The Treasurable Moments Wedding Expo was the Disney World for brides-to-be, their mothers and mothers-in-law, maids of honor and bridesmaids, all the way down to flower girls, ring bearers, and even those who have their pets involved in the “Big Day.”
The Gary, Oregon, Convention Center’s main exhibit area was gigantic and arranged in rows divided into several categories. Of course, half the place was dedicated to wedding dresses. The bridesmaids and groomsmen were in a subcategory. Accessories were in a subcategory of that. Seamstresses showcased their finest alterations and transformations. Destination wedding and honeymoon planners were available to talk to. There were also photographers who boasted traditional wedding photography of brides in their white gowns and grooms in their tuxedoes, or who specialized in theme weddings, featuring photos of a wizard and sorceress tying the knot as well as a man and woman on their motorcycles with leather jackets and biker boots.
Amelia had attended the Restauranteur and Food Truck Expo before she had started The Pink Cupcake and had a great time talking with people and sampling their specialties. This was a whole other ball game, and she suddenly hoped her beautiful daughter would elope when she met her Prince Charming.
Along the back wall of the auditorium was where the organizers of the event had positioned all of the reception venues that every young bride would love to rent. There was a booth for Sebastian Castle, a huge facility that hosted not just weddings but fundraisers and charity events and thrilled the attendees by having them cross a moat to enter and boasted a taste of the Renaissance with every modern luxury.
Amelia also strolled pasts booths promoting traditional banquet halls, one-stop shops where you could get married, have dinner, and the reception all in the same place. The VFW had a small table that was packed with ladies, who were all saying, “I never even thought of this!” as they looked at the simple brochures that showed lovely rooms, big dance floors, and reasonable prices.
“You’re getting a lot of foot traffic,” Amelia said to the plump older lady at the VFW booth, who was wearing an American flag pin on her red blouse.
“We always do. The hall will be booked for almost the entire year after this show.” She winked. “People don’t always know what’s possible until you show it to them.”
“That’s true.” Amelia smiled and gave the woman a business card. “Maybe we could do some business together.”
“Do you make patriotic cupcakes?” the lady asked.
“I can,” Amelia said proudly.
“I’ll be in touch.” The woman raised Amelia’s card before stuffing it in her pocket.
If a little business could be drummed up, maybe this wouldn’t be a complete waste of time, Amelia thought. As she was nearing the end of the row, she finally spotted a booth for The Old Barn. How she could have possibly missed it was a mystery since it was like a miniature barn with balloons and props of hay and corn stalks.
Malcolm Wayne, the man who had grabbed Sondra Hope’s lifeless body was there and, much like Mr. Samuel Hope, didn’t seem to be all that bothered by the fact he held his boss’s dead body in his arms while blubbering inconsolably just two days prior.
He was a feast for the female eyes, though, Amelia had to admit. He was over six feet tall, and his shoulders were so broad he could probably carry a piano on his back without a problem. He was wearing expensive-looking slacks, a button-down shirt opened at the collar to reveal a single gold chain, and a thick, clunky wristwatch. He spoke softly but intently as he looked deeply into the eyes of every woman who had any question to ask him, making them feel like they were the only person in the room. The young brides fell for it hook, line, and sinker, Amelia could tell. Quite a few of the mothers also asked unnecessary questions in order to lean a little closer and inhale what Amelia imagined was very expensive cologne.
There was no way Amelia was going to be able to talk to him with all these women interrupting and tripping over themselves to chat with him. The idea of staying at this event until closing time made her heart sink. Even though she was a bride-to-be herself, none of this stuff made her feel giddy about her upcoming special day.
As much as she tried to get interested in the dresses and the flowers and all that stuff, she just couldn’t. She looked down at the beautiful ring Dan had proposed to her with and smiled. That was all she wanted. Simple and easy and none of this big ballooning, expensive stuff. Once she decided that, she looked back at the display for The Old Barn and saw Malcolm passing the torch on to a lovely young lady Amelia hadn’t seen on the day of the murder. Before he could get lost in the crowd, Amelia followed Malcolm.
He strutted like a prize peacock through the event. More than once, he looked over his shoulder to follow the gaze of a young woman who had passed him by. The guy was a hound. There wasn’t anything in a skirt over the age of eighteen and under the age of eighty that he didn’t check out. Amelia was sure that he had a list of very short criteria in his head that he held each woman to as they walked by. They had to be female. They had to have breasts. And everything else was ornamental.
The convention center was attached to the Merryman Hotel by a long walkway that stretched over the main thoroughfare. Amelia walked a few paces behind Malcolm and followed him up the escalators, through an atrium, and finally down the walkway that lead to the hotel lobby.
