A Wedding To Die For

considered all the questions swirling in my head. Did Graham know why Sylvia and James adopted Megan? Was that the information he hoped to sell me? If so, I might just be willing to pay him for the truth.

Once I entered the lobby, I followed the signs to the bar. A curved wall of windows overlooked the water and hundreds of lights glittered on the dock and marina. But though the lady bartender knew Graham by name and said he’d been in earlier, she told me he left at least an hour ago. I made my way to the elevator and rode up to the twelfth floor to look for 1234, the room number he’d mentioned in his call to me while I was in Jamaica.

The long hallway was deserted and so quiet I swore I could have heard someone drop their pajamas behind one of the dozens of doors lining the corridor. The hall eased right as I closed in on Graham’s room. Since his was next to the vending machines, I picked up on the hums of the refrigerated soda machine and the ice maker.

And then I heard a voice coming from behind Graham’s door, shouting, “No! God, no!”

I ran the last few feet to his room just in time to hear an awful, strangled scream. I pounded on the door with my fist. “Graham! Are you okay?”

I gripped the door lever out of pure instinct even though I knew hotel doors were always locked. But right after my fingers wrapped around the handle, the door opened violently. I was yanked forward.

And then just as ferociously that door came flying back at me, the edge hitting my left cheek with the force of a baseball bat. I fell to the floor, white light shattering my vision. I made a futile grab for a blacktrousered leg as someone stepped over me, but I was too stunned by the blow to even think or move. I blinked hard and looked into the room, trying to focus. The blue sheer liner drapes that covered the glass doors to a balcony blew toward me in the ocean breeze.

Then numbness and confusion gave way to unbelievable pain. I tried to get up, knowing I needed help. Mistake. The room went all cockeyed, then bile and the awful taste of Pepto rose in my throat. I could only slump against the wall and close my eyes.

14

“Señorita? You okay?” a woman asked.

I opened my eyes and saw a blurry brown face close to mine. Pretty face. “I’ll be fine, but what’s that noise? Because it’s damn annoying.”

“Sirens outside. You don’t look so good. Your husband hit you and leave you here like this?”

“Husband? Last time I checked, I didn’t have one of those. Listen, would you mind helping me up?”

She was squatting in front of me, and I saw she was wearing a gray cotton maid’s uniform. She took my upper arm, and with her support, I stood. I had to lean against the wall once I was upright since I felt dizzy and as sick as ever. And my face. Yikes, could anything hurt more than this?

“I could use some air,” I said.

She helped me across the room, saying, “I gotta call my manager. You need a doctor.”

Those sirens, a persistent whine before, were now much louder and when we got out on the balcony, I understood why.

A man was lying below on the well-lit stone walkway, his body surrounded by a small crowd. One leg was bent at a sickening angle and blood was pooled around his head. A rescue truck came speeding up, and two paramedics jumped out and pushed the gawkers aside so they could get to the man. Being this far up I couldn’t tell if it was Graham, but I remembered the anguished shout I’d heard right before I got smacked in the face. I had definitely recognized his voice.

“Oh no,” I whispered.

“You and the man have some trouble?” the woman said.

I didn’t answer her. I was watching a police car arrive. It lurched to a halt, lights flashing so brilliantly in the dark I had to squint. Two cops got out simultaneously. A second later, a woman in the crowd was standing next to the policeman and pointing up to our balcony. Pointing at us.

It had taken the cops only about three minutes to reach Graham’s room. By that time, I was sitting on the floor in the hallway with an ice bag pressed to my face, thanks to Maria—the woman who had come to my aid. One cop asked me my name while the other went into Graham’s empty room. He asked if I needed a paramedic and I told him no, I was fine. Then he said, “You and the jumper have a fight?”

“Are you crazy?” I said.

That didn’t go over too well.

“Why don’t you think about what happened and we’ll talk in a minute,” he replied sternly. He stood outside Graham’s room, his hand on the billy club hanging from his waist, his posture saying he’d give me a swat on the other side of my face if I made any more references to his mental health.

The responding officers were from the county, but since this was Seacliff, I figured my favorite chief of police would be here soon. So when he asked me again what happened, I told him I’d prefer to wait and talk to Fielder.

Sure enough, she came up to the twelfth floor several minutes later. She had Maria open one of the unoccupied rooms, and I stayed there while Fielder talked to the maid.

I sat in a gold velvet armchair by the window, my ice pack dripping down my arm, my face was blessedly numb now. Fielder entered a few minutes later, shutting the door after her. Her red blouse and straight, short black skirt complemented her thin, long-legged figure.

She sat across from me, the standard hotel issue round table between us. From her expression, I guessed she was plenty pissed off. “What the hell happened in that room, Miss Rose?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“Oh? So you’ve got amnesia?” she said. “Because Graham Beadford is dead, and I need you to recover your memory damn quick.”

So it was Graham who fell. “I do not have amnesia,” I said. “But I don’t—”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Would you let me talk? I almost shouted, but instead came back with, “I think the monkey pox has affected my memory.” I held up my free arm to show off a few of my thousand mosquito bites. I said this with a smile, but the pain had now been replaced by a white-hot anger—anger at myself for not being quick enough to keep Graham from dying, along with anger at Fielder for being surly with me for no good reason.

She took a deep breath and leaned back. “Let’s start over. Did you and Graham argue? Did he hit you? Because self-defense in Texas can get anyone off.”

I looked at her dumbfounded. Jeff always said that cops who jump to conclusions destroy cases, miss evidence and to quote him directly, “are royal fuckups. The worst kind of cop.”

“You’re making a mistake,” I said calmly. She was pathetic. Not even worth getting mad at if she was making assumptions like this.

“Am I? The maid said she found you in his room, and it couldn’t have been more than a minute after Beadford went off that balcony.”

“I need more ice,” I said, meeting her gaze. “And after that, maybe a lawyer.” I dropped the leaky ice pack on the middle of the table. It fell with a splat, and water spilled out around the broken plastic. Thanks to the gravity gods, a stream of icy water headed in her direction.

She pushed away from the table to avoid getting wet, then stood. “I’ll send one of the paramedics to check out your injuries. But I’m not done with you.”

She strode out, and once she was gone, I went to the mirror that hung over the long Spanish-style dresser against one wall.

“Oh my God,” I whispered. It was a miracle I still had any enamel left on my teeth. A purple line extended from cheekbone to chin on the left side of my face, the door mark surrounded by a deep blue swelling on either side. I touched a finger to the bruise and winced. Just then a paramedic arrived, and without so much as a second glance at my injury, he got on his walkie-talkie and told whoever was on the other end that they needed a stretcher in room 1240.

“I walked in here and I can walk out,” I protested, but when he told me my face could be fractured, I decided