Page 20

Chapter Twenty

The kitchen was already bustling with servers prepping the wedding day breakfast. Even in such an expansive working kitchen—an unprecedented seven cooktops—the space was crowded. Kate could barely make it past the entrance, much less across the room to the wine cave stairs. But she wasn’t there for the wine cave—at least not yet. There had been several servers in the kitchen last night when she and Marla had snuck in, which meant if someone dragged an unconscious Kennedy Hempstead down the wine cave stairs, someone must have seen something. She just needed to grease the right wheels.

Kate posted herself at the door between the kitchen and the main entryway, where servers carried trays loaded with tantalizing piles of bacon, steaming eggs, and croissants so flaky and buttery they rustled in the faintest breeze. Kate snagged a few strips of bacon for emotional fortification before pouncing on a young man carrying a full tray of mimosas.

“You didn’t see anyone come through here with Kennedy Hempstead last night?” Kate asked, crunching down on the delicious strip.

“No ma’am,” he said, struggling under the weight and uneven distribution of glasses. “Nobody but staff back here last night. Ms. Hempstead—uh, the boss one, I mean—she’s got very strict rules about servers and guests mixing. She says it ‘muddies the waters.’ She even makes us stay in the old servant quarters, and she put an alarm on the door separating our rooms from the rest of the house so nobody gets tempted.”

That tracked with the Rebecca Hempstead she’d met at the rehearsal dinner. Kate didn’t mention that she’d been in the kitchen and nobody had spotted her, but she hadn’t been dragging an unconscious body. “Were you in here all night?”

“No ma’am, we were in and out of the ballroom, collecting plates and glasses. I’m sorry, I’ve really got to get this to the breakfast room.”

Kate questioned a few more servers as they passed through, but each one of them had the same frustratingly vague answer. Nobody had seen Kennedy, and nobody knew how she’d gotten down to the wine cave last night. She moved into the breakfast room for better access to the pastries, eyeing the guests as she entered.

The breakfast room looked more suited to a jazz club than a mimosa and pastry bar. The walls were the same dark wood that made up the rest of the house with panels of floor-to-ceiling stained-glass installations, the wan morning light casting pearlescent beams of light across the black- and-white-tiled floor.

“It just doesn’t make any sense,” Kate muttered as she swiped a fresh croissant.

“What doesn’t make any sense?” someone asked, startling her into dropping her treat. Marla stood behind her, holding a position Kate knew all too well.

“I take it you kept the party going after you left my room last night?” Kate said.

“Turns out Rebecca Hempstead’s wine selection is as cheap as she is, and gives you twice the hangover,” Marla said, pressing a hand to her head. “My entire kingdom for a decent cup of coffee and some buttered toast right now.”

“I got you,” Kate said, slipping away to the coffee stand. The smell alone perked her right up, and she glanced around for any sign of Jake before filling a second mug for herself. Kate was almost positive you couldn’t overdose on caffeine, but if anyone was going to find out that weekend it would be her. When she returned, Marla took a long, hot slurp without even wincing.

“Speaking of hangovers,” Marla said, eyeing Kate up and down. “What the hell are you wearing, Valentine? They look like erotic krakens.”

“I think they’re jellyfish,” Kate said. “Or a very creative take on mermen?”

“Why are you wearing that monstrosity, whatever the shellfish involved?”

“Oh, it’s my sleuthing sweater.”

Marla raised her brows. “What are you sleuthing?”

Kate glanced around at the wedding guests crowding into the breakfast room, lured by the heady scent of bacon and eggs. “Can you keep a secret?”

“No,” Marla snorted, chugging another swig of coffee. When Kate gave her an exasperated look, she shrugged. “Maybe? I’ll give it the old college try.”

Kate leaned in, dropping her voice dramatically. “Kennedy was poisoned last night.”

Marla choked on her coffee. “After that whole oyster business?”

Kate shook her head. “There was no oyster business. Somebody tried to poison her.”

