Dolled Up to Die (30 page)

But no need to panic right now. Rolf hadn’t recognized her from that night at the Mystic Mirage, and he hadn’t caught her shock when she recognized his arm.

Back at the entrance to Lodge Hill, Cate rushed inside and upstairs to the Chapel Room. There, bridesmaids in gowns and men in tuxes, along with Aunt Carly and a few other people Cate didn’t know, milled around the table set up at the rear of the room with hors d’oeuvres and a crystal bowl of punch. She spotted Mitch, indeed looking like a best man, the best man ever, and nothing to do with the wedding. She wanted to tell him what she’d just found out, but Robyn rushed over and grabbed her.

“Where have you
been
? We’re about to start the rehearsal. And what happened to you? Your nose is all red. And your face is filthy!”

Cate covered the offending nose with a hand. “The minister got here?”

“No, we’ll have to manage without him. Just go get your
gown and wig on.” Robyn shoved Cate none too gently toward the dressing room.

Cate washed the smudges of oil and dirt off her face, sloshed more cold water on her nose, and pulled the gown over her head. Robyn had zipped it up easily the one time Cate had tried it on, but now she had to twist into pretzel contortions to do it herself. Thankfully, a glance in the full-length mirror showed that the dress still looked great. She piled her hair on top of her head and anchored it with a few pins. She yanked the round box open but stopped short when she pulled out the new brown wig.

The clerk at the hair salon had been half right. The wig was longer. But “a little longer” was an understatement. When she got it on her head, the brown hair swung somewhere in the vicinity of her tailbone. She stared at herself in the mirror.

This wig, like the original one, transformed her. But it was not that sultry-smoky-sophisticated glamour transformation. Were there somewhere five horses bereft of brown tails because all those appendages were now hanging from Cate’s head?

And no flattering sidesweep of bangs here. These bangs enveloped her forehead like some fungal growth crawling through her eyebrows.

Maybe no one would notice. She shut out the cynical
Yeah
,
right
that followed the hopeful thought.

She slipped into her high-heeled wedding sandals and thumped out to the Chapel Room.

Little frown lines gathered between Robyn’s brows when she saw Cate. “The wig looks . . . different than I remember.”

“I feel so glamorous.” Cate whirled, and the long hair swirled around her shoulders. In the other wig, the flying hair would have looked dramatic, even romance-heroine lush. In this wig, it was more like the five horse tails were trying to find a fly to swat.

Robyn opened her mouth as if she were going to say something more, but she had problems other than a horse tail wig at the moment. She turned away and started arranging—and rearranging—bridesmaids and groomsmen. The woman photographer scooted here and there photographing everything until Robyn growled, “Not now!” at her. Cate found herself at the end of the lineup without a groomsman partner.

The bridesmaid ahead of her also lacked a groomsman. “Two of them didn’t show,” she whispered to Cate.

Robyn, ears apparently tuned to dog-whistle sensitivity level tonight, overheard. “They had car trouble, that’s all.
That’s
all
,” she emphasized, as if trying to convince herself the two hadn’t deserted like the proverbial rats from a sinking ship.

But so many car problems—the buffet van, the minister, and now the groomsmen—did seem odd. A virulent car plague going around?

“They’ll be here tomorrow night,” Robyn said. The determination in her voice had an “or else” lurking at the end of the statement.

It was an odd rehearsal, with Robyn both a participant and director, and no minister, but Robyn staunchly managed it like a general preparing troops for battle. Three times they went through it, Lance and Mitch entering from a side door with an invisible minister, the march down the aisle between the rows of chairs, Aunt Carly giving Robyn away, and the triumphant recessional. Always Robyn found some detail unacceptable.

Until finally even usually amiable bridegroom Lance balked at a fourth rerun, for which Cate was grateful. Her feet were cramping in the sandals with higher heels than she ever wore, her bumped nose felt as if it were turning bulbous on her face, and her nerves screeched as if Octavia had them in her
claws. As soon as she could get out of here, she was going to the police with what she knew about Rolf. She’d ask Mitch to go with her and along the way explain to him what she now knew.

After the end of the rehearsal, everyone tromped downstairs to the Reception Room, grumpy moods lifting with the prospect of food. But the long table where the buffet should be was empty as the cupboard in that Old Mother Hubbard nursery rhyme. Robyn stared at it as if this were the disaster to end all disasters.

