Chapter Nine

 

By the time I reached the bottom of the garden, most of our wedding party had arrived.

I had taken the time to splash water on my face, comb my hair, and smear balm over my split lip. Maybe I didn’t look stylish, but I also didn’t look like I’d been hit by a train. I felt like I had, though. I did my best to hide it, plastering on a smile as I reached the bottom flagstone.

The opposing factions—er, John’s friends and family were standing on the opposite side of the garden from mine. Well, my friends. My family was not making an appearance until dinner. Which, frankly, was a relief.

I spotted John standing by the white arched trellis where we would exchange our vows on Sunday. He was speaking to a tall—nearly as tall as he—lean, dark-haired man. Military or maybe ex-military. I was beginning to know the type.

I went to join them. John smiled in welcome, and as usual, I felt that crooked little grin in the center of my heart. Like an arrow hitting a bull’s-eye. “Okay?” he asked.

“It is now.”

He started to speak, then settled for smoothing his hand over my back. Not the time nor the place. I got it.

The man beside John was smiling too, but his blue gaze was cool, considering, as he sized me up.

“This is Trace,” John said. “We served together. You’ve heard me speak of him.”

Trace Levine. They had been in the SEALs together. That much I did remember.

“Right. The Best Man,” I said.

“I keep telling him,” Trace said, and they smirked at each other.

“Very nice to meet you,” I said.

Trace’s grip was harder than it had to be, though not actually crushing. Pointed. Someone else not thrilled with John’s selection, but doing the necessary. I was starting to wonder if John and I were the only people genuinely thrilled by our marriage.

Actually, given the curious looks I was getting from pretty much everyone, I was starting to wonder if I was the only person genuinely thrilled by our marriage.

“What do you think?” John asked.

I blinked at him, then realized he was talking about the wedding preparations. I did a half turn, scanning what amounted to a small glade surrounded by a forest of overgrown and towering oleander bushes.

The white garden was John’s wedding gift to me. The work had been completed the day before. Silvery white flagstones ringed a wide border of ivory and white heirloom roses, cream and blush-edged peonies, and panicle hydrangeas. The beds were filled in with sweet-smelling lily of the valley, snowdrops, Queen Anne’s lace, fragrant white hyacinth, and choisya. Datura and angel’s trumpet vines climbed obelisks made from ornate reclaimed wrought iron. There were even a couple of faux gazing balls in silver and blue atop weathered pedestals. It was perfect in every detail. Made more perfect by the fact that John had chosen everything—plants and accents—himself.

(Which should have warned me he paid close attention to the little things.)

“It’s so beautiful.” I meant it. The garden, but even more, the thought behind it.

He studied the plantings in their mounds of dark, freshly turned soil. “It’ll be more beautiful once it all takes root.”

I nodded. Something in his look of quiet satisfaction put a lump in my throat.

“The chairs will be set up Saturday evening. And, in case this isn’t enough flowers for you, the floral arrangements will be delivered Sunday morning.”

“That will work.”

“First service is here at nine, followed by the wedding breakfast provided by your Great-aunt Coralie, then a little time to ourselves…” He winked at me, and I felt my face heat. “Then at four we have the second, formal service in your mother’s rose garden, immediately followed by the reception, which is hopefully more than picnic baskets and jugs of wine…”

“Don’t worry. Maman knows how things should be done.”

“Sure. She seems like a girl who loves to party.”

I swallowed a laugh.

John said, “After the reception, dancing and drinking until dawn at Chambers. Is that all correct?”

The battle plans were drawn up. We had our mission.

I smiled. “Yes. All that is perfect.”

“And then finally, hopefully, a lot more time to ourselves.”

“Hopefully, yes.” Assuming I wasn’t sitting in jail on murder charges. I didn’t say that, though.

“Which reminds me. Your…priest? Inés was asking if you’re bringing your own, er, broom to the service.”

“Yes. I am. I’ll speak to her.”

John grinned, though his expression was quizzical. “I won’t ask.”

I cleared my throat. “It’s a…a French thing.”

