Wedding Bell Blues

I’d been avoiding Mother’s calls for days.

She was anxious to finalize her plans for my elaborate wedding, and I’d hoped by putting her off that she would finally cease and desist.

Guilt prompted me to pick up the phone and face the consequences.

“Good morning, Mother. How are you?”

“I’m perfectly fine, but I was beginning to worry that you’d fallen off the face of the earth, Margaret. It’s a relief to know you’re alive and well.” Mother cloaked her sarcasm in such a soft, sweet tone it took a few seconds to realize I’d been zinged.

“Business is booming.”

“Not too booming for you to have lunch with your mother today, I hope?”

When she referred to herself in the third person, I knew I was in trouble, so I bit the bullet. “Of course not. Just the two of us?”

“There’s someone at the door,” Mother replied without responding to my question. “I’ll see you at noon.”

With a feeling of foreboding, I hung up the phone. I feared the wedding-planning trap had been sprung.

Charlotte Douglas

USA TODAY bestselling author Charlotte Douglas, a versatile writer who has produced over twenty-five books, including romance, suspense, Gothic, and even a Star Trek novel, has now created a mystery series featuring Maggie Skerritt, a witty and irreverent homicide detective in a small fictional town on Florida’s central west coast.

Douglas’s life has been as varied as her writings. Born in North Carolina and raised in Florida, she earned her degree in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and attended graduate school at the University of South Florida in Tampa. She has worked as an actor, a journalist and a church musician and taught English and speech at the secondary and college level for almost two decades. For several summers while newly married and still in college, she even manned a U.S. Forest Service lookout in northwest Montana with her husband.

Married to her high school sweetheart for over four decades, Douglas now writes full-time. With her husband and their two cairn terriers, she divides her year between their home on Florida’s central west coast—a place not unlike Pelican Bay—and their mountaintop retreat in the Great Smokies of North Carolina.

She enjoys hearing from readers, who can contact her at [e-mail].

Wedding Bell Blues

Charlotte Douglas

www.millsandboon.co.uk

From the Author

Dear Reader,

Welcome back to Pelican Bay! This month Maggie is inundated by all things bridal.

She and Bill Malcolm are hired to find a runaway bride and to provide security for a wedding reception. At the same time, Maggie struggles to convince her mother and sister that she doesn’t want them to plan for her “the biggest wedding Pelican Bay has ever seen.” But all is not beribboned bouquets and white lace as Maggie and Bill’s search for the missing bride-to-be turns into a full-blown murder investigation.

My mail has been filled with requests for Maggie and Bill to tie the knot. Will their marriage finally happen in Wedding Bell Blues? Or will commitment-shy Maggie balk again? Relax, smell the orange blossoms and enjoy Maggie’s latest adventure.

Happy reading!

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

CHAPTER 14

CHAPTER 15

CHAPTER 16

CHAPTER 17

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 19

CHAPTER 20

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 22

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER 1

“Good morning, Maggie—if you like this hot, sticky weather.” Darcy Wilkins, my secretary-receptionist and jill-of-all-trades, dropped the mail on my desk.

“Like it or not,” I said, “it’ll be this way for the next six months. Thank God for air-conditioning.”

Darcy handed me a jumbo French-vanilla latte from the bookstore coffee shop downstairs and settled on the sofa in my office. Cupping a mug of green tea in her capable dark hands, she propped her feet on the coffee table and waited for further instructions.

In the far corner of the sofa, Roger, the pug I’d inherited from a former client, slept undisturbed, his legs straight in the air in the dying cockroach position, head hanging backward over the cushion’s edge. His snuffling snore mixed with the rumble of traffic on Main Street one storey below where the morning rush could be heard, even through closed windows and above the hum of central cooling.

I sorted through the stack of envelopes and set aside the utility bills for Darcy to handle. My morning started going downhill at the sight of an oversize white linen envelope addressed to Miss Margaret Skerritt, Pelican Bay Investigations, Pelican Bay, Florida. In the same elegant script, the return address indicated the plump package was from Mrs. Philip Skerritt, my mother.