Marla blinked, trying to process Kate’s bombshell. “What makes you think that?”

“I know it sounds crazy, but hear me out,” Kate said, running through the events of the previous evening, including finding the sliver of rosary pea and Kennedy’s missing necklace in the lining of her suitcase.

“Are you shitting me?” Marla asked. “You actually found Kennedy’s necklace in your stuff? How the hell could it end up there?”

“The killer must have planted it,” Kate said dismissively, as if this sort of thing happened all the time. “Don’t worry, I got rid of it.”

“Got rid of it?” Marla said. “Isn’t that thing worth, like, a small European country’s per capita? Please tell me you didn’t chuck it down a trash chute.”

“Don’t worry about the necklace,” Kate said. “The important thing is that someone on this island is a murderer. Or a would-be murderer. And I’m going to catch them.”

“Valentine.” Marla sighed, draining her coffee and surveying the grinds along the bottom of the cup critically. “I really need another, and you do, too. Maybe then you’ll start making sense.”

“I know how it sounds!” Kate whispered as they moved toward the coffeepot.

“It sounds like you’ve imagined one of your books is real,” Marla said dryly, filling her cup. “Are you sure this isn’t some kind of, I don’t know, weird coping mechanism because of Spencer and Kennedy? I mean, really? Murder at a wedding? Besides, Kennedy is fine, right? If somebody really wanted her dead, they didn’t do a great job of it, did they?”

“That’s the other part!” Kate exclaimed, drawing the attention of a nearby couple in the pastry line. She gave them a hasty smile, lowering her voice. “Someone tried to kill Kennedy again last night. In her room. They tried to smother her with a pillow.”

Marla’s eyes went wide. “How do you know that?”

“Kennedy told me. She thought it was a bad dream, but I know a murder attempt when I hear one. Whoever is after Kennedy won’t stop until they finish the job, unless I catch them first.”

“How do you plan to do that?”

“By discovering the evidence they left behind,” Kate said firmly. “I’m pretty sure the poison was dumped in Kennedy’s champagne glass, which was missing last night. We find the evidence, we find the killer.”

Marla nodded along slowly, far less enthusiastic about the prospect of a murder investigation than Jake had been. Kate felt that old, aching longing for Jake. The absence of him loomed large in her life, even when she tried her best to pretend she’d moved on. But she couldn’t help Kennedy by mooning over Jake.

“We need to find that evidence,” Kate said firmly.

“‘We’? As in you and me?”

“I can’t interrogate our suspects while also looking for missing shoes,” Kate said.

“What about the hotstralian, why isn’t he here helping you?”

“He’s… occupied,” Kate said uneasily. “Besides, it could be fun! This house has plenty of inspiration for your feminist fairy-tale reimaginings.”

“This house is a nightmare of the patriarchy, but you might have a point.” Marla looked at her in consideration. “Sneaking around looking for evidence does sound a hell of a lot more fun than talking to any of these blowhards about stocks or legacy enrollment or whatever it is rich people blather on about. Plus, you’re not exactly Brenda Leigh Johnson when it comes to getting info out of people. You’ll definitely need my help with these interrogations. Fine, I’m in. How do we find this so-called evidence?”

Finally, the chance to show Marla that her “little detective stories” might actually prove useful in the real world. Sure, Marla wasn’t as handsome or effortlessly charming or deliciously distracting as Jake, but that was probably a good thing, right? Now Kate could really focus in on the investigation itself.

Of course, that meant she needed to figure out how to actually find the evidence.

Kate glanced across the breakfast room, spotting the wedding photographer snapping pictures of the pastry tower and getting close-ups of the bubbles popping in the mimosas.

“Oooh, the photographer!” Kate exclaimed, licking the butter and bacon grease off her fingers. She didn’t exactly sound—or look—like the expert she was hoping Marla would see her as. She cleared her throat, tempering the excitement in her voice. “I mean, we should talk to the photographer. Maybe he caught something in the background of the rehearsal dinner.”

