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Sheriff Joe Ambourn and his two deputies were the first to arrive, followed by two ambulances that came screaming in. The EMTs tumbled out and, with barely a wasted motion, were down on their hands and knees, pulling equipment from their medical packs. Two of them started working on Jamie; two went to the aid of Celeste. Because Jamie appeared to be semi-conscious and was mumbling responses, Theodosia hurried over to where Celeste, pale and still, was being tended to.

“Priority one,” the first EMT said to his partner. Theodosia figured priority one must be code for a big bad problem as both EMTs worked feverishly on Celeste. They bagged her and started chest compressions, worked on her for a good ten minutes, but Celeste didn’t seem to be responding to anything they did. In fact, her lips were beginning to turn blue.

Drayton walked up behind a stunned Theodosia and said, “How is she doing?”

“Not good,” Theodosia said. Her own heart was thudding with worry, working overtime, and she wished she could magically imbue Celeste with some of her own precious energy.

Drayton took Theodosia’s arm and gently pulled her away. “Let them work on her while we check on Jamie,” he said. Drayton was managing to stay calm and unflappable even in the midst of a crisis.

They found Jamie lying flat on a gurney and in the process of being loaded into the back of one of the ambulances. Theodosia knew Jamie was alive, and maybe even kicking, by the sounds of his groans and hoarse mumbles.

“Jamie!” Theodosia called out. “Hang in there.”

Jamie lifted his head momentarily, moaned, “Uhh,” and then disappeared into the ambulance.

“How is he really?” Theodosia asked the EMT who’d loaded him.

“His breath sounds are decent, and his heart is strong,” said the EMT, a young man whose name tag read S. Griffin. “But his nose is broken, he’s sustained some serious cuts and abrasions, one very bad cut on his right hand, and there are possible skull and rib fractures. So the ER docs have to take a careful look at him.” Then the EMT vaulted into the ambulance, pulled the door closed, and they sped off, siren wailing, lights flashing.

“This is so awful,” Drayton said. “How can something like this happen?”

“Maybe it didn’t just happen,” Theodosia said.

Drayton turned his head sharply to stare at her. “Hmm?”

“This greenhouse tumbling down all by itself…seems very improbable to me.”

In the minutes since the collapse, the crowd around the greenhouse had grown considerably larger. Besides Sheriff Ambourn and his two deputies, there was a field investigator from the local ME’s office, Martha and Zach Hempel, one TV news van, the minister, two additional caterers, and various and assorted wedding guests. The guests had arrived for the festivities but were promptly shocked into silence when they found out what had happened and now wore appropriately stunned expressions on their faces.

And a partridge in a pear tree , Theodosia thought to herself. As well as a horse-drawn carriage, meant for the bride and groom’s send-off. She watched as the bewildered-looking driver, at seeing something amiss, suddenly reined in his big chestnut horse.

Worming her way through the crowd, Theodosia was shocked to see grim faces on the two EMTs who continued to labor over Celeste.

“Anything at all?” Theodosia said in a loud whisper. “Is she breathing? Is her heart still beating?”

Neither of the EMTs answered, but one of them managed an awkward grimace.

It was a nonanswer nobody wanted to hear. Sobs broke out as more guests arrived, and some began filming the chaos on their cell phones. Delaine was still running around, screaming like a tornado warning siren. And Martha Hempel had collapsed into tears.

When Theodosia finally saw Riley jump out of his blue BMW, she pushed her way through the crowd, now almost a swarm, and threw herself into his arms. “You came,” she said. It was almost a sob.

“Of course.” Riley was in control emotionally but looked tense. “Are you okay?”

“I am now,” Theodosia said. Pete Riley was, as always, an oasis of calm, even in a maelstrom of shock and uncertainty. As Theodosia pressed herself against him, she could feel his Glock 22 in its shoulder harness, and it made her feel…safe.

Pete Riley whispered to Theodosia as he kissed the top of her head. He was used to dealing with tragedy, adept at investigating homicides and serious crimes. At age thirty-seven, he was one of the up-and-coming detectives on Charleston’s police force, a tall, intense man with an aristocratic nose, high cheekbones, and cobalt blue eyes. Theodosia tended to call him Riley instead of Pete, and he called her Theo. It was what worked for them. And had for a couple of years now.

“I…I really am fine,” Theodosia said again. “But Celeste…” She made a feeble gesture toward the collapsed structure. “Half of that greenhouse crashed down on top of her, and we had to pull her out from underneath…so her prognosis isn’t good.”

“I’ve got two Crime Scene investigators on the way,” Riley said.

“Is this even your jurisdiction?”

“We’re on the far edge of Charleston Country, but yes.” Then Riley gripped her gently by the shoulders and said, “On the phone you said something about murder. Explain please.”

Theodosia swallowed hard and nodded.

“Tell me exactly what happened, tell me what you saw.”

“It’s more like what I heard,” Theodosia said. “This metallic rat-tat-tat ratcheting sound, as if some kind of chain had broken loose and was thrashing all around, smacking against metal, cracking glass. Then there was this awful end-of-the-world crash—shards of glass shattering and falling down, I guess—and we all rushed out to find the greenhouse almost totally collapsed.”

“On top of…”

“Jamie, the groom, and Celeste, the bridesmaid.” Theodosia stopped and swiveled her head, saw that the EMTs huddled over Celeste had suspended their lifesaving measures. “They’re not going to transport her to the hospital, are they?” she asked Riley.