“Okay. And what about your friends over there dressed like they’re attending your funeral? Is that a French thing?” He nodded at the little knot of my black-clad attendants standing with their backs to the rest of the wedding party. In addition to Andi, who was supposed to act as my Best Woman, I had three of my closest friends taking part in the ceremony. Vaughn, Brianna, and I had been pals since the days of bubble spells and Krav Kids training at the Academy of the Sacred Art. Rex, I’d met shortly after college, and they were one of those people you instantly connected with.

“Yes.” I couldn’t help it. I hooked my arm around his neck, pulled him in, and kissed him. And then again. And then again. “Thank you,” I whispered. “John, thank you for all of this.”

For everything. For the garden, sure. For not caring that I was making some requests he clearly thought were peculiar. For not minding that no one but us seemed to want this marriage. For not even being scared off by the fact that I was the prime suspect in a murder investigation.

“Hey, hey.” John pulled back, smiling, a little surprised. “You don’t have to thank me. This is for both of us.”

“I know. I’m just…happy.”

“Happy, huh? You’re a very emotional guy, Cos. You know that?” Despite the teasing, his tone was tender and his eyes bright with emotion.

“I know. But I love you. So much.”

John saw the tears, opened his mouth, but a couple of the groomsmen gave catcalls, and he laughed, shaking his head at them. To me, he said, “We have to get through the hoopla, that’s all. When it’s us on our own, it’ll be okay.”

Was he trying to reassure me or himself?

Before I could respond, Nola bustled up.

John’s mother was, well, let’s say she was very different from my mother. Nola was a square and sturdy woman with an open disdain for all that she considered “frivolous.” One of those people born middle-aged and aggrieved. She did not wear makeup, and she sewed her own clothes. I’m not sure if she ever had a career beyond wife and mother, but her current occupation was dedicated widow and full-time martyr.

“Cosmo, I need a final answer. Is your father attending tonight’s dinner?”

“I—I’m not sure.”

“You can surely phone him and find out?”

You would think so, wouldn’t you? But my father was never one for being in the right place at the right time. In fact, the very idea of a right time and a right place offended him. Which was one of the many reasons he and my mother had not stayed together.

John said easily, “We can always squeeze in one more, Mamie.”

“Mamie” was his pet name for her. I didn’t understand the significance of it. I did understand that she adored John with every fiber of her being. That was the single thing I really liked about her. I was sorry she was so unhappy about our marriage. John didn’t see it, but I did. Then again, Nola was unhappy about many things. Unhappy that we were not getting married in the Catholic Church. Unhappy that John had not “outgrown” being gay. Unhappy that I was male, of French descent, and probably, in her view, the embodiment of all things frivolous. Unhappy that I was. At all.

“Your mother and her friend will be there? That’s for sure?” Nola persisted.

“Yes,” I said. “Maman and Phelon will be there. That’s for sure.”

“Though she’s not here now.”

It was tempting to answer, If she was here, you’d know it, lady. But I did not. Nola was going to be my belle-mère (now there was a misnomer), and I was determined to give her my respect even if love wasn’t in the cards.

John said, “You know she’s not, Mamie.”

I said, “Unfortunately, she had another engagement.”

My primary parental unit had declined to attend the rehearsal, though she was going to grace us at dinner—along with her current companion, Phelon Penn. Regardless of what Nola thought, my mother not being at the rehearsal was good news for all of us. The Duchess has never been good at keeping her feelings to herself. Anyway, since John and I were not planning to do any kind of parental hand-off during the ceremony, there was no need for either of our mothers to be at the rehearsal. Though of course nothing could have kept Nola away—it gave her such an excellent opportunity for practicing her burned-alive-at-the-stake look for Sunday.

Nola was not a woman who gave up easily. “It’s only that at a hundred dollars per plate, I hate for John to throw his money away on someone who isn’t going to be there.”

John said quietly, “Mother.”

I smiled, though it wasn’t easy. “I understand. If you’ll excuse me for one moment?”

I heard John’s deep tones and Nola’s wounded protest as I moved across the grass to speak to Vaughn, Brianna, and Rex.

“Hey, you made it.” I put my arms around Brianna’s and Vaughn’s waists, and kissed Brianna’s cheek.

