Marc leaned forward and buried his head in his hands. His shoulders shook. There was no doubt he was crying. It was rare to see a man cry, especially one who’d maintained an in-charge persona since I met him, and I felt like I shouldn’t be present to witness his grief. Marc’s emotional torment was not for a stranger to view.
Nick stood up and pulled Marc to his feet. They hugged, this time less drunken-frat-brother and more consolation. This was the Nick I knew.
Marc pulled away and put one hand on Nick’s shoulder. “You think I don’t remember what happened? It haunts me every day. It’s why I dropped out of I-FAD. I needed to get a clean start. I don’t blame you or Amanda for not keeping in touch.”
I stood up. “It sounds like you two have a lot to talk about. I’ll get out of here and let you get caught up.”
“No,” Marc said. “You’re going to be Nick’s wife. There shouldn’t be secrets between married couples. I want you to hear this too.”
“Are you sure?” I asked Marc while looking at Nick.
“Yes. You’re a calming presence, Sammie. It’ll be good to have you around.”
Even Nick had the good sense to stifle his smile at that.
There was a time when Nick accused me of thriving in chaos. My best friend, Eddie, agreed. When I first moved to Ribbon from New York, I’d wanted to simplify my life, but since then, I’d been involved in one dangerous situation after another. Chaotic became the new norm, and when there was no chaos, I was off-kilter. If Marc saw me as a calming presence, then I couldn’t begin to imagine what his life was like on a regular basis.
I opened the blackout curtains and Marc ordered room service. While we waited for the food to arrive, we moved from the lounging area to the office area and sat in a small circle. Marc broke the silence.
“I met her three years ago through a private service that specialized in discreet fix-ups for men of a certain economic level.”
“Is that PR for high priced escort service?” I asked.
“Kidd!” Nick said.
“Just asking.”
“Yes,” Marc confirmed.
“See?”
Marc didn’t seem bothered by my question. “At first it was purely physical,” he continued. “She was very comfortable in her own skin, which I guess comes with the territory of being a lingerie model. The more I saw her, the more I wanted to see her, and the less I wanted anyone else to see her.”
I didn’t like where he was going.
“Sounds possessive,” Nick said, echoing my thoughts.
“If she wanted to see other men, it would have been different. But she didn’t. She quit the service but asked them not to tell me. She didn’t want me to feel pressured to change our relationship. Over those six months, I got to know her on a different level. She was smart, thoughtful, artistic, and caring. She understood my world and never asked or pushed to be let in. In time I knew I wanted to make things permanent.”
The Lydia he described sounded nothing like the woman I’d seen in the lobby with her bachelorettes in a Marry Rich: Pending T-shirt, or the brash, angry fiancée who’d attacked Nick’s motivations for hanging out with Marc. Was it possible she’d had this endgame in mind from the beginning and simply played her cards right? For three years? And never once slipped up?
That was a lot of energy spent on the game of marrying rich.
“I wish you could have met her,” he said to Nick. “You would have loved her. You too, Sammie.”
I cleared my throat. “I did meet Lydia,” I said. “Yesterday at Flush. I went to the convention hotel to register for the lingerie fair and she was there. It wasn’t a formal introduction, but when the two of you were escorted out of the casino, we both followed and ended up together on the curb out front.”
He rubbed his eyes and looked up. “Then you know,” he said. “You know she was in good spirits. She wouldn’t have done this. Somebody killed her.”
“About that,” I said. “If you were scheduled to get married today, why’d you get married last night? Did ten or so hours make that much of a difference?”
“Come on, Sammie, you and Nick here are about to get married, too. You have to know what it’s like, having wedding chapels every fifty feet, reminding you how easy it would be to make it legal. You’re in love, right? I know you’re both here to work, but there’s got to be a part of you that’s already thought it through. Heck, when I left Nick last night, he was on his way to get you so we could make it a double wedding.”
I stole a glance at Nick. He said he didn’t remember much from last night, and he hadn’t said anything about that when he stumbled into the room. Nick glanced at me out of the corner of his eye, gave me an embarrassed half-grin, and looked back at Marc.
“Tell us what did happen last night,” I said.
Nick cleared his throat. “Good idea.”
Marc seemed not to notice our silent communication. “Nick and I had a lot to drink, so my memories are a little spotty. You can help me out a little, at least to the part where we woke up Lydia.”
“You must have gone to her after I left. I didn’t see Lydia last night,” Nick said.
“Sure, you did. Remember, we went into my room and had scotch. We were talking about making it a double wedding. I changed into my tux and we went to Lydia’s room to wake her up.”
Nick looked at me again. This time, the smile was more of a cringe. “That’s not how I remember it. I remember the scotch in your room but everything sort of fades from there. I’m lucky I ended up on the right floor.”
Marc shrugged like it was a minor detail. “We were pretty far gone. I remember waking her up and telling her I didn’t want to wait a minute longer. She said her dress was with her maid of honor. I told her I needed her, not a fancy dress. She grabbed her veil and we left.”
That explained why Lydia had been in her Marry Rich: Pending T-shirt and not something classier. It explained the veil. But it still did not explain how Lydia had gone from marrying the man of her dreams to dying.
“You said something about paying off a couple in the wedding chapel so you could take their spot, right?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you remember anything about them?”
“No. Why?”
“I’m trying to determine the last hours of Lydia’s life. Those people in the chapel would have seen her. They might have noticed something you didn’t.”
“I’m pretty sure those people wanted to get out of the chapel and on with their night, especially after I gave them ten thousand dollars.”
“Cash?”
He nodded.
Did Marc always walk around with that much money on him, or was this trip unique? Had Lydia known about it? It stood to reason if he parted that easily with ten grand that he had far more than that available. I still didn’t know what I believed about the previous night, but Marc’s account of it racked up more questions than answers.
“You got married,” Nick pointed out. “That means there’s a chaplain or a Justice of the Peace who officiated, so to Samantha’s point, there’s going to be someone else who can speak to Lydia’s state of mind.”
“I hadn’t thought about them,” Marc said.
“That’s good news,” I added. “You need people other than yourself who know Lydia was happy about getting married. You want there to be people who saw you. You signed the guestbook, right? That’s good too.”
“I don’t remember the guestbook. The main thing I remember was getting married in secret. I know how the press works. I wasn’t going to let the vultures swoop in and ruin the moment.”
“Was that a real possibility?” I asked. “I’m honestly asking. I have no idea what your life is like. Lydia said something about people constantly hitting you up for money and never knowing who you could trust. She spoke like she protected you, not the other way around.”
Marc looked wistful. “Lydia was protective of me. In the three years I knew her, she never once asked for anything that I didn’t offer first.”
There was a knock at the door. “Room service,” I said. I’d forgotten all about it. All three of us stood, but Marc was the one who went to the door. When he opened it, a tall, thin blonde in a cropped T-shirt and cutoff jean shorts stood in the doorway.
“Oh, Marc, I just heard!” She threw her arms around the widowed billionaire and pressed her body against him in a hug that was far too familiar to be one of consolation.