A Wedding To Die For

“I talked to her last night outside the funeral home, and though she didn’t seem all that wasted, she might have been before the night ended. I could tell she had plans.”

Megan chewed on her lower lip. “Roxanne was trying to call the America’s Most Wanted producers this morning to see if they could find her, if you can believe that. I stopped her. And then I thought of you. I know you’ve done so much already, but—”

“I’ll do whatever I can,” I said.

Megan, already no more than a hundred pounds soaking wet, looked like she’d lost weight. And the fire in her eyes that I remembered so well from our first meeting was dying little by little. Too many bad things had happened too fast.

I stood and blocked Megan’s path when she turned in my direction. “Let’s slow down,” I said. “Make a plan.”

She blinked, then stared at my face. “Abby, my God. What happened to you?”

“Just a little argument with a door.”

“I was so wrapped up in my own problems I didn’t even notice. Is this my fault? Did this happen in Jamaica? Did you get—”

I gripped both her shoulders and looked into her tired eyes. “When’s the last time you ate?”

“I can’t think about food now. We have to do something about Courtney. She needs me. They all need me. Even if they’re weird and crazy, they’re still my family and—”

“And you can’t help them if you don’t take care of yourself.”

Her eyes welled. “I probably can’t help them anyway, but you can. Find out who killed my father and my uncle, Abby.”

“I don’t know, Megan. I haven’t been doing this PI thing all that long. I’m not sure I have the skills to investigate murder. Maybe Angel can get more involved in your case. He’s had loads of experience.”

“I’d rather have you. You certainly couldn’t do any worse than that policewoman. She doesn’t tell us anything, and she was so abrupt with my mother and me last night. Almost cruel.”

“She’s trying,” I said, not believing I was actually defending Quinn Fielder.

“I don’t trust her, but I absolutely trust you,” she said.

“So you want me to find Courtney or the murderer-slash-murderers or all of the above?”

“All of the above,” she said, nodding decisively. “I’ll pay you whatever you want.”

“We’ll figure that out later, but first off, the two of us are going to sit down in my kitchen and have some Frosted Flakes. I need some brain fuel even if you don’t.”

A half hour later, after Megan joined me in a bowl of cereal, a big glass of orange juice, and coffee, she seemed a little more like the young woman who’d walked down the aisle such a short time ago. I felt better, too. My face still hurt, but my insect bites were almost a memory and my stomach felt normal for the first time in twenty-four hours.

I’d decided Jeff might be a good resource to help us locate Courtney, but before I could phone him, Megan’s cell rang.

She flipped it open and answered, then mouthed, “It’s her.”

Gee, I thought, easiest detective job I’ll ever have.

Megan listened for a second, then said, “It’s not your fault, Courtney. Someone pushed him. You couldn’t have stopped that from happening.”

I heard Courtney’s voice—her loud, slurred voice—saying, “It’s all my fault. I want to die, Meg. I want to die!”

“Don’t say that,” Megan said. “No one else needs to die.”

“Ask her where she is,” I whispered.

“Tell me where you are,” Megan said firmly. “I’ll come to you. I’ll pick you up.”

Megan listened intently for what seemed a long time. Then her face relaxed. “Okay. I’m coming. Don’t leave.”

She closed the phone and looked at me. “She’s at the Starfish Motel near Galveston.”

“I’ll Mapquest it and we’re on our way,” I said.

On the drive south, Megan asked me about the Jamaica trip. I hedged, told her I had a few leads but nothing solid to report yet. Thank goodness she was consumed by the current situation and thus didn’t press me. She needn’t know her birth mother might be an embezzler and a fugitive or that other giant secrets had been kept from her. At least not until the DNA sample I’d sent off came back in a few weeks. I changed the subject by offering my version of what happened at the hotel last night and how guilty I felt about arriving too late to help Graham.

“Oh my God, Abby,” she said after I finished explaining. “I didn’t even know you were there.”

“If I’d arrived a minute earlier, I may have prevented Graham’s death.”

“Or gotten yourself killed. I mean, look at you.”

“I prefer not to look at me. By the way, your uncle phoned me when I was in Jamaica and said he wanted to talk about something that would interest me. I’m worried that whatever he wanted to discuss had something to do with his death.”

“Why would he call you rather than the police? He hardly knew you.” She began twisting her wedding ring.

“My point exactly. But that call will probably show up on some phone record and make Fielder even more suspicious of me.”

“Suspicious of you? What reason could you possibly have to hurt my uncle or my father? You didn’t even know them before the rehearsal dinner.”

“Ah. A voice of reason in the wilderness. Refreshing, Megan. So what about Roxanne and Courtney? Would they have any motive to want Graham or James dead?”

Megan hesitated, probably realizing for the first time that “finding the killer” meant looking close to home. “I—I don’t know. Both of them seem to have more personal problems than the last time I saw them. But murder? I can’t even think about them like that.”

“I got a taste of some genuine animosity toward their dad last night when I talked to them at the visitation.” I glanced down at the map I’d printed off the computer. We were getting close to the exit.

“From what my dad told me, Uncle Graham and Roxanne did have a blowup about six months ago.”

“A blowup?” I merged right and exited the freeway a few miles before the Galveston causeway.

“My cousins lost their mom to cancer about ten years ago,” she said.

“Sylvia told me.”

“Anyway, Roxanne reacted by pulling closer to Uncle Graham, becoming more like a mother than a daughter. And Courtney totally rebelled. So Roxanne became the favorite, until she got that odd boyfriend who played in the Dallas symphony.”

“Violin, by chance?” I asked, remembering Roxanne clinging to one of the musicians the day of the wedding.

“How did you know?” said Megan.

“She was stuck like a cocklebur to the violinist at your reception. Anyway, what happened with the boyfriend?”

“I think it was the only time since they dissolved their business that Dad and Uncle Graham joined forces on anything. Apparently the boyfriend had been treated for bipolar disorder and would call up in the middle of the night or come over and play his violin outside Roxanne’s window. When he got Roxanne to max out one of her credit cards, Uncle Graham called Dad for help. A few weeks later the guy ended up with a new position in Boston.”

“So Roxanne figured they had a hand in this and was pissed off with both her father and her uncle?” I asked.

“Knowing Roxanne, she’d never admit to that. She wanted to blame everything on Courtney.”

“On Courtney? How does that logic work?”

“She thought Courtney told Uncle Graham about the boyfriend’s health problems.”

I nodded. “Okay, so Roxanne had reason to be pissed off at all three of them.” I wanted to ask about Courtney’s substance abuse history, how long she’d been abusing, but we had come to the turnoff for the Starfish Motel. Seconds later we pulled into the parking lot.

We were greeted with peeling paint, a few broken windows patched with duct tape, doors marred by grime