“You think that’s funny?” Bess asked. She looked ready to jump on Tucker herself. “That knife scared Charlotte half to death!”
Tucker cleared his throat and quickly wiped the smirk off his face. “No, of course not. It’s just . . . Parker, man. You’ve got to see it from my perspective. Ever since I met you, you were the golden boy. Everything always goes your way. I guess . . . it was just kind of satisfying, just for a second, to see that I’m not the only one who gets dealt a bad hand.”
“So you did do it!” Parker snarled. “You planted that knife and stole the wedding rings!”
Tucker snorted. “Wait—what? The wedding rings are missing? I had no idea. . . .” Suddenly the reality of this confrontation seemed to dawn on Tucker, and his face paled. “Hold on a second. I may have enjoyed seeing you struggle at the dinner, but no way would I ever steal the wedding rings just to mess you up, Parker. Seriously, you’ve got to believe me!”
Parker’s jaw was knotted with tension, but I could tell his resolve was cracking. Tucker did seem genuine . . . but if he wasn’t our man, who was?
I had a few more questions for Tucker, but before I could continue, I heard a small voice behind me. “The rings . . . are gone?” it said. I whirled around to see Charlotte standing in the open doorway, wearing a blue cotton dress, her makeup done and her hair styled in an elaborate updo and fastened to her head with pearl-encrusted combs. She looked beautiful, but her face was a mask of horror.
“Sweetheart!” Parker exclaimed, and dashed to her side. “What are you doing here? I thought you were still with the stylist!”
“I . . . she finished up early, and I came looking for you. I heard you shouting over here and came to see what was the matter. I heard you say that the rings were stolen. Is this true?”
Parker looked pained. He hesitated for a moment before speaking. “It’s true. It happened last night. I didn’t want to upset you any more than you already were, so Nancy, George, Bess, and I decided to keep it to ourselves—we were hoping to find them before you needed to know.”
“But you haven’t,” Charlotte said. Unlike the other times when bad things had happened, Charlotte seemed eerily calm, as if she had had been preparing herself for something like this. “Well, that’s it then. We’ll have to call off the wedding.”
“No!” Parker said. “It’s not too late—we still have time. Right, Nancy?”
I was about to say something when a strange aroma struck my senses. It was a fresh, pleasant scent—a little citrusy, and more than a little familiar. Why hadn’t I smelled it before now? What in the room had changed since I first walked into it?
I walked a few steps closer to Charlotte, and the scent intensified. Something in my mind clicked. “Charlotte,” I said. “Are you wearing perfume again?”
Charlotte looked perplexed at this turn in the conversation. “Um, yes. It’s the same one I was wearing when we first met. Is it bothering you?”
“No, not at all,” I continued. “What kind of perfume is it?”
“It was actually a gift from my sister,” Charlotte answered. “It’s her favorite fragrance—she wears it all the time. It’s a combination of cucumber and grapefruit, I think. I always thought it smelled like cleaning spray, but what do I know about perfume—Nancy, what’s wrong?”
“Nothing, nothing at all,” I said, but my heart was hammering. All this time, and I had overlooked something that was staring me in the face. But Parker was right, it wasn’t too late to fix this. I turned to Tucker. “I’m sorry about all of this,” I said. “If you want to blame someone, blame me, not Parker.”
Parker looked surprised, as did George and Bess. “But Nancy,” George muttered, “he was our top suspect. If Tucker didn’t do it, do you have some idea of who did?”
“I do,” I said. “And I’m about to go find out if I’m right.”
I left George and Bess behind with the bride and groom—the conversation I was about to have needed to be done delicately, so it was better I go in there alone.
I knocked on the door down the hall from Tucker’s room. There was the sound of movement inside, and a moment later the door opened wide.
“Why, Nancy,” Piper said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”
“I just wanted to ask you about something,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Can I come in?”
Piper smiled, but there was something different about her face. The smile seemed strained, and her eyes were a little red and puffy, as if she’d been crying. “Of course!” she said.