“Did we have a choice?” Vaughn asked. He was only sort of joking. V. was short, slim, and fair. Both his hair and beard were styled in sharp geometric lines. He wore an onyx stud in his ear and a tiny silver ring in his left brow. But though he cultivated the look and manner of a fashionable villain, he was a good-natured goof.

Brianna—who, to her disgust, looks like pretty much every dark-haired teen witch on television—stared at me with wide eyes. “Sacrebleu, Cos. So it’s true? Seamus Reitherman was murdered?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

“They’re saying it was someone within the Craft.”

“Who says that?”

Bree shrugged. “Everyone. I don’t know where it started, but that’s what people are saying. Whispering.”

How would anyone know that? I was the only one who had seen those faint chalk marks—and I’d removed them. The only person I’d told had been my mother, and one thing the Duchess knows how to do is keep a secret.

Rex said, “You look like you’ve been brawling with the wedding planner.” Rex is older than the rest of us. Probably mid-thirties; they’re always vague about personal details. Tall, lanky, and brown, with a hawk-nose and shoulder-length Botticelli curls.

“What?” I remembered what, and automatically put a hand to my cut lip. “Oh. No. I, er, fainted.”

“Fainted!” Bree echoed.

V. said, “Did you suddenly realize who you were about to marry?”

“Oh, ha-ha.”

V. shrugged modestly.

Bree said, “How could the police possibly think you had anything to do with Seamus’s murder?”

“Well, for one thing I was there when they arrived.”

For the first time I wondered how the police had got there so fast. I hadn’t called them. I had seen no sign of any alarm system. Seamus’s phone had not been anywhere in sight. And all the businesses neighboring the Creaky Attic were closed tight for the night. I needed to ask John about that.

“But you’re marrying the police commissioner.”

“Are you marrying the police commissioner?” Rex asked, watching me.

“You’re here, aren’t you?”

Rex spread their hands peaceably.

“Why would you even go to his shop?” V. asked. “You guys were archenemies.”

What was with the archenemy thing? Kolchak had used the same idiotic term.

“We weren’t— I wasn’t— He asked me to come there after-hours. He said he had, um, something to show me.”

“And you fell for that?”

“What?” Rex asked. “What was he going to show you?”

“I…don’t know. He was dead when I arrived.”

Bree whispered, “I can’t believe it. Who would do such a thing? I mean, yes, Seamus could be a total warlock, but he wasn’t…he wasn’t someone you’d—I mean anyone—would kill.”

“Ciara,” V. said. “It’s always the wife.”

She frowned. “How would you know it’s always the wife?”

“I watch TV.”

Bree shook her head in disgust. She did not approve of television viewing. “Not that I would blame Ciara, because Seamus would tap anything breathing.”

“He used to bully you in school,” V. said to me.

This is the problem with friends who’ve known you since childhood. They remember all the stuff you want forgotten.

“Yeah, sort of, but that was a million years ago. It’s not like I was holding a grudge.”

“Did he bully you?” Rex asked.

V. answered. “Yep. Once he pushed Cos in the school swimming pool, even though he was three years ahead of us and knew Cos was afraid of water and couldn’t swim because his cousin Waite had tried to drown him when he was five.”

“You know what,” I said. “It’s going to be way better if none of you ever mention any of this again. Especially not in front of…” It occurred to me that Sergeant Bergamasco was not present. He was supposed to be one of John’s groomsmen.

But maybe he was too busy trying to wrap a noose around my neck to attend the wedding rehearsal.

“If you want to solve this, you have to look at it from every angle,” V. said.

“If I want to solve this? I’m not trying to solve it. I’m not a detective.”

“No, but you’re going to be a prison inmate if you leave it to the police.” V. added, “At least according to the news.”

Bree gasped.

Rex said, “It does sound like you’re the only suspect.”

Not according to John, but maybe John wasn’t telling me everything. Maybe John didn’t know everything. I glanced across the lawn to see him standing with his groomsmen. They formed a wall of brawny ex-military types in jeans and polos or shorts and Hawaiian shirts—accessorized by Ray Bans, huaraches, and too much machismo. John didn’t look particularly worried. In fact, they were all laughing and talking and elbowing each other like friendly elk before rutting season began.