Knowing what I’d find, I slit the envelope and dumped its contents on my desktop with a sigh.

“June is busting out all over,” I said to Darcy, “and I’m running out of places to hide.”

She arched an eyebrow in question. Roger snored louder.

“Hide?” Darcy said with a hint of disbelief. “I wouldn’t think you, a tough ex-cop and Pelican Bay’s finest female private eye, would hide from anything.”

“I’m the city’s only woman P.I.,” I said, “and if you had my mother, you’d be looking for a bolt hole, too.”

I indicated the pile of brochures and magazine and newspaper clippings heaped on my desk. “Everywhere I look are articles on planning weddings and ads for brides’ dresses, florists, caterers, and honeymoon travel packages. The newspapers are filled with wedding announcements. And, to make certain that I don’t miss something, Mother gathers them all up and sends them to me.”

“But you’re not getting married until Valentine’s Day. That’s more than eight months away.”

“Right.”

“And I thought you and Bill had agreed on a small wedding?”

“We have.”

She pointed to the small mountain of materials on my desktop. “Then why the bridal blitz?”

Why, indeed? “Mother dear, who has ignored me my entire life, had a change of heart in April after she suffered what might have been a fatal stroke. Now she’s determined to compensate for her former neglect by throwing me the biggest wedding Pelican Bay has ever seen.” I shuddered. “And when she and Caroline put their heads together, you can bet they’re planning an extravaganza to rival the distant nuptials of Charles and Diana. The only thing missing will be global television coverage.”

Darcy shrugged. “Can’t you just say no?”

“Mother’s selectively deaf when she doesn’t want to hear something.”

“And your sister?”

“Caroline thinks I’m being coy. My sister can’t believe there’s a woman on earth who doesn’t want a huge, elaborate wedding. It involves shopping, after all, Caroline’s raison d’être.”

“And what does Bill say?”

I shook my head. “He’s no help. He says he’ll go along with whatever I decide.”

“And you’ve decided?”

I nodded. “No big wedding.”

“Then there’s no problem.”

“Except breaking that news to my mother and sister, who refuse to accept the fact. They’re pushing me now to sign up for bridal registries.”

“That’s not a bad idea.”

“But we don’t need anything. I have my furnished condo, and Bill’s family home in Plant City is full of his parents’ antique furniture and his mother’s china, silver, and crystal.”

“There must be something you want.”

I thought for a second. “I could use a new sidearm.”

“There you go,” she said with a grin that exposed perfect white teeth. “Register at Cole’s Gun Shop.”

“And give my mother another stroke? I don’t think so. I couldn’t live with the guilt.”

“Where’s your groom-to-be today?”

“Helping the Pelican Bay Historical Society by running free background checks on their volunteers.”

Darcy looked surprised. “They research their volunteers? Aren’t most of them little old ladies?”

“The museum docents present several programs a year for children. The director figures he can’t be too careful.”

Darcy nodded, her expression solemn, and I guessed she was thinking what I was. Our last major case had involved a pedophile who had murdered three young girls in Tampa. Checking out anyone who worked with kids was no longer optional. It was a necessity.

Darcy drained the last of her tea and pushed to her feet. I handed her the bills to pay, and she went into the reception area and closed the door behind her.

I picked up the wastebasket and swept my arm across the top of my desk to file Mother’s latest correspondence. I wished I could dispose of my reservations about my rapidly approaching marriage as easily.

Bill Malcolm, my fiancé and co-owner of Pelican Bay Investigations, had been my first partner when I’d joined the Tampa Police Department twenty-three years ago. He’d also been my best friend almost that long, even when I transferred to the Pelican Bay Department after seven years with Tampa. Last Christmas, he’d proposed. I loved him, without doubt, but whether I was marriage material remained to be seen. I’d led a schizophrenic life. Raised in privilege and wealth, I’d changed course at twenty-six to become a police officer when the love of my youth, an ER doctor, had been murdered by a crack addict. I’d dived headfirst from the height of society into the underworld of crime.