“Good afternoon, Mr. Wayne,” a pretty girl at the concierge desk said as Malcolm walked by.
“Hello, Amy,” Malcolm replied, giving her a lingering look before heading toward the elevator bank.
Amelia followed him and quickly opened her purse, tucked her chin down, and pretended to be searching for her key as she stepped into the elevator.
“Oh, where is it?” She huffed. “I know it’s in here.”
“Lose your key?” Malcolm asked, giving Amelia his most innocent smile.
“Why are they so easy to lose? I remember putting it in here.” She huffed then sighed and smiled back. Without hesitating, Malcolm swiped his card against the sensor under the row of buttons and pressed the nine for his floor.
“May I?” Amelia asked.
“Of course.” Malcolm swooped his arm across the panel of numbers. “Take your pick.”
“I’m on ten. Thank you,” she said, closing her purse.
“Are you here for the convention?” he asked pleasantly.
“Oh, you mean all that wedding stuff? No. I’m just staying here for a little R and R,” she lied. “Just looking to relieve some stress and have a good time. Leave the real world outside the door, you know?”
She felt sleazy and gross uttering these words, but Malcolm didn’t seem to notice. He smiled broadly and nodded. He really was good-looking, but there was a microscopic layer of sleaze on him that made Amelia’s insides recoil.
“I know exactly. My name is Malcolm,” he said as the elevator pinged, and the doors slid open on the ninth floor. “I’m in suite 909. In case you are looking for a place to have a good time.”
He stepped off the elevator and looked over his shoulder briefly before heading down the hallway. Amelia couldn’t believe her ears. Did these kinds of lines really work on women? Were these the kinds of lines Sondra Hope fell for? Amelia had to admit that she didn’t know who was worse: Samuel Hope or Malcolm Wayne. But before she had a chance to talk herself out of it, she stopped the doors from closing, peeked her head out, and called to Malcolm.
“Would you have a little time to talk?” She batted her eyelashes.
The smile on Malcolm’s handsome face was the same face Amelia had seen her son Adam make when she told him he could have a second slice of chocolate cake on his third birthday. This guy was nothing but a little boy in an oversized, finely chiseled body.
“But of course,” he said, swiping his card past the panel over the doorknob and holding the door open for Amelia.
Her heart was pounding as she walked up to him, adjusting the strap of her purse over her shoulder as she slinked into his room, praying no one saw this and got the wrong idea. It was bad enough that Malcolm had the wrong idea. As soon as she walked in, she remembered the words Samuel had said about having the finest suite at the hotel on Sondra’s dime.
The place was huge, with a dining room, a sitting area, a kitchenette, and she knew at both ends were the bedrooms. She was going nowhere near those.
“Can I get you something to drink? I know the bar is fully stocked,” Malcolm said as he shuffled over to the mini fridge in the kitchenette.
“No. Actually, I feel I have to come clean. I’ve seen you before,” Amelia said.
“Oh, really?” He smirked as if this was some kind of game to him. “Where?”
“At The Old Barn.” She cleared her throat. “Two days ago. When Sondra Hope fell onto the porch with those… uh… shears sticking out of her back.” She jerked her thumb over her shoulder then smirked at Malcolm. “That was a pretty dramatic performance you put on, holding onto her, crying and sobbing, carrying on.”
“Who are you?” Suddenly, he looked embarrassed and shocked.
“Amelia Harley,” she replied, her heart beating a mile a minute. “You were in the house with her. What could she have possibly done to make you so mad? Gardening shears?”
“What? I only heard her stagger out of the house. You can’t prove I did anything. I loved her. I would have done anything for her. We were a team. I’m devastated that she’s gone.” Malcolm sniffled, but there were no tears.
“That’s not what I heard.” Amelia wrinkled her nose. “Samuel Hope had quite a different take on it.”
“Oh, right. I should have known Sam put you up to this. He was just jealous.” Malcolm huffed before starting to pace back and forth.
“What would her husband have to be jealous of?” Amelia asked. “Let me guess. You had bigger biceps than him?”
“Very funny. I work hard to look the way I do. I don’t think I want to talk to you anymore,” Malcolm said, running his hand through his hair before stomping to the door like a boy who was just told “no” for the first time.
“Who is paying for this lovely suite?” Amelia asked. “No one knows about the murder yet, isn’t that right? It’s been kept from the press because of family connections. That probably means no one in the hotel would ask any questions about Sondra Hope’s credit card being used after she was already dead.”
Malcolm stopped, his head fell forward, and those big, broad shoulders folded inward.
“What do you want? Money? Because I don’t have anything.” He straightened stiffly and stared.
Amelia cringed. “No. Of course I don’t want any money.”
