.
I didn’t hear or see Sidney Allen, so I made a beeline for the costume rack, pawing through the options until I found one I thought would fit and wouldn’t be missed. I pulled out the green-and-purple outfit and handed it to Leatrice. “Try this on.”
“I like the colors,” she said. “And the bells.”
I pointed her to the bathroom down the short hallway so she could change in private.
“A jester?” Richard said, flicking through the costumes himself. “Appropriate.”
“It’s one of the only ones that won’t dwarf her,” I said. “Plus, it won’t kill us to have one less jester in the official wedding performances.”
“Tell that to Sidney Allen,” Richard muttered.
I jerked my head around. “Do you see him? Is he coming?”
“No, but you know he’ll have a fit when another of his costumes goes missing.”
Richard was right. Sidney Allen had never under reacted to anything in his life, nor would he have any interest in hearing why I’d borrowed the costume.
“I haven’t seen or heard him in a while,” I said, plucking one of the last bottles of Sprite from the counter. “I’ve never known him to keep a low profile during setup.”
“No one knows where he is,” a man in a gold-and-black mask and a black bodysuit said from where he sat on a couch.
“What do you mean?” I asked, taking a sip of Sprite and wishing it was cold.
The man slid the mask to the top of his head. “He’s supposed to come in and make final adjustments to our costumes and go over our places, but we’ve been waiting for close to an hour.”
I exchanged a glance with Richard, whose eyebrows had popped up.
“Has this ever happened before?” I asked the performer.
“Never,” he said. “I’ve worked with Sidney for a year, and he’s always on top of things. Sometimes too much, if you know what I mean.”
I did.
“I went to look for him.” A woman in a full satin skirt the color of champagne and tight lace-up bodice flopped down beside the man in black. “Couldn’t find the little guy anywhere.”
“So we have two people kidnapped, another attacked, missing costumes, and now a missing entertainment diva?” Richard said.
“That’s what he was doing the last time I saw him.” The woman loosened her laces and let out a breath. “Looking for his missing costumes.”
“Maybe he found them,” Richard said, “and stumbled onto something he shouldn’t have.”
The feeling of dread turned into a knot in my stomach. If Reese was right and all the mishaps were connected, Sidney Allen’s search for his costumes could be more dangerous than he knew. “And now he’s missing too.”
25
“Well,” Leatrice said, stepping out of the bathroom, the bells on her jester costume jingling. “What do you think?”
I appraised my octogenarian neighbor. The shiny satin outfit consisted of puffy pantaloons that reached almost to her shins, even though I knew they were meant to hit above the knee. The ruff around her neck had layers of stiff fabric points in the same multicolored diamond pattern with bells at the tips.
Richard tapped his finger to his bottom lip. “With the hat, she’s almost the size of a normal person.”
The hat, which resembled a diamond-patterned pineapple bursting open on her head, did give her an extra six inches at least. Leatrice straightened the hat and looked to Richard and me with an eager expression on her wrinkled face.
“I think you look great, Leatrice,” I said and drained the last of my Sprite, desperately wishing the bottles caterers set out for vendors weren’t the short squat ones that were empty after a few gulps.
Leatrice jerked a thumb toward the bathroom door she’d exited. “Should I be concerned that there are two penguins splashing around in the bathtub?”
That answered one of my questions. I noticed the penguin handler leaning up against a wall, scrolling on her phone.
“Not in the least,” I said. “The heat outside must have gotten to them.”
Leatrice tapped a finger to the side of her face. “You don’t think our building would allow penguins as pets, do you?”
“I’m pretty sure that’s a no,” I said. I did not want to imagine Leatrice walking a pair of penguins down the streets of Georgetown.
“Speaking of pets, what do we do with Hermes?” Richard asked, holding up the wriggling dog. “Sidney Allen has nothing for pint-sized performers.”
