Dieter Schwarz
Dieter shoved Flicka into the middle seat of the SUV and clambered in after her. The driver pulled the car away from the curb before they were even settled and raced to get out of the parking garage. His feet slid out from under him, and he tumbled against the seat.
Parking garages always felt like a trap. So many places to snipe from and so few witnesses.
Flicka clutched her phone in her hand and squeezed it to power it on. He had seen her grab it off a table near the door as he had hustled her out, so they must have taken it away from her. She hadn’t been able to contact them with it while she was there if she had wanted to. The phone had been off, which explained why they hadn’t been able to trace it.
Dieter reached into his suit pocket, found his handkerchief, and gave it to her.
“Thanks,” she muttered, wiping the mascara smudges from under her eyes and down her cheeks. She wiped black smears off her hands and palms, too.
“Are you all right?” he asked.
“I just need to touch base with the event coordinators. I’m sure everything is fine.”
Dieter grabbed her hand, gently. He had known her since she had been a gangly twelve-year-old, when he had used to go home with Wulf for holidays while they had been in the military. “Are you all right?”
She looked up at him, her enormous, dark-green eyes widening further, and she turned her hand over in his and held on. She didn’t smile. If anything, it looked like she was swallowing a horrified scream.
She said, slowly, “I have to plan this wedding. Everything has to be perfect. Right now, I have to think about that and nothing else.”
Dieter had put together several things about Wulf’s life from the little that he had divulged, and every single conclusion he had reached about Wulf and Flicka’s father had been vile. “What did he tell you?”
“Nothing,” Flicka said, shaking off his hand and sitting back. “I have a wedding to pull off.” Her next glance up at him held glints of angry green fire. “Help me concentrate on this wedding.”
“You know that he has lied to Wulfram and many others, trying to create chaos and ruin this wedding and their lives together, right?” Saying it left a bitter taste in his mouth. “Anything that he said to you might have been a ploy to cause conflict at Wulfram’s wedding.”
“Yes,” she said, and her clumped, wet lashes blinked over her impossibly green eyes.
“Wulfram deserves a perfect wedding,” Dieter said.
“Yes,” she said, breathing more easily.
“How can I help?”
Flicka nodded quickly. “When we get to the hotel, get his clothes and we’ll go straight to the church. They’re in a garment bag in his closet, pressed and ready to go. Everything is in there, like a kit. Just grab the bag.”