Sabrina, Henry, and the Keating family were ushered by Sergeant Detree through the now-empty great room to a table that had been set up with four others under canopies around the pool. Sabrina had agonized over the details of how the tables should be placed and set so that everything would be perfect for the wedding at sunset. She’d had two practice sessions with the Ten Villa staff, who’d done a fine job setting up for the wedding banquet while Sabrina had been pulling the bride’s body out of the water.
That Elena had chosen to fill the great room and pool area with two dozen potted gardenia bushes had not surprised Sabrina. There was no fussier nor more elegant flower than the gardenia. The cloud of fragrance that now filled Villa Nirvana screamed Elena’s name. Her bridal bouquet and Sean’s boutonniere, both made of gardenias, probably still sat in the extra refrigerator in the downstairs storage room, never to be worn by either. The tiny white diamond-like faerie lights, which would have sparkled around the perimeter of the pool and the edges of the canopies above the tables, would never be lit. As much as Sabrina found Villa Nirvana ostentatious and vulgar, it made her sad to know the miniature replicas of it, which sat in the center of each table, with a candle inside ready to be lit, would remain dark.
What a waste of time and energy. There would be no wedding banquet, no wedding. Her staff sat at another table, unusually quiet. Guests Sabrina didn’t know were scattered at other tables. She recognized Paul Blanchard, the company CFO, sitting alone at one. He’d been the only person invited to stay overnight at Villa Nirvana after the rehearsal dinner that Sabrina had yet to meet.
“I’d prefer to wait in my room,” Gavin told Sergeant Detree, once again attempting to bypass her.
“I don’t care what you prefer, sir. This is the scene of a police investigation and must be treated as such,” Detree said. Gavin turned around and found a seat next to Paul Blanchard, rather than join the immediate family.
“At least let Sabrina get into some dry clothes and comb that mop of hair,” Henry said. He was always after Sabrina to tame her full head of shoulder-length curls. He had known her when her smooth hairstyle and chic clothes were provided by a television studio. Sabrina, on the other hand, loved that she no longer owned a hair dryer and that she dried her hair by driving with the windows open.
Detree agreed to let Sabrina change, but not inside the house or in the cabana, which had dressing rooms just for this purpose. Sabrina had to slip behind the rental jeeps and duck down for privacy as she threw on the generic black shift she wore to pick guests up at the ferry.
She returned to the table where Henry sat with Sean, Kate, Jack, and Heather.
“I’ve texted Neil to come over.” Henry leaned close to her ear as she sat down in one of those god-awful folding white chairs everyone thinks looks so darling in wedding pictures but is really like sitting on a sawhorse. She had tried to convince Elena to choose more comfortable chairs for the wedding, but the bride had preferred to make decisions based upon aesthetics.
Sean cocked his head in their direction. “Neil Perry? I did the same.”
“You texted Neil? Why? How do you know him?” Sabrina asked. She was occasionally uncomfortable with how little she really knew about the man many island friends considered her boyfriend, including her, at times. She had spent so much time denying her attraction to Neil that when she finally succumbed to his charm, his history seemed irrelevant. After several months of spending plenty of time together (mostly evenings after work when they would take a swim with Sabrina’s dog, Girlfriend, then share a meal and sometimes more), Sabrina had grown comfortable with Neil and their routine.
But just recently, he had grown somewhat distant, like the night before when she knew he had to fill in for one of the bartenders at Bar None, the beach bar he owned. She’d offered to bring home some of the leftover tapas from the rehearsal dinner. Just a few weeks before, Neil would have been eager to come sit on her porch after work, sipping a nightcap, munching on leftovers. But last night, he’d said he’d prefer just to go home to his place once he was done with his late shift. Just when she had let her guard down and begun to trust him, he seemed preoccupied, and it felt like he was retreating. Sabrina started to wonder if she was going to get dumped again.
“He was my lawyer in LA,” Sean said, as if Sabrina should know this.
“Is he coming?” Henry asked.
“I don’t know. I got his voicemail. I know he can’t actually practice law here, but I like and trust Neil. He’s got common sense, which is why I went to talk to him at Bar None last night. I thought maybe he could help me with the prenup problem,” Sean began to choke up. Kate reached over and took his hand.
“Isn’t he the one whose office building you bought when he wanted to leave town fast and move here?” Jack asked.
“Yeah, then we tore it down and made a bundle when we built a parking garage. I wish I’d gotten to talk to him last night. Maybe then none of this would have happened, but he had taken off to pick up some woman.”
He had taken off to pick up some woman? Sabrina had been right. He had been backing off. Why didn’t he just say he was no longer interested? She wasn’t one of those clingy women who couldn’t let go. Sabrina might have been caught off guard when she discovered her husband, Ben, had been cheating on her. But Ruth, the woman who had raised her, had taught her a few lessons about life and one of them was, “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Neil Perry would not get the opportunity to make a fool of her. He was now history. She had a full life and a business to run, which at this point was likely in trouble with the second suspicious death of a guest at one of her villas in just a few months. She needed to get her act together. She needed not to cry in front of these people.
Sabrina leaned over to speak to Henry privately.
“We need to do something about canceling the dinner from Zeus and the music.”
“We also need to find a place for the Keating family to stay. The other island hotels are already full with the other wedding guests,” Henry said.
Gavin strutted over to the table, holding out his smartphone. Looking directly at Jack Keating, he began reading from his phone.
“Keating Construction sadly announces the death of one of its most valuable employees, Elena Consuela Soto Rodriguez. Ms. Rodriguez appears to have drowned accidentally during a company event. The Keating family requests their privacy be respected during this difficult time.”
Gavin put his phone in his pocket while everyone sitting at the table gaped at him without speaking. Why would Gavin have written a statement at all, let alone one that was so misleading?
“Are you kidding?” Sean finally asked.
“Jack, please tell Gavin not to release any statement until we’ve all had a chance to discuss it. This is premature, inaccurate, and totally inappropriate,” Heather said.
“Too late. I’ve already released it. It’s called damage control. You have to take a situation like this by the balls or it will have you by yours. You should know that, Heather,” Gavin said.
“You are just compounding a family misfortune, Gavin. I can’t believe you’ve managed to make this terrible tragedy worse than any of us could imagine,” Kate said.
“Well, you don’t have to imagine it getting any worse now, Mother. Look who just walked through the door,” Heather said, pointing to a thin, blonde older woman dashing ahead of Lucy Detree, who was clearly trying to catch up with her.
“Who’s that?” Henry asked, but Sabrina had already guessed.
“That’s Anneka Lund Keating. My ex-wife,” Jack said, shaking his head.