Grave Visions (Alex Craft, #4)(52)
“It could have been worse,” Tamara’s sister, Donella, replied. She’d floated between Tamara and their mother, so it was quite possible she hadn’t heard the earlier reiteration of the statement.
Tamara set down her fork. “Oh yeah? How, exactly, could it have gone any worse?”
Donella paused, her bite of cake hovering in front her mouth, and then she smiled. “Ethan could have been turned into a toad.”
Tamara’s lips parted, and for one lingering moment, I thought she’d laugh at that. Then her bottom lip stretched as the edges of her mouth turned down and she gave out a loud, stuttering sob. Her arms curved around her stomach, and she collapsed into herself.
Donella looked mortified, and far too stunned to move. I slid my seat closer to Tamara’s. I’m not what one would call a hugger, but I put my hand on her shoulder and squeezed lightly, offering what silent support I could. She shook, her entire body trembling with her tears.
“Maybe it’s a sign,” Tamara said, between gasps for air. “Maybe we should wait until the tests next month.” This she directed toward her still-flat stomach, her palm rubbing the space under her belly button.
I was about to tell her my theory on the two bogeymen. To apologize for my part in them coming here, to her wedding, and take any amount of debt that apology might require, when a deep masculine voice spoke from directly behind me, making everyone at the table jump.
“Are you saying there is anything those tests could tell us that would make you not want to marry me?”
Tamara twisted to stare at Ethan with rounded, red-rimmed eyes. “What if they tell us . . .” She trailed off, her hand once again pressing protectively against her stomach.
“We will deal with whatever happens, together.” He knelt in front of her, cupping both her hands in his. “Tamara Amelia Greene, I love you. Marry me. Right here. Right now.”
Tamara looked around at the disheveled group, at the disarray of the trampled scene, at the half-eaten cake, and then down at her white gloves that were stained with the makeup her tears had washed away. “This is not how I imagined it.”
“Oh, but think of the stories we’ll have,” Ethan said, and gave her a beaming smile before climbing to his feet and pulling her up after him. “The most important people are still here. Marry me, Tam.”
She finally smiled. “Yes.” She kissed him. “Yes, yes, yes.”
I slipped out of my seat silently and backed away. It would take them a minute to gather the necessary people and work out the details. If they had a quick ceremony, I’d stand with Tamara as one of her bridesmaids—if she’d still have me after all this—but for now I let them have their moment without a crowd.
John, who’d attended the wedding as a guest but had been hanging out with the cops investigating the case since the disturbance, met my eye and waved me over to join him. My legs were numb from sitting in the folding seat too long, and between that and the heels, they wobbled under me as I walked. Or at least that was what I told myself. I really didn’t want to think I was simply that weak from the fading already.
I smoothed my dress as I crossed the empty dance floor—which was pretty pointless as the dress was well and truly ruined. Between throwing myself to the ground and then crawling to the gazebo, the dress had more than one grass stain on the maroon fabric. Fussing with the fabric did give me something to focus on besides the questions John would inevitably ask. But all too soon I’d crossed the garden and reached the friend I feared I was losing.
He led me to a table and gestured for me to take a seat. I did, but immediately regretted doing so when John didn’t sit but instead loomed over me, his arms crossed over his chest.
“So what exactly happened? Was this about a case you’re working?”
No one had actually questioned me yet. There were a lot of witnesses, many of them cops, and I’d been with the group comforting the bride, so I hadn’t been singled out to report on what I’d seen. John knew a little bit more about me than most though. He didn’t know I was fae, but he knew my propensity for attracting trouble. Particularly fae-related trouble.
“You’re assuming they were targeting me.”
He lifted one bushy eyebrow that used to be red but was now salted with white. Yeah, he was making that assumption. And so was I.
I sighed, debating what to tell him. He was a homicide detective, so this wasn’t his case. Even if it was, the suspects were fae and he wasn’t equipped to trace and arrest them. Still, while I might have preferred to hash out the details with Falin—he was a resource even if things were awkward between us—I could use any help I could get.
“The two wedding crashers were bogeymen. That’s what set off the screaming fits—they can’t hide their nature from kids. I think one of them might have been a hobgoblin, which can’t be a coincidence as yesterday I got a tip that a hobgoblin might be dealing Glitter.”
I expected some sort of response, even if it was a grunt approving my supposition or maybe a skeptical crinkle of his brows, but John gave me nothing. His expression froze as he thought, sharing nothing. After an agonizing stretch of seconds, he pulled out the chair beside me and sat.
“Tell me what you know.”
I didn’t know much, and some of what I did know I couldn’t share, but I described both my short exchange with the bartender at the Bloom as well as what I’d observed today at the wedding. John didn’t question how I’d seen through the faes’ glamour and I didn’t offer any explanation.