“I don’t have any money. This watch is a fake. I bought it from a guy in Chinatown,” Malcolm babbled. “And these shoes are from a thrift store in Lake County. I won’t shop anywhere around here or someone might recognize me and think I’m cheap.”
“There’s nothing wrong with being frugal,” Amelia muttered.
“And Sondra said I could use her credit card. She said whatever I needed, I could get. She didn’t say that it was only for work-related items. She should have said that if that was what she meant.” Malcolm continued to rattle off his sins. “Besides, she was getting what she wanted from me. And I wasn’t the only one. So if anything, I’m the real victim here.”
“Malcolm, the woman is dead. Murdered. Do you want to explain to me how you are the victim?” Amelia almost laughed, but the fact Malcolm saw himself this way was too infuriating. Not to mention how disappointing that behind all that muscle and thick hair was a whiny, spoiled little boy.
“Well, I have to live with this. With that horrible memory.” Once again, he pretended to wipe a tear from his eye. “You see, Sondra and I, well, we were having a relationship.”
There it was. Amelia narrowed her eyes and listened as Malcolm made every attempt to make their affair understandable, if not acceptable. He was talking to the wrong woman.
“Sam was jealous of her. It’s as simple as that. She made The Old Barn a success. He came along for the ride. And, in order to make her feel bad about herself, he flaunted all his girlfriends right in front of her. What would you expect her to do? Just sit back and take it?” Malcolm looked at Amelia for an answer. When she said nothing, he rolled his eyes. “Of course she wasn’t going to. She was going to beat him at his own game. So she hired me.” He tried to act confident again, but Amelia had already seen him fake cry, so any effort to look tough was useless.
“Now, I heard that Samuel still had feelings for her but that she wouldn’t reciprocate. That it was Sondra who flaunted her lovers around the place. And apparently, she had more than one.”
This news seemed to knock Malcolm off-balance. He looked to the side and then down at the floor as if he knew it were true but was trying to keep his alpha position.
“Malcolm, do you have any idea who would have done that to Sondra? You were the only one in the house,” Amelia said.
“I get it. You’re another one of those private investigators that Sam hired. Well, I have nothing to hide. And I’m not saying another word and you can’t make me.” He folded his arms like a spoiled child and harrumphed. Amelia nodded and adjusted her purse strap over her shoulder before heading toward the door.
“And I wasn’t the only one in the house. Rosa was there, snooping and lurking around like a spider,” Malcolm hissed.
“Who is Rosa?”
“Rosa the snitch. She always pretended to be on Sondra’s side. But I could tell by the way she looked around that she was out for herself. Her and Ronny.”
“Who’s Ronny?” Amelia was starting to get dizzy.
“Ronny? He’s the gardener. Those were his shears sticking out of Sondra’s back. Poor Sondra.” He sniffled.
“Oh, save it already,” Amelia snapped and stomped toward the door. She pushed Malcolm to the side and stormed out into the hallway, letting the door fall shut behind her with a clang and a click.
This was starting to sound like the script of some bad afternoon soap opera. The husband of the successful businesswoman is cheating, the successful businesswoman is also cheating, now the lover of the murdered wife is implicating the maid and the gardener? The only things missing were someone getting pregnant, someone else ending up in the hospital from a suspicious car accident, and a huge cocktail party where all the suspects would be in one room, nervously waiting to be exposed by the police chief, who just happens to show up.
When Amelia got back to the convention center, she thought she was drunk. “Never judge a book by its cover,” she muttered as she pushed her way through the sea of brides-to-be. Looking at wedding plans was the last thing she wanted to do.
“I love Dan,” she said to Christine over the phone as she walked to her car. “But I just can’t see myself putting together another scene like I did with John. It was bad luck the first time. I want things to be different with Dan.”
“You don’t think the fact that you may have just spent twenty minutes alone in a room with a murderer has anything to do with feeling stressed?” Christine asked, making Amelia laugh.
“Maybe you’re right.”
“Of course, I am.” Christine laughed right back. “Look, I’ll stop by the house and make sure the kids are fed, and no one is setting any fires or getting arrested. Why don’t you go do something you like? Just for yourself. A little pampering never hurt anyone. But going without pampering has been known to cause psychosis. If I hear either one of you say ‘shut up’ again, you are both going to get soap in your mouths! Don’t ‘but Mom’ me!”
“You are the best, Chris.” Amelia laughed.
“I’m glad someone knows it.” Christine chuckled before hanging up.
Normally, Amelia would take a suggestion like Christine’s and tuck it way in the back part of her mind and return to fretting about whatever it was she was fretting about. But this time was different. She decided to not only take her advice but take it as far as she could.