Jo-Jo, unexpectedly smiling, rushed out of the kitchen and up to Robyn. She whispered something, and Robyn unexpectedly smiled too. She freshened like a wilted plant just watered.

“Good news, everyone! The food will be on its way shortly. So everyone just relax.” She turned to Jo-Jo. “Perhaps you could bring the punch bowl down and refill it so we’ll have something to drink while we wait? It is marvelous punch.”

“Well . . . uh, certainly.”

Cate followed as Jo-Jo headed for the kitchen. “Is something wrong?” she whispered.

“Only that I used every bottle of ginger ale in the kitchen to fill that bowl the first time. There’s plenty of fruit juice in the freezer to make punch, but not a drop of ginger ale. The punch is flat as old pond water without it.” Jo-Jo glanced back over her shoulder. “And the natives are getting restless. To say nothing of the bride herself.”

“Okay, you start mixing fruit juice. I’ll go find ginger ale.”

Cate followed Jo-Jo to the kitchen, by unspoken agreement their steps calm and unhurried so as not to give any hint of panic. But once in the kitchen, Cate dashed up a narrow back stairs to get her purse and keys from the dressing room. She didn’t like running off to the store in her bridesmaid gown, but she hadn’t time for the unzipping contortions.

Downstairs, Jo-Jo held the door open for her. “Get some oranges too,” she called as Cate took off across the parking lot. “They’ll look nice sliced thin on top.”

Cate picked up the skirt as she ran so it wouldn’t drag on the asphalt. Then she had to stop. Stupid sandals! She hopped from foot to foot as she snatched the sandals off, and then sprinted barefoot to her car. At the door, she thrust the key in the lock, got the door open, tossed purse, sandals, and herself inside, and jammed the key in the ignition.

And listened to the engine grind uselessly.
R-r-r-r
,
r-r-r-r
,
r-r-r-r
, hopeless as her computer showing that blue screen of death. Maybe there
was
some virulent car plague going around tonight. She’d have to go get Mitch.

The car door opened just as she reached for the handle. She looked up in relief. Mitch had followed her!

Not Mitch.

Rolf.

 26 

Cate froze as she looked up at him. Was he seeing her as Cate? Or as the dark-haired woman he’d tried to choke at the Mystic Mirage? And why was he here?

“Oh, Rolf! You startled me.”

“You startled
me
.” He said it with a peculiar little smile that made Cate’s scalp prickle under the wig.

She glanced around him. “Where’s your girlfriend?”

“She’s a jealous freak. She got it in her head that you and I have this hot romance going and took off like that well-known bat out of you-know-where.”

“That’s ridiculous!”

“She’ll be back.” Rolf sounded as if he didn’t care one way or the other. Right now, his focus was only on Cate. A focus that made her hands clutch the steering wheel as if it might try to escape. Which is what she wanted to do.

“Great dress,” Rolf added. “Though I can’t say as much for the wig.”

Great. Now she was getting fashion critiques from a killer. Yet it wasn’t that flip thought that made her stomach churn and her palms slicken. It was the raw knowledge that this was
real,
that this man standing beside her car had held a sword and rammed it into Celeste’s chest. A killer.

Yet she couldn’t acknowledge she knew that. If she could
just make Rolf think she didn’t know anything or that he’d made a mistake—

“Look, I’m sorry, but I’m really in a hurry. We’re in the middle of a ginger-ale emergency, and I have to run to a store.”

Cate grabbed the handle to yank the door shut, but Rolf obviously recognized that as illogical, because he’d heard that
r-r-r-r
too. The car wasn’t going anywhere. He jerked her to her feet, but his body trapped her between the car door and the driver’s seat.

“You’re trying to lock me out? Now, Cate, that’s rude, don’t you think?” He kept a steely grip on her shoulder with one hand and lifted a hank of brown hair with the other.

Think! Jab him in the eyes with her car keys? That was supposed to be an effective technique. Right. And whose agile body was going to twist around to the other side of the steering wheel and grab the keys? Not hers.

“Like I said, you startled me when I first saw you there in the carport. I was almost sure then, when all I could see was your face in the little light from your flashlight. So I had to wonder what the woman from the Mystic Mirage was doing in my carport. Then I saw that unmistakable red hair, and I was confused.”