Riley looked over, took in the situation, then gazed at her with soft, blue eyes. “I don’t know,” he said. “Probably not.”

Theodosia staggered a few steps away from him, suddenly aware that the sun was shining down and an undulating ocean of chrysanthemums and silver grasses were waving in the breeze. It was a perfectly beautiful day except for the fact that a young woman whom she’d said hello to an hour ago, a girl with dimples and emerald green eyes, who was bubbly, sweet, and upbeat, was now deceased.

Something deep inside Theodosia’s heart began to ache as she thought about the dead girl…

Celeste, her name is Celeste.

…who was being gently lifted onto a gurney.

The two EMTs raised the gurney up on scissored legs and slowly bumped it across the grass toward the back of their ambulance. Their faces were unreadable as they transported the sheet-covered body. The crowd of people suddenly grew hushed.

Then a gust of wind caught a corner of the flimsy white sheet and flipped it up.

Celeste’s lifeless body was turned to one side, and Theodosia caught a quick glimpse of a single dead eye. It was almost the exact same shade as the glass in the shattered greenhouse.

Theodosia turned away, wiped a tear, and squared her shoulders.

This isn’t the end. Not by a long shot.

* * *

Two Crime Scene investigators arrived, huddled with Riley, and immediately began exploring the greenhouse wreckage. Wearing rubber boots, gloves, and safety glasses, they poured through the ruined building, shot videotape, then set up portable lights and took still photos. While one investigator continued to poke through the shattered glass and sodden greenery, the other walked along the side of the greenhouse, looking down for…

What? Theodosia wondered. Looking for footprints, fibers, clues?

When Riley got the okay to enter what was left of the greenhouse, he went in, stepping carefully over shards of jagged glass and scattered piles of trampled ferns and broken orchids. Theodosia ignored his stringent advice to stay outside and gingerly followed him in.

“Sometimes glass panels can slip or glazing clips pop off, other times there’s structural failure,” Riley said as he studied what was left of the interior.

“Sometimes, yes,” Theodosia said. “But what about this time?”

Riley turned his gaze upward. “Just taking a cursory look at these overhead gears, I’d say it’s possible somebody fooled with the mechanism. Loosened it or set it on a hair trigger so whoever opened that door would cause the overhead windows to tilt sharply and come crashing down.”

“Is that easy to do?”

“I don’t know. I’m not a structural engineer.”

“But you think the collapse was caused by some one , not just the wind or the rainstorm we had a few nights ago?”

“I can’t say for sure, but it might have been rigged.”

“I saw that in a movie once,” Theodosia said. “Maybe The Hand That Rocks the Cradle .”

Riley dusted his hands together. “Well, there you go.”

* * *

Back outside, Delaine was jumping up and down and screaming at the owners of the flower farm.

“How could you let something like this happen ?” she shrilled as they cowered in front of her small but formidable presence. “This was outright neglect ! You people need to be held accountable!” She was a tiny, skinny, dark-haired wraith in a well-tailored pink suit.

“Everyone, please try to remain calm,” Sheriff Ambourn said, trying to insert himself between the two parties. The sheriff was a large man, well over six feet tall, with a friendly, hangdog face and sparse silver hair. Though his brown uniform still looked starched and pressed, the events of the day seemed to be wearing him down.

Bettina, who was still in shock over Celeste’s death and embarrassed by Delaine’s theatrics, saw Theodosia step out of the greenhouse and ran to her, practically flinging herself into Theodosia’s arms. “This is so awful,” she cried.

“Of course it is,” Theodosia soothed.

“It was an accident, a terrible accident,” Sheriff Ambourn intoned.

Theodosia gave a slight shake of her head, a gesture that was not missed by Bettina.

“You don’t think it was an accident?” Bettina whispered, her eyes suddenly large and questioning.

Theodosia gazed at the collapsed greenhouse and said, in a quiet voice, “It could have been deliberate.”

Bettina dug the heels of her hands into her eye sockets, rubbed hard, then took them away and blinked. “Deliberate?” she said. “You really think so?”

“We’re not sure of anything right now,” Riley said as he joined them. “And we won’t have any answers until there’s been a thorough investigation.” He put an arm around Bettina and led her over to where Reggie and another friend of Jamie’s were standing around, looking glum. “Take care of her, will you?”

The two men nodded.

“I’ve got to get to the hospital,” Bettina blubbered. “Jamie…”

“We’ll take you,” Reggie said.

Theodosia was keeping an eye on the Crime Scene techs. “If we’re not sure of anything right now, why are the Crime Scene investigators hunting around, looking for clues?” she asked.

Riley smiled at her. “Because it’s their job, that’s what they do.”

“Maybe we should do the same,” she said.

“I don’t think…,” Riley started to say. But Theodosia had already walked away from him and begun stalking the outside perimeter of the greenhouse, looking for whatever she could find.

When Riley hurried to join her, she was already pointing to a depression in the moss.

“Look,” she said. “I told you somebody snuck onto this property and fiddled with those overhead gears. Here’s where they hunkered down, biding their time.” She took a few more steps. “And here, it looks like footprints—well, heelprints, anyway—in the mud.” She continued on a few paces. “And over here the heelprints are spaced farther apart, probably from when he ran away.”

“We’ll have the Crime Scene techs shoot photos, make plaster casts, do the usual,” Riley said.

But Theodosia was upset and in no mood to settle for the usual.