I walked into the room after her, taking in my surroundings as I did. Piper always had a pristine look about her—her hair always perfectly styled, her clothes crisply pressed, her makeup immaculate. Given all that, the state of her room was a bit of a surprise. Clothes were strewn across the bed in messy heaps, and the dresser was covered with the contents of Piper’s purse and piled-up plates and glasses from room service. And despite the fact that the wedding was set to start soon, Piper’s maid of honor gown was still hanging up on the bathroom door.
Piper saw my eyes ranging over the chaos of the room and looked apologetic. “Sorry about the mess,” she said, still trying to sound cheerful. “Things have been a little hectic around here with all the pre-wedding excitement!” She brushed a pile of crumpled papers into the garbage bin, which I noticed was already full of wadded-up tissues, smeared with mascara.
“Are you all right, Piper?” I asked. “Is there something on your mind you want to talk about?”
Piper looked at me with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. “Me? No, I’m fine, of course! Why wouldn’t I be?”
I gestured at the garbage bin. “It looks to me like you’ve been doing a lot of crying.”
Piper glanced at the garbage bin as if it had betrayed her somehow. “Oh,” she stammered. “Well, it’s just an emotional time, you know. My little sister is getting married. I still can’t believe it’s really happening.”
“Well, the way things are going, it might not be happening after all,” I said, my voice level.
Piper swallowed hard and looked at me with apprehension. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“The wedding rings were stolen last night,” I said.
I watched Piper’s expression as I gave her the news. Unlike Tucker, her initial reaction wasn’t shock. It was fear.
“Oh, I—that’s terrible!” she said. “What are they going to do?”
“Nothing,” I replied simply. “Because you’re going to give them back.”
Now Piper looked shocked. “M-m-me?!” she stammered. “Nancy, how could you say such a thing? What makes you think I would steal the wedding rings?”
“A lot of things, actually,” I said. “In fact, I’m kicking myself for not seeing it sooner. All this time I was looking for someone who wanted to stop this wedding—someone who felt that ‘it should have been me,’ just like the message on the knife said. Alicia and Tucker both had reasons for being envious of Charlotte and Parker, and they always say that it’s the people closest to the victim who are the likeliest suspects.” I paused and looked meaningfully at Piper. “I guess I wasn’t looking close enough. Bess had told me you were always the sister in the spotlight—the fashion model, the popular, charming girl of every boy’s dreams. Nothing like Charlotte. So I can imagine what it must have felt like to find out that your bookish, shy younger sister was getting married before you. And to a famous, handsome news anchor, no less! It stung, didn’t it?”
Piper’s lower lip began to tremble, and a moment later, she crumpled into a wicker chair. “You have no idea,” she whimpered. “I tried to hide my feelings, tried to be happy for her when she told me about the engagement. But all I could think of was all those boyfriends who never saw past my looks to notice that there’s an actual person behind the makeup and nice hair. All those years, when I was crowned prom queen in high school, when I’d daydream of my fairy-tale wedding—only to have my little sister, who never cared about anything except what
she read in those dusty old books, to get it before me. You’re darned right it stung! And Charlotte didn’t even realize what she had. She was all worried about how it all might interfere with her studies. Can you believe that? I dreaded this wedding, but I couldn’t allow anyone to know it. I only let my emotions out when no one was around, like when I was waiting in the Charleston airport for my ride to the inn. That’s when I met Morgan.”
I cocked my head, confused. “You only met Morgan a few days ago? But I thought you two had been dating for a while now.”
Piper chuckled humorlessly. “Another lie. He sat next to me while I was waiting, and we started to chat. I told him how I was going to my sister’s wedding alone, and he offered to be my date.”
I raised my eyebrows. “Just like that?”
Piper shrugged. “He was handsome. It was romantic. You know how it is.”
I blinked. I didn’t really know how it was.
“Anyway, I told him the whole sob story, and he kind of gave me the idea to do these pranks—just a little revenge to get back at my sister. It was exciting—I had fun wrapping that gift for her, let me tell you!”