Earlier this year, after more than two decades as a police officer, I’d retired from the force. But as a private investigator, I still straddled both worlds, belonging in neither. Police work had been all-consuming, and I’d had no time for diversions, no hobbies and very few friendships, besides Bill. I’d grown solitary, withdrawn, and set in my ways. Somewhere along the way, I’d forgotten how to enjoy living. My first career had been as a librarian, yet over the years, I’d rarely taken the opportunity to read, which at one time had been one of my greatest pleasures.

Although I’d committed to marry Bill—we’d even closed last month on a house we had bought together—I feared I didn’t have what it took to live the rest of my life with another human being, even one as wonderful as Bill.

Especially one as wonderful as Bill.

My biggest concern was that I would either drive him nuts or out of my life entirely.

I looked at Roger, still sleeping peacefully, if not quietly. I had committed to owning a dog and surprised myself by enjoying it. Maybe there was hope for me yet.

A knock sounded, and Darcy slipped into my office and closed the door behind her.

“You’ve got visitors.”

“Clients?”

She hesitated. “I think so.”

“You’re not sure?”

“It’s Wanda Weiland.”

My heart stopped. “The wedding planner?”

She nodded and flashed an apologetic smile. “As in Weddings by Wanda.”

My fight-or-flight response kicked in, raising my pulse and respiration rate, as I considered the possibility that Wanda had been sent by my mother. An ambush on my own turf.

“She’s not alone,” Darcy added.

“Please tell me my mother’s not with her.” I gazed at the second-story window and contemplated a jump as my only means of escape.

Roger, now wide awake and on alert, watched me with an eager look, as if reading my thoughts. He flashed his full-focus grin and wagged his tail. If I jumped, Roger would follow. The crazy pooch was game for anything.

I considered my options. The fall probably wouldn’t kill me, but I might break a leg, so I couldn’t run. Unable to flee, I’d be completely at Mother’s mercy. I abandoned the idea of a header onto Main Street and sucked up to face the music.

“The other woman isn’t your mother,” Darcy said. “She’s younger than your mother, but older than you.”

“Not Caroline?” I could probably get rid of the wedding planner, but I didn’t want to be double-teamed by my persistent older sister.

Darcy shook her head. “I’ve met Caroline. It’s not her, but whoever she is, she’s too distraught to give her name.”

Distress could be real or an act. I wouldn’t put it past Mother and Caroline to stoop to a ploy to reel me in, but I could handle Wanda and a stranger, who’d be more reasonable than my family members. Everyone was more reasonable than my relatives. I told Darcy to show them in.

Darcy went to fetch them, and I called Roger and set him on my lap. He’d never met a leg he didn’t love, and his humping could be bad for business, so when clients arrived, I kept him on a short leash.

Wanda Weiland breezed through the door, looking as fresh and blushing as a bride herself in a clingy floral dress, strappy sandals and makeup that gave her a perfect healthy glow. Her long auburn hair swung as she walked, and she flung it off her shoulders with a snap of her head and took a chair across from my desk. She looked to be in her late thirties or possibly even forties. These days it was hard to tell whether a woman had good genes or an excellent plastic surgeon.

In contrast, the woman with her looked like an emotional wreck. Although she was neatly dressed in tailored slacks, a silk blouse and pearls, her complexion was splotched from crying, her eyes red-rimmed. She clutched a damp Kleenex in one hand, her purse in the other. She stopped just inside the door and appeared dazed and disoriented. She didn’t sit until Wanda patted the seat of the chair next to her.

“Thank you for seeing us on such short notice,” Wanda said.

“It’s an emergency,” the other woman added with a shiver, her voice hoarse from tears. “My daughter’s missing.”

“I read about you in the newspapers,” Wanda said, “how you solved Senator Branigan’s murder. I told Jeanette you could help us.”

“Jeanette?” I said.

“Jeanette Langston,” the distraught woman introduced herself. “I hope you can help me. I don’t know where else to turn.”

“You’ve been to the police?” I asked.

