Interrogating the Bride

She looked at Micah as he entered the kitchen. “There are three bedrooms. You can pick where you’d like to sleep.”

“I don’t know if I can sleep,” she replied. “I keep going over everything in my mind, trying to figure out what I should have done differently.”

“I suggest you try to get some rest. I have a feeling things are only going to get more stressful from here on out.”

“I should call my family,” she said thoughtfully.

“No phone calls tonight,” he said firmly.

She straightened in the chair. “But, they’ll be worried about me.”

“They’ll just have to stay worried for now,” he replied. “If it was just you here I wouldn’t give a damn who you called, but I’m in this mess, too, and I don’t want a slip of your tongue to allow anyone to figure out where we are, so no calls tonight. Now I’ll show you the bedrooms.” He looked at her expectantly.

She got up from the table. The wedding gown felt as if it weighed a million pounds. “I don’t suppose you have a pair of jeans and a T-shirt in my size hanging around.”

“No, but I can probably find you a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants in my size,” he replied as they walked through the living room and down a hallway.

“Bathroom is there,” he said, pointing to a doorway on the right. She peeked in to see blue towels and a matching shower curtain. “Bedroom one, two and three.” He pointed to each of the next three doorways.

She walked into the nearest one where there was a double bed, a dresser and nothing else. “This is fine,” she said, suddenly more weary than she’d ever been in her life. She sat on the edge of the bed. “If you could just get me those clothes, I won’t bother you anymore.”

He nodded and disappeared from the doorway. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that Jason was a man who liked to get his own way and she had a feeling Micah Stone was cut from the same cloth. Well, he’d know soon enough that she was a woman who wasn’t pushed easily.

He returned with a black T-shirt and a pair of gray jogging pants. He also brought with him a length of rope. “I figured you could use the rope as a belt. I doubt you’ll be able to keep those pants up without one. There are new toothbrushes under the sink in the bathroom. Feel free to use anything else in there that you need. I’ll see you when you wake up.”

He left the room and closed the door behind him. She got up and locked the door, although she had a feeling if Micah wanted to come back inside, no simple lock would keep him out. Still, pressing the button on the doorknob gave her a small sense of control.

Control. She nearly laughed at the idea as she unzipped the hateful gown and stepped out of it. The laughter never materialized, and instead tears burned hot in her eyes.

What a mess. Agreeing to go off with Jason had been uncharacteristic of her, but he’d been charmingly insistent and she’d been too long without both a vacation and a boyfriend.

She pulled on the T-shirt over her bra, instantly engulfed by the fragrance of Micah’s faint cologne, a clean scent mixed with a bit of spice. She found it oddly comforting as she pulled down the bedspread and crawled beneath the sheets.

That was her last thought before sleep overtook her. When she woke up, sunshine danced into the nearby window, and by the cast of the sun she figured it must be late morning.

Surely by now the authorities in Fortuna would have caught Jason’s killer and her name would be cleared. She could go home, get back to work at the store and put this entire nightmare behind her.

She got out of bed and pulled on the jogging pants, finding them ridiculously big, but certainly better than the damned wedding gown. Using the rope as a belt, she managed to secure them around her waist, then she opened the bedroom door and peered out into the hall.

The scent of coffee rode the air and the sound of voices came from the living room. After listening just a moment she realized the voices were coming from the television.

She went across the hall into the bathroom and stared at her reflection in the mirror above the sink. The makeup she’d worn the night before hadn’t magically disappeared through the long night. Mascara smudged the skin beneath her eyes and gray eye shadow had found the crease in her eyelids and clung heavily.

She eyed the shower longingly and gave into temptation. She’d face the day better if she could wash the night off her. She stood beneath a hot spray of water and wished the events of the night before had been nothing more than a crazy nightmare. She wanted to step out of the shower and be back in her apartment, getting ready for a day at the store.

But of course that didn’t happen. She redressed in the sweats and T-shirt, brushed her teeth with one of the new toothbrushes and worked the tangles out of her hair. Finally she felt prepared to take on whatever the day might bring.