“Lead the way, Loretta,” Marla said.

“Hi there,” Kate said to the photographer as she approached him. She gave a friendly, disarming smile. “Are you the wedding photographer?”

The man looked at her and back at his camera. “It would look like I am, wouldn’t it?”

“I’m Kate,” she said, putting out a hand before realizing both of his still held the camera. She pulled it back, forcing her smile wider. “Kate Valentine. Nice to meet you.”

He gave her a bemused nod. “Louis. If you don’t mind, I’d like to get a couple more photos of the spread before the guests get to it. We’re not called More Than Memories because we skimp on the wedding day captures.”

“Great,” Kate said, her smile fading. “I was wondering if we could take a look at some of the photos from the rehearsal dinner. Particularly any photos you might have of the bride after the dinner? Anybody who might have been with her maybe?”

Louis paused in front of a silver tower of petit fours. “What?”

Marla gave Kate a frank look, as if to say see what I mean about Brenda Leigh? “The bride lost her heirloom necklace last night, and we’re trying to help her find it.”

“Oh yeah, that’s good,” Kate muttered. Who looked like the expert now? “I mean, that’s true.”

The photographer straightened up, holding out his camera. “Fine, but could we make it quick? I’ve still got the groom’s fitting and the bridal room prep to photograph. My partner was supposed to be here this morning but they can’t get here with the storm, so I need to be in two places at once.”

“We’ll be quick,” Kate promised, clicking through the gallery. There were the obligatory place-setting photos, a whole series of the bride’s and groom’s rings in various food dishes, the overloaded gift table. And then there it was, Kate knocking Kennedy into the same table, Kate looking deranged and Kennedy looking like the perfect victim.

“Not a great vibe for you, huh, Valentine?” Marla murmured over her shoulder. She leaned in closer for a better look, her frown deepening as she took in more of the disaster scene. Kate’s finger hovered over the delete button, her good sense warring with her sense of self-preservation. Before she could make up her mind one way or the other, Marla snuck a hand in and pressed her finger down, deleting the photo.

“Hey!” Louis exclaimed, jerking the camera away. “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Sorry!” Kate said hastily, holding up a hand. “My finger slipped. Bacon grease.”

“Happens to the best of us, doesn’t it, Louie?” Marla slapped him on the back, the faint whiff of clove cigarettes rising out of her oversize black sweater. She gave Kate a wink, as if to say you’re welcome. “I’m sure that wasn’t one of those precious memories the bride was looking for. What if we skip ahead to the end of the night, huh?”

“Fine,” Louis ground out, quickly scrolling through the rest of the rehearsal dinner.

There were photos of Kate running out after the speeches, but she could hardly claim an accident if she tried to delete those now. So, she let the photographer scroll until he reached a series of Kennedy posing with various sets of guests throughout the house. She still wore her necklace in each of the photos, though her face looked increasingly flushed throughout, her smile more strained. Kate clocked the time as it ticked by—11:30, 11:35, 11:42. Several guests flitted in and out of the background of each photo—a bright spot of Rebecca’s floral caftan, the back of Richie’s herringbone jacket, Serena’s fascinator marking the hour of the evening by how low it had slipped over her eye.

The last photo of Kennedy was a candid, in conversation with her bridesmaids as other guests moved past behind them. She looked terrible—sweaty and green, deep circles pressing in under her eyes. But she smiled bravely, where Kate would have already had her head in the toilet praying for the end. She was still wearing the necklace, but that wasn’t what snagged Kate’s attention in the background of the photo.

It was the cut-crystal champagne glass half hidden by skirts and bodies, held by a hand with bright purple nails that stood out even in the tiny viewfinder. Kate was sure if she looked at the photo on a computer screen she’d see the word Bride laser-etched into the side of the glass. And she was also sure that the hand holding the glass belonged to none other than Juliette Winters, smiling like a shark at the camera.