“A little too much fun,” I said. “Getting your perfume all over the box is what gave you away. I smelled it when we met Charlotte on that first day; she had it on even though she told us she normally doesn’t wear perfume. I didn’t put two and two together right away when I smelled it again on the gift box, but the third time’s a charm. Charlotte had it on again just now, and when I asked her about it, she told me you’d given it to her. Your favorite fragrance.”
Piper shifted uncomfortably in her seat. “Guilty as charged. I usually give the gift-wrapping a little spritz as a final touch—I guess I should have skipped that step this time. Some habits are hard to break.” She sighed. “Like I said, I got so into the fun of the pranking, I forgot that I was really hurting people. But once I saw the look of horror on Charlotte’s face when she opened the box at the dinner, I—I lost my taste for revenge.”
I crossed my arms. “I’m sorry you haven’t found the romance you’ve been searching for. But that’s not Charlotte’s fault. You had no right to take out your anger on her during such an important event in her life.”
She looked up at me, a desperate look on her face. “I know. I know . . . I’ve been awful. You have to believe me, Nancy! I love my sister. I don’t know what came over me, but I’m done with it now. I just hope it’s not too late to make things right.”
“It isn’t too late,” I said. “Just give me back the wedding rings, and Charlotte’s big day will be saved!”
“I would!” Piper replied. “But there’s just one problem. . . .”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“I don’t have them.”
My heart plummeted. “Then who does?” I asked. Suddenly, I heard the door open behind me.
“Well, well, well,” came a low voice behind me. “Just the two ladies I wanted to see.”
I whirled around to see Morgan standing in the doorway.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Bachelor Did It!
MORGAN. THE MOMENT I LAID eyes on his smug, cunning face, certain pieces of this puzzle began to fall into place.
Piper rushed up to him, wringing her elegant, manicured hands. “Listen to me,” she said, desperation in her voice. “Nancy knows. About everything. Please, I keep telling you, I don’t want to do this anymore! I let my jealousy get the best of me. Just give the rings back, and the wedding can go on—we can pretend none of this ever happened. It’s not too late!”
Morgan looked at Piper like he felt sorry for her. “Oh, you poor little thing,” he said. “Of course it’s too late.” And with that, he turned around and shut the door behind him. I heard the sharp click of the dead bolt, and suddenly my pulse quickened.
“Open the door,” I said, trying to keep my voice even.
Morgan chuckled. “Mrs. Hill was right about you, Nancy,” he said, facing me. “You were bad luck from the start. Sticking your nose where it doesn’t belong, messing with other people’s business. I was fully prepared to handle this one”—he gestured at Piper—“if she became unmanageable, but now I have to deal with both of you.” He tsked and shook his head. “This con has turned out to be more trouble than it was worth.”
Aha. Another piece of the puzzle fit into place.
“Con?” Piper exclaimed, confused. “What do you mean, con? I thought you were doing all this for me!”
“I hate to say this,” I said to Piper. “But I don’t think this was ever about you.” I turned to Morgan. “Isn’t that right, Mr. Salazar?”
Morgan raised his eyebrows. “Impressive,” he said. “Where did you hear that name? It’s not my real one, by the way.”
“Annabelle, the maid, seemed to recognize you when she saw you that first day. At first I thought it was nothing, but then when I was looking for John William, Annabelle mistakenly thought I was after someone named Mr. Salazar. Someone she expected people to come looking for—as if she knew from personal experience that he was trouble. As there’s no one else in the bridal party or immediate family with that name, it had to be you. Which tells me that you must have some kind of reputation around here. A con man. My guess is: you were at the airport looking for an easy target, and you found Piper. Rich, beautiful, troubled . . . and offering you a free ticket into Charleston’s wedding of the year. Perfect.”
“What can I say?” Morgan replied. “Guilty as charged.”
Piper looked mortified. “So . . . so . . . you, and me, and everything—it was all a lie?”