Vindication, that’s all she wanted—That and a return to her normal, boring life. It was going to be a long time before she’d be interested in an exotic vacation again.

Micah sat on the sofa, looking more stern, more dangerous than he had the night before. A weight of dread filled her stomach. He didn’t look like a man pleased with the morning news.

“Good morning,” she said.

His head moved in a curt nod. “Coffee is in the kitchen and there are some doughnuts as well.”

“What’s happened since last night?” she asked.

“Go get your coffee and then we’ll talk,” he replied. His eyes gave nothing away, but she knew the news wasn’t good.

In the kitchen she found the coffee pot half full and a box of glazed doughnuts on the table. She poured herself a cup of coffee but ignored the doughnuts. Her stomach was twisted in too many knots to eat.

With coffee cup in hand, she returned to the living room and sat on the opposite end of the sofa from Micah. Once again she was struck by his handsomeness. He wasn’t a pretty boy—his features were too bold, too lean to be considered handsome in the classic sense.

She ignored the slight flutter in her stomach just as she’d ignored the doughnuts. The last thing she needed at the moment was to feel any kind of attraction for another man. It was a man who’d gotten her into this debacle.

“Unfortunately things look less promising for us this morning than they did last night,” he said as he pressed a remote control button that muted the television.

She glanced at the screen where an attractive blonde stood in front of a weather map, then looked back at Micah, dreading whatever he was about to tell her.

“What do you know about the maid who was in Fortuna with you and Jason,” he asked.

She sat back and frowned. “Not much. Her name is Marie. She’s about my age, maybe a little older. I got the impression she’s worked for the Worthington family for years. Why?”

“She’s been all over the news, telling every reporter who will listen that she knew you were nothing more than a gold digger when she met you, and that she knows you killed poor young Mr. Worthington, then stole valuables from the house.”

Caylee gasped. “But that’s crazy. I didn’t steal anything from there except the gown that I wore out. As far as me being a gold digger, that’s utterly ridiculous. I have my own money. I didn’t need any from Jason Worthington. My jewelry store was financially successful when my father owned it, and when he died five years ago and it passed to me, I managed to increase profits tenfold. I’m a wealthy woman in my own right.” She stopped her tirade to draw breath. “If anything was stolen last night then I would suggest they check the maid’s luggage.”

“The general consensus seems to be that you and I were in this together.” His pale eyes bore into hers with a hint of acrimony. “The theory is that you killed Jason and stole a bunch of stuff and I was there as the getaway driver, so to speak.”

“This is all crazy. How can this be happening,” she said more to herself than to him.

“The how doesn’t matter,” he replied, his voice terse. “What does matter is that as of ten o’clock this morning, arrest warrants were issued for both of us.”

Once again Caylee released a gasp. She grabbed hold of the sofa’s arm, feeling as if the world had suddenly tilted and she was about to fall off. “I don’t understand, how could they have done that already? What happened to an investigation?”

“It’s called a rush to judgment,” he said. His gaze left hers and focused on the television where the words, “Murder in Paradise” danced across the bottom of the screen. He hit the remote button to bring up the sound to hear a male reporter speaking.

“… Marie Carvel made a grisly discovery. Curled in a fetal ball beneath the gold and pink bedspread was the body of her employer. Jason Worthington had been stabbed three times with a knife that has yet to be recovered.”

Caylee shot up rigid, her heart pounding in stunned surprise. “Mute it,” she exclaimed.

“What’s wrong?” Micah asked, hitting the mute button.

She stared at him. “The gold and pink bedspread they just talked about, that wasn’t in Jason’s room. The bedspread in his room was navy. The pink and gold, that was the bedspread in my room.” She frowned. “While I was in the bathroom escaping out the window, Jason must have come into my room and gotten into my bed.”

“Wouldn’t the killer have seen his face?”

Caylee frowned. “Not necessarily. Maybe he had the blanket up over his head. He was childish like that.”