“I’m not the only suspect.”

V. said, “It doesn’t matter. If this murder was done by someone within the Craft, the police will never catch her.”

“Her?” Bree said.

“Like I said, my money’s on Ciara. Those Celtic witches are very hot-tempered. If I were you—”

Rex said, “Sleuthing is not a job for amateurs.”

“Well, we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it,” I said with determined cheerfulness. I tried to change the subject. “So…no Andi?”

“Nope.”

My heart sank. I’d been too distracted to phone Andi back, and she probably didn’t realize the wedding was still on. It seemed a million years since I’d discovered she had used a love spell on John, and although I remained heartsick, my anger at her had faded. I mean, yes, Andi had her faults, but so far she hadn’t tried to drown me or drop a piano on me.

My efforts to move the conversation from hard feelings and homicide did not succeed. Rex returned once more to the scene of the crime. “Does John think you had something to do with Reitherman’s murder?”

“Of course not.”

Now that they mentioned it, I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. I assumed John knew I was innocent. He seemed to take it for granted I was innocent. Was that chivalry or genuine confidence?

“Will the Society get involved?’ Rex asked. Rex was not Abracadantès, and like many within the Craft but outside la Société, took a cynical view of their long-standing domination of Craft hierarchy.

I said, “It’s hard to see how they wouldn’t.”

“Is that going to be a problem for you?”

V. snorted. “His mother is next in line to the Crone. He’s going to be Witch King one day. I doubt it.”

“The hell,” I said, glaring at him.

At V.’s words, Brianna caught her breath and twisted her fingers in a swift avert spell. “Remember where you are,” she hissed at him.

Vaughn reddened, but said, “No one’s paying any attention to us. They think we’re Cosmo’s weird friends.”

“Exactly!”

He hissed back at her, “Anyway, the point is, if la Société is letting him marry a mortal, they’re not going to object to his knocking off a warlock like Reitherman!”

“Let me marry? Anyway, I’m not going to be— You know I’ve rejected all that. I’m out of practice and have been for years.”

Brianna said, “You’re still Craft, Cos.”

“And you’re still practicing,” Rex said. “Maybe not officially, but you’re practicing, all right. That’s a given. You could more easily stop breathing.” They hesitated. “Will the Society investigate?”

What was Rex’s fascination with this? What did they care what the Society did or didn’t do? Why couldn’t they drop it?

“I don’t know. I don’t know how it will work.”

“You would have to have more motive than some childhood grudge.”

“It’s because of the mirror,” Brianna explained. “Cosmo’s great-great-great uncle is imprisoned in an antique mirror Reitherman tried to steal.”

“You guys—” To my alarm, I spotted Nola trekking our way with her perennial look of determination. I said urgently, “Can we please, please, continue this later?”

“You may not have a later,” Rex said.

It didn’t really register because at the same moment, Bree looked past me and said, “Here’s Andi!”

Relieved, I turned to see Andi half jogging down the steep flagstone walk. She was wearing some kind of floaty, flowery gray and white dress, but despite the high heels, she was fast and agile as a mountain goat—until V. whistled to her.

Andi’s head jerked up, and to my horror, I saw her misstep. Her heel caught on one of the flagstones, and she pitched forward. Three of us put our hands out to stop her fall—and three of us froze, remembering we were among mortals.

Rescue came from an unexpected direction.

John’s best man, Trace, seemed to leap across the grass, landing at the bottom of the steps in time to catch her. There was a universal gasp of relief from the watching crowd as he swooped her up as though trying out for the lead role in a Hallmark movie.

Trace asked her something, and Andi blinked up at him, looking confused and flustered.

Trace set her on her feet. He was smiling down at her—and Andi, looking pinker and more and more like one of her own confections—seemed to be assuring him she was perfectly fine.

I glanced away and happened to catch Rex’s gaze. Rex was staring at me, and although their expression instantly rearranged itself into its normal bland friendliness, for a split-second I thought they looked horror-stricken.