Mrs Higgins’ lifeless eyes looked toward me. I sucked in a breath and took a step forward.
‘Stop!’ Detective Highsmith tumbled into the clearing and pulled me back. ‘Don’t touch anything!’ I nodded. He pushed me behind him and knelt down, placing his hand on the side of her neck. ‘She’s dead,’ he said, coming up slowly.
I forced myself to breathe slowly, deeply. I felt like I was going to pass out. ‘What do you suppose happened?’ I wasn’t sure why I was whispering but I was.
Highsmith’s voice was firm and in control. ‘Her neck’s been broken by the looks of it.’
I whimpered, my hands flying to my neck.
‘Still think she’s your killer?’ Highsmith’s hands searched his coat.
I shook my head in the negative. How could I have been so wrong? And so often!
Footsteps pounded up the pebble path. Cody burst around the corner opposite the wishing well, which blocked his view of Mrs Higgins corpse. ‘What’s going on? Ms Miller? Mark? What are you two doing out here? I heard shouting. Is everything—’
Highsmith motioned for him to come around to our side of the wishing well. ‘Take a look. But don’t get close.’
Cody swallowed and edged around to our side. He gasped. ‘It’s Sabrina’s mom!’ He blanched and pulled at his shirt collar. ‘What happened to her?’ His eyes went to the detective. ‘Heart attack, maybe? Why did she come out here?’
Highsmith shook his head no. ‘Looks like somebody crushed her trachea is my guess.’ His hands patted his pants’ pockets. ‘But we’ll let the ME decide that.’
The detective’s eyes scanned the ground for clues. I heard a song in the distant background. It was hard to imagine a party going on while a woman lay here dead. ‘I’m afraid this might put a damper on your celebration.’
Cody shrugged. ‘It can’t be helped.’
I watched mutely. I was confused. If she was dead, who killed her? And who killed Lisa Willoughby? And why?
‘You two keep an eye on the body,’ ordered Highsmith, patting his jacket one last time. ‘I must have dropped my cell phone back there.’ He looked at me like it was my fault. What? Did I tell him to chase me? ‘I’m gonna go pick it up and call this in. Stay together. The killer could still be out there,’ he said firmly, pointing a finger at me. ‘Don’t touch anything.’
I nodded and promised I wouldn’t. Cody shot me a nervous look and promised the same.
‘What do you suppose happened to her?’ I whispered as Highsmith disappeared. It was cold and I couldn’t stop shivering. ‘I mean, how was she killed?’
Cody’s face was half-hidden in shadows as we crouched on either side of the now-deceased Samantha Higgins. ‘Strangled,’ he replied. ‘For sure.’ He turned his face toward me. ‘Like Mark said.’
I gazed at Mrs Higgins’ neck but in the darkness it was impossible to discern any signs of strangulation – only a few scratches. ‘How can you tell?’
Cody pushed himself off the ground. ‘Easy,’ he said, pulling a long black tie from his tuxedo coat. ‘I used this.’ The tie dangled from his fingers, its end lightly dancing along the ground.
‘What?’ What was Cody talking about? Had he lost his mind? Was he blathering? Too much stress what with the wedding and now a dead mother-in-law?
‘I said it was easy,’ Cody smiled. He jerked the tie up and down. ‘I used this on Mrs Higgins. In fact,’ he said coolly, stepping around the corpse, ‘let me show you.’
It was only then that I noticed his bare neck and his unbuttoned shirt collar. Cody hadn’t been wearing his tie when he stumbled into the clearing.
I opened my mouth and my scream died in my throat. I tumbled backward as I tried to rise. Cody grabbed me by both arms and yanked me upright. I felt his breath against my ear as he pressed me against him.
‘And I’d have dumped her body in the well and been done with her if you hadn’t stuck your nose in and showed up.’ He gave my arms a vicious pull and pain shot across my back, bringing tears to my eyes. ‘Always showing up where you’re not wanted, aren’t you, Ms Miller?’ His breath was hot and moist.
‘Why?’ I cried. ‘Why would you murder your mother-in-law?’ I mean, he’d been married less than a couple of hours. How bad could she be?
His hand slapped over my mouth. ‘Quiet!’ He shoved me toward bushes. ‘I had to kill her. She wouldn’t quit. She killed Lisa and was blackmailing me.’
I bit down on his fingers. He cursed me out but removed his hand. ‘I was right? Samantha Higgins murdered Lisa Willoughby?’
Cody pulled back to a corner of the walled-in garden. Between the darkness and the thick vegetation there was no chance that anyone in the wedding party would see us here. ‘That’s right. Then she tried to blackmail me.’
‘Blackmail?’ Nothing Cody said was making any sense.
‘Yeah,’ spat Cody.
‘What is this all about?’ And how was I going to get out of this alive? Where was Detective Highsmith?
Cody blew out a breath and pulled my arms together behind my back. I winced as pain shot up my arms and back. ‘Mrs Higgins killed Lisa because she found out that Lisa and I were fooling around.’
‘Fooling around?’ My eyebrow rose. ‘Like having an affair?’
He shrugged. ‘It was just for kicks, you know.’
I didn’t.
‘I mean, it didn’t mean anything. I still planned to marry Sabrina. We were only fooling around.’