He said the word with a hint of reproach, as if his confusion were some fault of hers. He smoothed the brown hair of the wig in a way that made Cate shiver. Almost a caress. Almost a threat.

“I really do have to go after that ginger ale—”

“But then I was positive when I sneaked upstairs and played Peeping Tom watching the rehearsal. And realized it was you all along, the redhead in a brown wig. Though you sure had me fooled before tonight.” He tapped her forehead as if chastising her for the deception.

Cate determinedly detoured his statement of recognition
even as it sent ripples of panic through her. “The bride insisted on the wig. Maybe you noticed the bridesmaids are all brunettes? Her color scheme, you know, to emphasize how blonde she is.” Cate managed an exaggerated roll of eyes. “The others are all natural brunettes, but I had to get this wig to fit in. I know how it looks. Like I stole the tails off a herd of horses! Then a couple of the groomsmen didn’t show up, and now the buffet is late, so Robyn wanted more punch while we waited, and I really have to get the ginger ale for the punch. Before Robyn goes into orbit or the wedding party turns into a mob rioting for food and drink.”

The barrage of irrelevant chatter didn’t work this time.

“Shut up, Cate. I know who you are and what you saw at the Mystic Mirage. And then when you saw the tattoo on my arm tonight . . .” He shook his head. “I could practically smell the panic. Just like now. Not a good scent on you, Cate. Worse than ol’ Travis’s cologne.”

She’d thought he hadn’t noticed anything about her reaction there in the carport, but she’d been wrong. Maybe
dead
wrong. Maybe he’d have done something right then, but he couldn’t with jealous Melody standing there tapping her booted toe. She tried to keep from swallowing convulsively.

“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Have you talked to the police yet?”

Cate started to babble a denial. No, she hadn’t talked to the police, hadn’t told them anything about him! So everything was fine. Then she realized that was exactly the wrong thing to let him know.

“Yes! I-I called them as soon as I got back from the carport. They’ll be here any minute now. They know all about you. Your arm, the tattoo, everything!”

For a hopeful moment, Cate actually thought he bought it. He’d turn and run. Instead he laughed.

“You’re a lousy liar, Private Investigator Cate Kinkaid.”

She automatically started to correct him. “Assistant—” She broke off as she realized that scrupulous honesty about her PI status wasn’t going to win her any brownie points at the moment. And what she should be doing was screeching her head off.

She gave it a try. “Help!” The first word came out a squeak instead of a scream. She lifted her head and got it up to a yell. “Mit—”

Before she could get the name out, he clamped a hand over her mouth and yanked her around with his other hand so her back was to his chest. Over the hand clamped at her mouth, Cate’s gaze jerked to the brightly lit windows of the Reception Room. She saw what he was also seeing. Nothing happening there. No one looking out a window. No one rushing out the door to help her.

She tried another yell. Great. Now she sounded like a moose in labor. And earned herself a vicious dig of fingers into her jaw.

Now what? Rolf seemed to be considering that question too, even as his arm crushed her ribs and his hand smashed her mouth.

Was grabbing her some unprepared, impulse decision? Like killing Celeste with a sword snatched off the wall? Maybe that plague her car had caught was a good thing. It kept him from just throwing her in the trunk and taking off. But now he didn’t know what to do with her?

She wasn’t going to stand here and cooperatively wait while he decided on a suitable course of action. She tensed her leg and kicked backward into his shin.

Barefoot, that had about as much effect as a marshmallow attacking a refrigerator, and all it did was make her heel hum with pain. She tried to bite his hand clamped over her mouth, but she couldn’t even get her mouth open.

She was breathing hard, at least as hard as she could breathe with her mouth clamped shut and her lungs compressed under his arm, but he wasn’t even puffing. All he did was mutter, “Nice try, Ms. PI.”

She tried again, a backward punch with her elbow into his ribs.

But all that blow did was the funny-bone thing that made her elbow feel as if she’d stuck it in an electric socket, and his only reaction was a grunt. He whipped her around until they were facing the river. Moonlight turned the flowing water to liquid silver. Lights glittered on the far side. A scent of smoke drifted from the back side of the vineyard, incongruously bringing a nostalgic memory of bonfires back home when she was a girl. The dock and little rowboat looked picturesque as an artist’s moonlit painting.

