Page 5 of Wedding Cake Carnage
“What the hell happened?” Noah takes a few steps out toward Ivy and gets a look at the grisly scene. Ivy checks Jana’s vitals before shaking her head our way. “Everybody back,” he shouts as a crowd begins to build. “Lottie, don’t move.”
Half the people here gasp my way as if I were the killer. Noah puts a call in on his phone before making his way over to me again.
“I need to get you out of here,” he pants, trying to catch his breath.
“What? Don’t worry about me. Worry about poor Jana. Is she really dead?”
“Yes, Lottie, she’s gone.” His eyes are darting every which way as if he were looking for anything suspicious he could find in the crowd. “I need to get you home, to Honey Hollow. I don’t want you hanging around the convention center anymore.”
“Well, I suppose the convention is over. I’ll head in and start boxing up my things.”
“No.” His voice is a touch too loud, a touch too controlling for my liking.
“Noah? What’s gotten into you? I’ll be less than a second. Keelie is in there. My mother and sisters are, too. I can’t just leave and hope for the best.”
“Look, I get it.” He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment. The searing sun bears down on us a bit too hard, and suddenly I’d do anything to be back in that air-conditioned building. Killer be damned. “Lottie, I found something on your table. A black paper heart.”
“What?” I shriek. “Is that what you were diving to get? Where is it? Can I see it? Oh my God, does that mean she’s here?”
“I’m afraid so.” He pulls out his phone. “I put the evidence in a plastic bag and it’s safe in my glove compartment, but I took a picture.”
I lean into the screen, and sure enough there’s a black paper heart, the exact same shape and size as the one Everett found on his windshield and the one on my desk that readhe’s mine.
“What does that say?” I expand the screen until the white printing is legible. “He’s happy now.” An explosion of acid rips through my stomach. “Oh my God, she’s completely nuts. Why would she do this? Why would she bother coming here and leaving this for me?”
“I think she’s hoping you’ll call off the search. Either that or she’s gloating. I can promise you one thing—he’s not happy. He is certainly not willing to be wherever it is she has him. And I hope to God she hasn’t hurt him. Everett’s a big guy. It would take a lot for an average-sized woman to restrain him.”
“Hurt him?” The ground sways beneath me as I look to the deputies cordoning off the area with bright yellow caution tape. “Do you think she killed Jana?”
“At this point, I suppose anything is possible. But no, I don’t have any evidence that points in that direction. Let’s get you inside, Lottie. I need to help you get your things so we can get you on your way to Honey Hollow. If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask Keelie or one of your sisters to stay with you until I get home.”
“To what? Babysit me? No thank you.”
Noah tips his head to mine, his eyes pleading for me to understand.
“Fine.”
We head back into the convention center where the cool air does little to settle my jumbled nerves.
Lily and Keelie are holding themselves at the booth as the entire cavernous room seems to be aflutter.
Mom and Carlotta dart our way, looking every bit frantic.
“Is it true, Lottie?” Mom’s blue eyes are twice their size. My mother is gorgeous and looks far younger than her true age should ever allow. She has a propensity to dress to the latest fashioned trends and keeps her hair shoulder length and dyed a fresh shade of butter yellow.
Carlotta, my biological mother, looks exactly like my twin with the same caramel-colored waves and hazel green eyes. Just add a few wrinkles and a handful of gray hair, and I know exactly what I’ll look like in the future if I abstain from sunscreen and indulge in one too many worries.
“Yes, it’s true.” I bite down over my lip, suddenly wondering if we’re pondering the same truths.
“Oh, thank God.” My mother slaps her chest and bucks with all the drama she can afford. “Where did they find him? Is he here? Oh, we’ll have him over for dinner tomorrow night just in time for our Nash Bash.”
The Nash Bash is what she’s dubbed the little meet and greet she’s conducting between my newly found biological father and his children and me. I’ve known Mayor Nash all my life, and I happened to like his ex-wife Chrissy a whole lot more than I do him. Harry Nash is nothing but a notorious two-timer. And unfortunately for me, he’s digging his two-timing claws into my mother as well. I’m secretly hoping she’ll be put off by the idea of dating the person who was revealed to be my DNA donor. But according to that grin blooming on her face, it’s the farthest thing from the truth.
“Mother, Everett is still missing,” I say as I scoop his picture off the front of the table. I can hear Noah behind me helping Lily and Keelie shove everything into coolers.
Carlotta snaps up a couple of plates with sample pieces before Lily can toss them into the trash.
“Oh hon, don’t you dare,” Carlotta scolds. “This is breakfast, lunch, and dinner for me.” She winks my way. “Bet you saw that hunk of burning love wandering around this place. Big blue eyes, shock of white hair, about three feet tall, six feet long.”