The Ghost of Grey Fox Inn (11 page)

BY THE TIME WE GOT
back inside the Inn, the main lobby was crowded with family members and the bridal party, many of them already dressed for the big day. The ceremony was set to begin promptly at four p.m., and it was already creeping toward midday! That meant we had less than five hours to find those wedding rings.

As we made our way through the crowd, Parker caught sight of me and intercepted us at the foot of the staircase. “So? Any news?” he murmured, scanning the room to make sure no one else could hear us. “I can
only keep this secret for so long. My mother has already asked to see the rings one last time to make sure they're polished, and I had to come up with an excuse why I couldn't give them to her!”

“I think we're getting close,” I said. “I can't be certain, but I've narrowed the suspect list down and am going to ask someone a few questions right now.”

Parker narrowed his eyes. “Who?” he asked, his voice low.

I swallowed, unsure of how wise it would be to reveal my suspicions to the anxious groom. “Well, like I said, I'm not sure of anything yet,” I warned. “But right now I'm concerned that Tucker Matthews has a fairly strong motive.”

Parker straightened up like he'd been jolted by an electric shock. “Tucker?!” he spluttered. “Why that ungrateful, backstabbing—” He started to climb the stairs, making a beeline for Tucker's room.

“No, Parker—wait!” I exclaimed. Bess and George exchanged worried looks, and we all ran up after Parker. But by the time we caught up with him, he had
already stormed into Tucker's room. Tucker was standing at the mirror in his tuxedo shirt, his hands still poised at his neck, grasping at a half-knotted bow tie.

“What—what's going on?” he stammered, his eyes flitting back and forth between Parker's red face and our three panicked ones.

“How could you?” Parker said. “I know you were mad about not getting the evening news position, but how could you do this to me?” He advanced on Tucker and grabbed the groomsman by the front of his shirt. “It's my wedding, man!”

Tucker shoved Parker away, panting, his brows knotted in confusion. “Hey! Get your hands off me! Listen, Parker—I know weddings can make a guy crazy, but this is ridiculous. I have no idea what you're talking about!”

I stepped in between the two of them. “Parker, I know you're upset, but please, let me handle this.” Scowling, Parker nodded reluctantly, and I turned to our suspect. “Tucker, someone has been causing trouble for this wedding, and we need to find out who it is.”

Tucker readjusted his shirt and regarded Parker warily before focusing his attention on me. “You mean that knife prank at the rehearsal dinner?” he asked, and before he could stifle it, he chuckled.

I saw Parker rise to his feet, ready to attack Tucker once again, but I put a hand on his shoulder and willed him to stay back.

“You think that's funny?” Bess asked. She looked ready to jump on Tucker herself. “That knife scared Charlotte half to death!”

Tucker cleared his throat and quickly wiped the smirk off his face. “No, of course not. It's just . . . Parker, man. You've got to see it from my perspective. Ever since I met you, you were the golden boy. Everything always goes your way. I guess . . . it was just kind of satisfying, just for a second, to see that I'm not the only one who gets dealt a bad hand.”

“So you did do it!” Parker snarled. “You planted that knife and stole the wedding rings!”

Tucker snorted. “Wait—what? The wedding rings are missing? I had no idea. . . .” Suddenly the reality of
this confrontation seemed to dawn on Tucker, and his face paled. “Hold on a second. I may have enjoyed seeing you struggle at the dinner, but no way would I ever steal the wedding rings just to mess you up, Parker. Seriously, you've got to believe me!”

Parker's jaw was knotted with tension, but I could tell his resolve was cracking. Tucker did seem genuine . . . but if he wasn't our man, who was?

I had a few more questions for Tucker, but before I could continue, I heard a small voice behind me. “The rings . . . are gone?” it said. I whirled around to see Charlotte standing in the open doorway, wearing a blue cotton dress, her makeup done and her hair styled in an elaborate updo and fastened to her head with pearl-encrusted combs. She looked beautiful, but her face was a mask of horror.

“Sweetheart!” Parker exclaimed, and dashed to her side. “What are you doing here? I thought you were still with the stylist!”

“I . . . she finished up early, and I came looking for you. I heard you shouting over here and came to
see what was the matter. I heard you say that the rings were stolen. Is this true?”

Parker looked pained. He hesitated for a moment before speaking. “It's true. It happened last night. I didn't want to upset you any more than you already were, so Nancy, George, Bess, and I decided to keep it to ourselves—we were hoping to find them before you needed to know.”

“But you haven't,” Charlotte said. Unlike the other times when bad things had happened, Charlotte seemed eerily calm, as if she had had been preparing herself for something like this. “Well, that's it then. We'll have to call off the wedding.”

“No!” Parker said. “It's not too late—we still have time. Right, Nancy?”

I was about to say something when a strange aroma struck my senses. It was a fresh, pleasant scent—a little citrusy, and more than a little familiar. Why hadn't I smelled it before now? What in the room had changed since I first walked into it?

I walked a few steps closer to Charlotte, and the
scent intensified. Something in my mind clicked. “Charlotte,” I said. “Are you wearing perfume again?”

Charlotte looked perplexed at this turn in the conversation. “Um, yes. It's the same one I was wearing when we first met. Is it bothering you?”

“No, not at all,” I continued. “What kind of perfume is it?”