Jeanette nodded. “I spoke with the sheriff’s department. They told me there’s been no sign of a crime, and since Alicia left messages assuring us that she’s all right, they won’t get involved.”

I eyed Jeanette and estimated that she was older than me, somewhere in her mid-to-late fifties. Years ago, I would have assumed her daughter to be a grown-up, but with current advances in medical science and women having babies later in life, I took nothing for granted.

“Tell me about Alicia,” I said.

“She’s supposed to be married at the end of this month,” Jeanette said with a hitch in her voice.

Unless something kinky was going on, that fact made Alicia an adult. And it also explained the presence of Wanda, the wedding planner.

“Here’s her picture.” Jeanette slid a four-by-six photo across my desk.

I picked it up and studied the pretty girl posed on a seawall, long blond hair flowing in the wind, hazel eyes smiling at the camera. Tall and slender, she had an air of seriousness lurking beneath the happiness on her face.

“Alicia’s disappeared?” I said.

Jeanette nodded. “Four days ago. She left a note saying not to worry about her. And a voice mail a day later, assuring me that she’s okay. But I’ve tried calling her cell phone and she doesn’t answer. Garth, her fiancé, hasn’t heard a word from her, either.”

“So she’s a runaway bride.”

Even I, who never went to the movies and seldom turned on a television, was familiar with the Julia Roberts chick flick. I’d watched it late one night in the throes of insomnia and had felt a special kinship with the character who couldn’t commit.

“She’s not a runaway,” Jeanette said with obvious conviction.

Wanda, so far, had nothing to add but a reassuring pat of Jeanette’s hand.

“Not cold feet?” I said. “You’re sure?”

Jeanette shook her head without ruffling a strand of her honey-colored dye job. “Alicia loves Garth. They’ve been engaged for three years. A year ago they began planning this wedding to take place when Alicia finished graduate school.”

“Still,” I said reasonably and with a strong degree of empathy for Alicia, “she could be having second thoughts.”

“She did say in her note to cancel the wedding plans,” Wanda interjected.

“Big wedding?” I asked.

Wanda nodded. “Six bridesmaids, flowers by the truckload, and 250 guests, including a sit-down dinner with a string quartet and a deejay at the Osprey Country Club.”

“Refundable?” I pried.

Wanda shook her head. “Not at this point.”

I turned to Jeanette. “That must hurt.”

“I don’t give a damn about the money,” she insisted, then paused. “Although we’re not that wealthy, and we’ve had to borrow money for college, graduate school, and the wedding. But I’m scared for Alicia. This behavior isn’t like her.”

“Where did she disappear from?” I said.

“Home,” Jeanette said with a sniff and dabbed her nose with a tissue. “She was living with us to save money and commuting to the University of South Florida in Tampa.”

“Is her car missing, too?”

Her mother nodded.

“Did she say why she left?” I asked.

Jeanette rolled her eyes. “She said she wants to find herself. After a B.A., M.A., and a Ph.D. in philosophy, how much more self-discovery does she need?”

“What’s your take on this?” I asked Wanda.

The wedding planner frowned. “A year ago, when we started making plans, Alicia was enthusiastic, excited. You have to begin making decisions well in advance to carry off a wedding this massive, you know.”

I nodded with a grimace. “So my mother and sister have told me. But lately, had Alicia’s attitude changed?”

Wanda nodded. “The last few weeks, she seemed different.”

“Reluctant?” I suggested.

“Distracted.”

“She was finishing her dissertation,” Jeanette insisted. “Of course she was distracted.”

“What was the subject of her dissertation?” I asked.

Jeanette waved her hand. “Transcendentalism, spiritualism, some such nonsense. She tried explaining it, but I didn’t understand a word. But then Alicia’s very bright, much smarter than me.”

“In the voice mail she left,” I said, “was there any sign of coercion in her tone?”

Jeanette shook her head. “She sounded more elated than anything.”

“Was her farewell note typed or handwritten?”

“She wrote it on her personal stationery.”

“Any signs of tension or anything out of the ordinary in her handwriting or the words she chose?”

