The words fade into the oblivion…just as I hear another voice—a voice of calm and reason, and it cuts through the haze of passion like a knife.
“Don’t mind me. Just enjoying the show,” a woman says, standing behind me, a deep brown drink in one hand…and a small .22 pistol in the other. She smiles. “Oh,” she comments upon further inspection, glancing between us. “Naughty, naughty. And here, I thought I was the only person here this weekend looking to get me a piece of something…” She hesitates, walking farther into the room. “Except for the piece of something I had in mind are green little squares of currency.”
She sashays across the carpeted floor as if she’s walked it a thousand times before.
And I realize that I know that voice, know that face, know that smile… complete with lipstick still smeared on her teeth.
The look in her eyes is very different from the one I saw the first time I met her, beside her husband, fake kindness plastered on her chemically peeled face.
I take my hands off Nancy, lowering them, realizing I had it wrong all along.
I wanted my hands on lots of people tonight.
Eric.
Nancy.
The bastard who brought calamity to my family.
And in my head, I thought that bastard had to be man—a male with a fucked-up mentality looking to score against the famous Fletcher family or Nancy or both.
I never thought the asshole would be female.
And I never guessed it would be someone as simple as her.
The last woman in the world I would have suspected.
Mrs. Paisley Banneker did a damn good job.
Even I was fooled.
The hands I planned to use to wring around that asshole’s neck go sky-high as the mother-in-law of my sister, the bride, takes the pistol that dangles in her hand and raises it…before pointing it at me.
Chapter 27
NANCY
The woman walking towards us in the billiard room looks familiar.
I swear she does…
But there’s nothing familiar about the crazed look in her eyes.
I turn towards her, adjusting the skirt of my dress, but Andrew stops me, holding me still. His chest is brick-like, breath rushed, and I don't know why until I see where he's looking…
Right at the tiny pistol, pointed at his chest.
My heart dive-bombs into my stomach, abandoning my chest. I can barely breathe as she moves forward as if walking through sludge, her Southern accent thicker than cornstarch when she speaks.
“Look at us,” she laughs softly, her graying blonde hair falling across her shoulders as she talks, “getting ready to be one big happy family.”
Andrew blinks. “I'm starting to think that there's nothing going to be big or happy with you pointing that gun at my chest.”
The woman chuckles harder. “Oh, come on… Don't be like that. A wedding is a great occasion. An occasion to get together and to examine the parts of life that really matter to you. Parts like…money. Since that's all you Fletchers seem to care about.”
“Says the woman who married a rich cowboy about a year ago. I remember from our little meeting.” Andrew's jaw tightens. “How is Billy Bob anyway?”
The woman blinks, taken aback. She smiles again, as if struggling to keep the expression on her face, the wrinkles near her mouth pulling tight. “Oblivious…and so, so goddamned boring. Just like his son.”
“You mean, your son?” Andrew points out.
The older woman scoffs, the sound harsh. “Jonathan is not my son… He could never be my son. He's not talented or smart or good-looking enough to be like Brett…” She gazes off into space for a second. “No, that cuckold is my stepson. Billy Bob's son.” She snorts. “Two birds of a boring feather.”
Andrew looks at me, his eyes wide, like he's trying to figure out what to do next.
I'm not so sure I do either.
“Who are you?” I ask her, feeling like I'm in some sort of bad movie.
“I'm so glad you asked, sweetheart,” she says in a sugary-sweet Southern voice that's more menacing than nice, her words conflicting with her face which looks full of rage. She fans her eyelashes sweetly. “You see, around the time that I quickly got engaged and married Billy Bob, your Andrew's sister, Hannah, got engaged to that wet-mop Jonathan. What lucky timing…”
I get the impression there was nothing lucky about it, but Crazy Eyes keeps going.
“It's because of this that I was able to marry that rich cowboy. If it weren't for that little detail, I probably would have married some architect instead, or a college lecturer, or a journalist. God, I hate journalists. They always poke their nose into other people's business and don't get enough done of their own. Oh, wait, from what I heard about you, little bird…I guess you're not from a real family either. So, I suppose it doesn't matter that you're not a journalist.”
I feel my face start to burn.
“Buckle up, darling. When you marry rich, you're in for a bumpy ride.” The woman laughs. She winks at me, and I can't help but shudder. I feel like there's some secret, some sort of game at play here that I'm not privy to. It's like she's saying she's going to tell me a secret, but she's also going to enjoy watching me squirm with not knowing the secret first.
“Paisley!” Andrew says, his voice stern.
She ignores him, gazing at me. “One of the defining features of Andrew's family, as far as I can tell,” Paisley cackles, “is that they're all imbeciles. I'll tell you that now, sweetheart— they really are. Good little imbeciles, though—all of them. Just the kind of dullards you want to keep around your side for as long as possible. But what brings us to our current situation. A wedding. An impending marriage. A walk down the pirate ship's plank that nobody warns you about until you're already in the shark-infested waters. I've been in those waters…before. I'm not going back into them again. Not anymore.”
She waves the