“It was actually a gift from my sister,” Charlotte answered. “It's her favorite fragrance—she wears it all the time. It's a combination of cucumber and grapefruit, I think. I always thought it smelled like cleaning spray, but what do I know about perfume—Nancy, what's wrong?”

“Nothing, nothing at all,” I said, but my heart was hammering. All this time, and I had overlooked something that was staring me in the face. But Parker was right, it wasn't too late to fix this. I turned to Tucker. “I'm sorry about all of this,” I said. “If you want to blame someone, blame me, not Parker.”

Parker looked surprised, as did George and Bess. “But Nancy,” George muttered, “he was our top suspect.
If Tucker didn't do it, do you have some idea of who did?”

“I do,” I said. “And I'm about to go find out if I'm right.”

I left George and Bess behind with the bride and groom—the conversation I was about to have needed to be done delicately, so it was better I go in there alone.

I knocked on the door down the hall from Tucker's room. There was the sound of movement inside, and a moment later the door opened wide.

“Why, Nancy,” Piper said. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“I just wanted to ask you about something,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Can I come in?”

Piper smiled, but there was something different about her face. The smile seemed strained, and her eyes were a little red and puffy, as if she'd been crying. “Of course!” she said.

I walked into the room after her, taking in my surroundings as I did. Piper always had a pristine
look about her—her hair always perfectly styled, her clothes crisply pressed, her makeup immaculate. Given all that, the state of her room was a bit of a surprise. Clothes were strewn across the bed in messy heaps, and the dresser was covered with the contents of Piper's purse and piled-up plates and glasses from room service. And despite the fact that the wedding was set to start soon, Piper's maid of honor gown was still hanging up on the bathroom door.

Piper saw my eyes ranging over the chaos of the room and looked apologetic. “Sorry about the mess,” she said, still trying to sound cheerful. “Things have been a little hectic around here with all the pre-wedding excitement!” She brushed a pile of crumpled papers into the garbage bin, which I noticed was already full of wadded-up tissues, smeared with mascara.

“Are you all right, Piper?” I asked. “Is there something on your mind you want to talk about?”

Piper looked at me with a mixture of surprise and suspicion. “Me? No, I'm fine, of course! Why wouldn't I be?”

I gestured at the garbage bin. “It looks to me like you've been doing a lot of crying.”

Piper glanced at the garbage bin as if it had betrayed her somehow. “Oh,” she stammered. “Well, it's just an emotional time, you know. My little sister is getting married. I still can't believe it's really happening.”

“Well, the way things are going, it might not be happening after all,” I said, my voice level.

Piper swallowed hard and looked at me with apprehension. “What do you mean?” she asked.

“The wedding rings were stolen last night,” I said.

I watched Piper's expression as I gave her the news. Unlike Tucker, her initial reaction wasn't shock. It was fear.

“Oh, I—that's terrible!” she said. “What are they going to do?”

“Nothing,” I replied simply. “Because you're going to give them back.”

Now Piper looked shocked. “M-m-me?!” she stammered. “Nancy, how could you say such a thing? What makes you think I would steal the wedding rings?”

“A lot of things, actually,” I said. “In fact, I'm kicking myself for not seeing it sooner. All this time I was looking for someone who wanted to stop this wedding—someone who felt that ‘it should have been me,' just like the message on the knife said. Alicia and Tucker both had reasons for being envious of Charlotte and Parker, and they always say that it's the people closest to the victim who are the likeliest suspects.” I paused and looked meaningfully at Piper. “I guess I wasn't looking close enough. Bess had told me you were always the sister in the spotlight—the fashion model, the popular, charming girl of every boy's dreams. Nothing like Charlotte. So I can imagine what it must have felt like to find out that your bookish, shy younger sister was getting married before you. And to a famous, handsome news anchor, no less! It stung, didn't it?”

Piper's lower lip began to tremble, and a moment later, she crumpled into a wicker chair. “You have no idea,” she whimpered. “I tried to hide my feelings, tried to be happy for her when she told me about the engagement. But all I could think of was all those boyfriends
who never saw past my looks to notice that there's an actual person behind the makeup and nice hair. All those years, when I was crowned prom queen in high school, when I'd daydream of my fairy-tale wedding—only to have my little sister, who never cared about anything except what she read in those dusty old books, to get it before me. You're darned right it stung! And Charlotte didn't even realize what she had. She was all worried about how it all might interfere with her studies. Can you believe that? I dreaded this wedding, but I couldn't allow anyone to know it. I only let my emotions out when no one was around, like when I was waiting in the Charleston airport for my ride to the inn. That's when I met Morgan.”

I cocked my head, confused. “You only met Morgan a few days ago? But I thought you two had been dating for a while now.”

Piper chuckled humorlessly. “Another lie. He sat next to me while I was waiting, and we started to chat. I told him how I was going to my sister's wedding alone, and he offered to be my date.”

I raised my eyebrows. “Just like that?”

Piper shrugged. “He was handsome. It was romantic. You know how it is.”

I blinked. I didn't really know how it was.

“Anyway, I told him the whole sob story, and he kind of gave me the idea to do these pranks—just a little revenge to get back at my sister. It was exciting—I had fun wrapping that gift for her, let me tell you!”