Jeanette shook her head. “That’s another reason the police won’t get involved.”

“So you feel reasonably certain her disappearance is her own doing and not the result of kidnapping?”

“Not totally,” Jeanette said and added with a frown, “because it doesn’t make sense. Alicia wants to marry Garth. Why would she leave? And why won’t she answer her phone to talk to Garth or her father and me?”

“Just to be clear,” I said, “you want me to find Alicia only to make sure she’s all right?”

Jeanette nodded.

I patted Roger, who was getting restless and looking longingly at Wanda’s bare, tanned legs. “If I find her, I can’t promise she’ll come home to go through with the wedding.”

Jeanette looked pained. “Understood. But her father and I have to know that she’s okay.”

She looked even more anguished when I quoted my hourly rate. Wanda, however, seemed unperturbed. Whether I found Alicia or not, the wedding planner’s nonrefundable fee was already in the bag.

CHAPTER 2

A few hours later, I paused inside the front door of Dock of the Bay and searched for Bill. The rustic restaurant with its knotty pine walls, decorated with sea-shells, crab traps and fishnets, overlooked Pelican Bay Marina where Bill lived aboard his cabin cruiser. A blast of cold, air-conditioned air hit me, a welcome change from the stifling heat and humidity that continued to build outside. An afternoon thunderstorm was the only hope for breaking the stifling conditions.

The lunch crowd had barely begun trickling in, but the old Wurlitzer in the bar was already in full swing with Joe Nichols crooning “Tequila Makes Her Clothes Fall Off.” The lyrics made me smile. Some liked country music for its melancholy. I loved its sense of humor.

Bill waved from our usual booth and flashed a welcome with the blue-eyed expression that had won my heart two decades ago. I slid onto the bench across from him and ordered raspberry iced tea from the waitress.

I’d spent the remainder of the morning at the office with Jeanette Langston, making lists of Alicia’s friends and acquaintances and their addresses. Then I’d taken Roger to my waterfront condo for a walk before settling him in his favorite doggy bed while I joined Bill for an early lunch. This afternoon I would begin the search for the elusive Alicia.

Bill, with his thick white hair, muscular physique, and Beach Boys tan, although ten years my senior, had grown more handsome with age, but I loved him as much if not more for his good heart and happy disposition. We were polar opposites, I an introvert with insecurities and pessimism rooted in my childhood, Bill an extrovert and perennial optimist. No wonder I was consumed with premarital jitters, even though the wedding was months away.

“Busy morning?” he said with that smile that could make me promise him anything.

I filled him in on the runaway bride.

“You think she’s lost her nerve?” he asked. “Or is maybe mentally unstable?”

“No hint of mental illness from either her mother or the wedding planner, but, according to her mother, her behavior’s definitely not normal. I should have a better take on why she took off after I talk to her fiancé and some of her friends this afternoon.”

I sighed.

Bill narrowed his eyes and studied me with an intensity that made me squirm. “What’s wrong, Margaret?”

I could never hide anything from Bill. He read body language better than I read English.

“What makes you think something’s wrong?” I hedged.

“Is your mother still on your case about a big wedding?”

“I’ll deal with it. As soon as I can screw my courage to the sticking point and confront her.”

One part of me yearned for my mother’s approval and unconditional love, withheld my entire life, and, illogically, considered the possibility that going along with her wedding plans might produce the desired results. The smart part of me knew better.

“Something has you restless and uneasy.” He nodded toward my left hand and the engagement ring he’d given me last Christmas, three aquamarines, my birth-stone, set in yellow gold. “Having second thoughts?”

“You know I love you.”

He nodded and reached across the table for my hand. “And I know the idea of marriage scares you senseless. If that’s what’s bothering you—”

“No.” I shook my head, then flashed a rueful grin. “I’m willing to give marriage my best shot and praying that my best shot will be good enough.”

“Don’t sell yourself short. I’ve been wanting to marry you for twenty years.”

I squeezed his hand and released it when the waitress returned with my tea. Bill waited until she’d taken our order and left before continuing. “So, what is bugging you today?”