She hadn’t realized it was such a beautiful night until now. Enough to take your breath away. Except hers was already taken away by the harsh grip over her mouth and around her ribs. A killer grip. And she knew he wasn’t admiring the view. What was he thinking now?

The stark thought that this might be her last moonlit night here on earth hit her. Because Rolf couldn’t let her live with what she knew about him. The only question seemed to be how he intended to do it.

Lord, help me, guide me! Send someone! Tell me what to do!

Where was that van from Mr. K’s with the buffet food? Where was some couple coming out for a romantic stroll in the moonlight? And where, when you needed one, was a smoker sneaking out for a puff?

Rolf made up his mind and started walking her across the parking lot. His knees bumped the back side of her legs. She stubbed her bare toe on the asphalt and stumbled, but his grip didn’t loosen. She made the only noise she could,
a squeak of protest, when they reached the road that led around to his cottage and the sharp gravel bit into her bare feet. He didn’t slow down, just yanked her higher so her feet dangled above the gravel.

His grip didn’t soften, but once they were around the line of trees that concealed the cottage from Lodge Hill, she felt him relax slightly. She stiffened when they reached his pickup . . . he was going to throw her into it! No, he bypassed the pickup and plunged into the dark carport. He circled the dismembered motorcycles and took her to the counter at the back wall. He had to take his arm from around her ribs so he could use his hand, but he slammed her against the counter and held her immobile with his body.

With his free hand he flicked the switch on a fluorescent bulb that buzzed to light over the counter. He grabbed a roll of duct tape hanging on a nail on the wall.

With killer resourcefulness and one hand still over her mouth, he held the roll to his teeth and loosened a six-inch strip with his other hand, then used his teeth to tear it off the roll. Much more competent with teeth than she was. He slapped the strip of duct tape across her mouth as he pulled his other hand away. With both hands free and his body still pinning her against the counter, he quickly added several more strips of tape across her mouth.

He twisted her palms together, efficiently wrapped duct tape around her wrists, and shoved her toward the door that led inside the house.

Inside, the first thing she saw was a dim vision of a woman in a long, pale dress with dark hair hanging at a peculiar angle. A moment later she realized this refugee from a cheesy horror movie was
her
, reflected in an uncurtained window at the far end of the living room.

Maybe someone would see her?

No. The vineyard started back there.

Other than her own reflection, the small house looked incongruously cozy. Coffeemaker and toaster on the kitchen counter, row of duck magnets on the refrigerator, faint scent of fried bacon and onions in the air. The living room sofa was brown suede with a scattering of orange pillows, bright Navajo throw rug on a hardwood floor, TV with a stack of DVDs beside it. A table held an assortment of cups and trophies, most with a bronze or silver motorcycle and rider on top. An arched doorway opened onto a hallway.

Rolf didn’t offer her a guided tour of his motorcycle race trophies. He shoved her through the hallway and into a bedroom. Cate made an instinctive squeak-yelp of terror.

He flicked a light switch. “Don’t worry. I’ve lost my taste for redheads. This is strictly business. Although I must admit you do pack an interesting briefcase.”

He bent down and with several more wraps of duct tape fastened her ankles together. Now she knew what the roped and tied calf felt like at a rodeo she’d seen once. Except here there was no quick release coming a minute later.

Rolf yanked the closet door open, studied the interior, and apparently decided against it. Why didn’t he just throw her in the pickup and take her somewhere? He’d have to kill her before he dumped her, of course. But surely that wouldn’t be a problem for him.

She snapped a curtain over the thoughts. Don’t give him ideas he hadn’t already thought of!

He looked over at her, still standing where he’d left her, since a bunny-hop attempt at escape hadn’t seemed too workable.

“You’re a problem, you know that?” he grumbled. “We’d all be better off if you’d just concentrated on Travis.”

Keep him talking, her instincts shouted. Yeah, right. And I should do that how, with my mouth taped shut?

“A beautiful body in the river, that’s what this needs. Yes, that’ll work! Such a gorgeous moonlit night, and you went down to the river. You even took off your shoes to walk in the grass. Perfect!” He studied her as if seeing her traipsing gaily to the river. “You walked out on the dock. A tragic slip. A fall into the water. A heartbreaking accident.”

That’ll never work, you idiot. I was going for ginger ale. I wouldn’t take time for a stroll to the river. And it’s too cold for barefoot.