‘And Mrs Higgins didn’t like it?’ Can’t say I blamed her for that. But murder?
‘Mrs Higgins confronted Lisa about our affair. I guess she was afraid I might not marry Sabrina and leave her for Lisa. Lisa and Mrs Higgins argued in the stairwell and Mrs Higgins flipped out and gave her a shove. Believe me, you do not want to make that woman mad.’
‘She must have been mad at you too.’
‘Yeah, but she still wanted me to marry her daughter. I think part of that was to get her hands on my family’s money.’ Cody’s family were old money rich. ‘Sabrina confided in me that her family is having financial problems. Their house is in foreclosure.’
Samantha Higgins didn’t strike me as the kind of woman who’d enjoy seeing her financial and social status decline. If she thought Cody and Lisa were getting serious she might have figured her last chance at saving the Higgins’ fortunes was to break them up for good. Lisa’s death had certainly accomplished that.
‘Mrs Higgins told me what she’d done and said that if I didn’t pay her half a million bucks she’d tell Sabrina about my affair with Lisa next.’ He pushed me to the ground. ‘I couldn’t let that happen. I love Sabrina, so I strung her along until after the wedding.’
‘Why not simply pay her?’
‘Are you kidding? How would I explain that to my dad?’ Cody chuckled. ‘She met me out here in the garden thinking I’d hand over a pile of my dad’s money. But I couldn’t live with her blackmailing me for the rest of my life.’
‘Please,’ I said, ‘let me go. Turn yourself in. I’m sure everybody will understand.’
He snorted. ‘Yeah, right.’
True, I didn’t believe it either. ‘So now what? Are you going to kill me, too?’
‘Of course,’ Cody said glibly. He wiped his hand on his shirt. ‘But I’ll tell Mark you attacked me and ran away.’ He chuckled. ‘Thanks for biting me. Gives my story some meat.’
‘Glad to oblige,’ I said dryly.
‘It would have been simpler and less complicated if I’d been able to go with my original plan. But I’ll tell him you must have murdered Mrs Higgins and then disappeared after attacking me.’
‘Why am I supposed to have done that?’ Not that I much cared what his crazy reasoning was but anything to keep him talking and me breathing.
He smiled devilishly. ‘Because you’re crazy. You killed Lisa then Mrs Higgins.’
‘No one will ever believe that.’
‘No,’ he said, a twinkle in his eyes, ‘not even when they search your apartment and find Lisa’s purse – a purse that also contains her gun – under your sofa?’
My eyes widened. ‘How – how did you know that?’
‘I watched you break into her place and leave with it.’
I frowned with disgust. ‘Then you must have been spying on me when I hid it under the sofa. Pervert.’
‘Hey,’ he replied with a slight shrug, ‘if you don’t want people peeping in, close your curtains.’
‘Why would I kill Lisa?’
‘That will have to remain one of life’s great mysteries. I mean, with you being dead, the answer dies with you.’
‘You’ll never get away with it, Cody.’ I sounded like a bad movie. And my life was about to end like one.
‘I don’t know.’ Cody’s fingers felt like icicles on my shoulder. ‘It’s a big desert. I don’t think anyone is going to find you very soon. At least not before the coyotes do.’
I shivered. Would coyotes and javelinas soon be picking my bones?
‘And when they do find you, they’ll think you tried to escape and died of exposure.’ He leaned toward me. ‘There won’t be enough of you left for them to know that I’ve strangled you.’
The band had stopped playing. I took the opportunity to scream. ‘Help! He—’
Cody caught me unawares, backhanding me across the mouth. I tasted blood and dug my nails into his arm before he struck again. Cody clamped his hand over mine. I grunted and slammed my heel on the top of his foot. He cursed and his hand relaxed.
I twisted free and ran, not knowing where I was or where I was running to. I tore through bushes and splashed through a koi pond working my way toward the lights and the sounds of the wedding party. The lights were getting closer. So were the sounds of Cody’s steps.
‘Stop her!’ Cody shouted as he appeared suddenly to my left mere feet away.
‘Stop him!’ I yelled at Highsmith. ‘He killed Samantha Higgins!’
Cody bolted through the crowd. I veered right, dodging between tables of startled wedding guests.
The band held still. Aubrey covered her face in embarrassment.
Cody ran past the stage. Detective Highsmith jumped over a crowded table, landing on his feet in front of him. The detective had some moves.
Cody took a swing at the detective. Highsmith slammed his fist into his nose. Cody eyes crossed over and he looked startled as he landed on his butt in front of the table bearing the wedding cake. But a moment later he was on his feet once again, a sharp knife in his hand. Probably the one meant to cut the cake, but now he was intending to use it to take a slice out of Detective Highsmith.
I gripped the edge of the table with all my strength and lifted. I’m not normally one to waste a good dessert, let alone a seven-tier beauty like this one, but I was about to make an exception. The table teetered for a moment, then gravity took over. The tall cake toppled, smacking Cody in the head. Seven tiers of fondant-covered cake are heavier than you might think. He crumbled to the ground. The knife slid across the flagstones. Officer Ellen Collins scooped it up.
Highsmith bent and picked up the trash. That being Cody Ryan.