Dark Surrender (36 page)

Kevin pushed through the door to the vestibule and stopped in his tracks. Susan was clinging to her best friend Liz, gasping heart-ripping sobs as if someone had died.

Had Mark, the shit-head, died? The possibility was intoxicating, yet Kevin refrained from asking.

Liz’s eyes met his and he mouthed,
What’s wrong
?

Liz held out the crumpled cocktail napkin and mouthed,
Tim gave her this
.

Kevin read the words, not comprehending that they were not just some frat-boy joke, but as he read them again, he understood they were the end of Susan’s dreams, or at least that’s how she would see it.

Looking back into Liz’s eyes, Kevin could tell they were thinking the same thing.
That shit-weasel!
And when Liz’s usually hostile expression abruptly turned beseeching, Kevin knew exactly what she wanted him to do.
Find Tim.

Kevin sprinted down the corridor and shot with increasing speed through the long sanctuary of the cathedral, the wedding guests’ jaws dropping as they watched him hurtle past them and through the front doors of the church.

The sun beat down on the rain slicked streets, making the city glare as if it were constructed of industrial strength halogen lightbulbs. Kevin squinted and turned in quick circles until he spotted the still-tipsy groomsman about to crawl into a cab. As Kevin ran toward the car Tim’s drunken face changed expression, a slow comprehension dawning. He tried desperately to yank the cab door open, his hands slipping as he scrabbled against the handle. Kevin was upon him all too quickly, pulling him around to face him and slamming him hard against the cab door. The look on Tim’s face was so ludicrously horrified it would’ve been funny if Kevin didn’t feel so violently enraged.

“
Where is he?” Kevin seethed, his voice a thinly restrained snarl.

The front passenger side window of the cab rolled down and the cabby leaned his head out. “Get the fuck off my cab!”

Kevin turned his dark glare toward the cabby, daring him to say another word.

The cabby gulped and looked away. “Take your time,” he said as the window whined back up to closed again.

Kevin turned his gaze back to Tim and leaned in a little closer, not saying a word.

“
I don’t know what you’re--” Tim mumbled.

Kevin cut him off, barking, “Where is he!”

Tim was starting to turn green. “Honest, man, I don’t know--argh!”

Kevin pressed his forearm across Tim’s throat and watched as Tim’s complexion turned from green to pink, to scarlet.

“
If you don’t tell me where your shit-weasel friend is, I’m going to give you the beating I was saving for him. Do you understand?”

Kevin waited for Tim to shake his head in comprehension before letting up on the pressure to his Adam’s apple.

Tim sputtered as he gasped for oxygen, and he started spilling his guts. “Aspen! Mark’s in Aspen, Colorado.”

Kevin shook his head, unconvinced. “Why would he be in Aspen?”

“
I don’t know,” Tim sputtered, trying to right himself, but finding Kevin still had him pinned against the idling cab. “I mean it, I don’t know why. One minute we were drinking Crown Royal and telling him he’d be fucking the same chick for the rest of his life, the next minute he was talking up some cocktail waitress.”

Kevin bore down on him again, enough to make something in Tim crack audibly. “What about the cocktail waitress?”

“
Oh God, fuck! She was this redhead, great rack, even better legs--”

“
What was her
name
?”

“
Shauna!” He cried out painfully. “Her name was Shauna, and all she said was she loved to ski. Next thing I knew Mark told me to give that stupid napkin to Susan, and he and the waitress were gone.”

“
And you’re
sure
they went to Aspen?”

“
Yeah, yeah. He maxxed out his credit cards paying for the honeymoon to Cancun. He had to call me to get my credit card to buy the tickets and book the hotel.” Tim looked like he remembered something.

“
What?” Kevin growled.

“
I just realized he’s charging this whole thing on my card...that
asshole
!”

Disgusted, Kevin tightened his grip on Tim’s lapels and let him go with a snap, his knuckles cracking as the groomsman fell against the cab door again. He stalked away, back toward the church, trying to think of a way to break it to Susan that the man of her dreams was off skiing in Aspen with the cocktail waitress of his.
Does Hallmark make a card for this?

Kevin stopped just outside the door of the vestibule, not wanting to look at Susan so hurt, but unable to stay away. There had to be some way he could help her. And with that hope he walked back into the room again and gently kissed the back of Susan’s now veil-less neck.

He looked Liz square in the eye and said, “Let’s get her out of here.”

* * * *