The conman shrugged. “Sorry, honey,” he said. “Love hurts, I guess. Anyway, you got to see your nerdy sister and that pretty-boy TV anchor cringe. That’s what you wanted, isn’t it? You couldn’t have pulled off any of those stunts without me. So my side of the deal was these little sparklers.” Morgan pulled a box out of his pocket and opened it to reveal two rings nestled inside. The bride’s was a delicate circlet, encrusted with at least a dozen tiny diamonds that twinkled in the sunshine; the groom’s was a thick gold band, covered with whispery engravings of whorls and curlicues. By the look of them, they were definitely worth a small fortune.
Morgan saw me staring at them and grinned. “Not bad, eh? Once I found out that Piper was the sister of the girl marrying into the Hill family, I knew I had to get myself invited to this wedding. Everyone in Charleston knows that these rings are worth a pretty penny, thanks to all the news coverage this event received. I just had to bide my time until I got the chance to get my hands on them.”
That brought me to another part of this mystery. “The man who caught John William using the secret passages—that wasn’t Tucker Matthews, was it? It was you.”
“Right again!” Morgan said with a nod. “I hadn’t really figured out my angle that first night, but when I saw that creep sneaking around in a costume and scaring people—well, it was the perfect opportunity for me. Everyone was so excited about haunted this and haunted that, they hardly even noticed when little things started to go missing. They just thought it was the ghost. And once I saw that Parker was still at Indigo Blue after the rehearsal, I knew it was the perfect time to snatch the rings.”
Piper lowered herself into a chair, her face drained of hope. “Poor Charlotte,” she murmured, as if the reality of everything that had happened had finally sunk in. “What have I done?” She put her head in her hands and began to cry.
A look of concern crossed Morgan’s face, and he walked over to the minibar and poured some water into a glass. He handed it to Piper, who looked up at him with mascara-stained cheeks and grasped it gratefully. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, honey,” he said. “But I can’t change what I am.” Piper sucked in a shuddering breath and drank the entire glass of water in one gulp.
I glanced back at the door. It was a good eight feet away from where I was standing, but Morgan was focused on Piper for the moment and had his back to me. If there was any chance for me to
get out of here, it was now.
I darted toward the door and scrambled to unlock the dead bolt, but just before I could grasp the doorknob, I felt two strong arms wrap around my waist and wrench me away from the door. Morgan whipped around and tossed me roughly to the floor. Luckily, the room was carpeted, so the landing just stung my arms and back but didn’t knock me out cold.
“Not so fast, Nancy,” Morgan growled, standing over me. “I can’t have you telling all my secrets, now can I?”
I got to my feet as quickly as I could, trying to reassess my situation. I looked over at Piper and gasped. She was slumped over in the chair, her head lolling limply to the side, her eyes half-closed. “What did you do to her?” I demanded.
“Oh, don’t worry,” Morgan replied, pushing a lock of silky hair back into place. “I just put a little something in her drink to make her sleep for a while. You can’t very well expect me to wrangle both of you at the same time—that would be extremely troublesome. Now, enough of these games; it’s time to go.”
Before I could think of another way out, Morgan had lunged at me, grabbing one of my arms and twisting it behind my back. I struggled, driving the heel of my foot hard into his knee, but not before he had slipped a pair of plastic zip-tie handcuffs around my wrists and tied a handkerchief around my mouth, muffling my screams. He stumbled back in pain, but still managed to keep a hold on my arm. “Nice try,” he said through gritted teeth. “But you’re not getting away that easily. I need time to get these rings to a buyer, collect my money, and disappear before you’re going anywhere.”
Where does he think he’s taking us, anyway? I wondered. We’re in a locked room. He can’t possibly think he can get out of here without getting caught. But even as I thought it, my stomach turned over. I knew exactly what Morgan had in mind, and it wasn’t good.
Sure enough, Morgan walked over to the back wall of the room and removed a hanging tapestry from its place. He depressed an almost invisible button in the wall behind it, and a panel opened up to reveal the secret passage within, just as it had in my own room. “That panel into the owner’s office leads right to a back door to the parking lot,” Morgan said. “I’ll just pop you in the trunk and come back for the little lady there”—he tilted his chin toward Piper—“and we’ll be good to go. It’s not a pretty plan, but it will have to do.” With a grand gesture, Morgan swept his arm toward the dark hallway and said, “After you.”