Tell Me True (Call Me Cat Trilogy #3)(5)

Grabbing Ash's arm, I pulled him away from the fire. "You can't! It's too late!" I choked on smoke and stumbled back, cutting my foot on a piece of glass that had blown from the windshield. The air smelled of oil, fire and burning flesh. It was a cloying sweet smell, which surprised the part of my brain that had shut down the emotions threatening to overwhelm me.

I turned toward a bush and vomited. Ash placed a hand on my back as he dialed 9-1-1. All of this happened so fast. Seconds. Less than seconds. It felt slower, time playing tricks on me. Slowing down, then speeding up.

"Jon!"

Bridgette ran toward the explosion as stunned guests stumbled toward us.

"Jon, no! No!" She whirled around in her ice blue dress, eyes darting and intense, grief etched on her face like a map. "What happened? Where's Jon?"

Nothing seemed real as I walked toward her. Our eyes met. Her face crumbled when she saw the answer to her question in my unspoken words.

She collapsed in my arms. "No. Catelyn, no. This can't be. He told me he loved me. We made plans for our future. How did this happen?"

I wished I had an answer for her, some way of explaining this that would make sense, but I didn't. So I held her, and we cried together as the rest of the world moved into action.

The wedding planner became indispensable, bringing out drinks and chairs and blankets to guests and family as the police and fire truck sirens wailed closer and closer, turning the parking lot into a crime scene in a matter of minutes.

Bridgette went to her parents, who sat on chairs on the opposite side of the lawn as the Davenports. My heart broke for the Bridgette's pain. For Ash's pain. And I watched their parents, stoic in their own corners, distanced from others as they shared matching expressions of suppressed emotion. Ash and I stood in the middle, his arm around me as I shivered despite the warmth of the summer sun. "Ash…"

I didn't know what to say. Had no idea how to comfort him.

He turned to me, unshed tears making his eyes luminescent, his face hard in unexpressed grief as he caught a tear off my cheek with his hand. I hadn’t even realized I'd been crying.

When Detective Grey walked over to us, Ash squeezed my hand and turned to face him.

"You two have the worst luck of any couple I've ever met," he said by way of greeting. Then he seemed to notice our grave faces. "Um… sorry. Walk me through the details."

"Someone killed my brother," said Ash.

Grey looked at me and then back at Ash. "Are you sure he was in the car when it exploded?"

I nodded. "I saw him get in. He'd forgotten the wedding rings and went back to get them and then…"

He questioned us for several more minutes, but we had nothing new to share. No, Jon didn't have any enemies that we knew of. No, he hadn't been acting strange lately. No, he hadn't received any threats. Yes, he seemed normal and happy when he arrived.

When I mentioned that he'd been dating Bridgette, Grey finished with us and moved on to her. I slumped into a chair and Ash sat next to me, his eyes glued to the wreckage. The fire had been put out and a team of firefighters swarmed the black twisted metal that used to be a car.

Mrs. Brown, our housekeeper and a long-time motherly figure to Ash, brought us both a plate of food. I looked down to see our wedding cake and a sob escaped my throat.

"You have to eat, my dear," said Mrs. Brown, putting a hand on my shoulder. "The sugar will help with the shock."

Ash nodded and shoveled the vanilla and lemon concoction into his mouth. I did my best, but it tasted like sand and I choked on the frosting, washing it down with a glass of punch Mrs. Brown had also provided.

Ash stood and Mrs. Brown hugged him, her face covered in tears. "I'm so sorry, my boy. So sorry."

The summer sun beat down on us, but I still felt chilled. As the paramedics and firefighters searched for a body in the mangled remnants of Jon's car, guests from the hotel checked in and out and went about their plans and I wondered how a person lived through days like this. How could tragedy and normalcy live side-by-side without one destroying the other?

A firefighter's voice, gruff from too many years inhaling smoke, carried through the crowd. "We've found a body!"

I set my plate aside and followed Ash over to the parking lot. Yellow caution tape had been put up to keep the crime scene clear, but Ash ignored it.

A uniformed officer tried to stop him. "Excuse me, sir, you're not allowed to be here."

Detective Gray waved the officer away. "They're with me."

We stood with the detective as a body charred beyond recognition was pulled from the car and placed on a stretcher. I gripped Ash's arm, fighting the bile rising in my throat. He'd turned white, his jaw clenched so hard I worried he'd break his teeth.

A thought had been running a loop in my mind ever since the explosion and then it slipped out of my mouth. "Is it possible… could it be that Lucky and Lauren were both working for someone else? That the Midnight Murderer is still out there?"

Ash and Detective Gray both looked at me, Gray speaking first. "It's highly unlikely. We caught the Midnight Murderer. That case has been put to rest."

Ash nodded, but I caught a flicker of doubt in his eyes before he turned away.

I excused myself and half ran, half walked back to the grass and into the garden where we were supposed to have been married. Finding a bench away from the crowds, I sank down and rested my head in my lap, finally letting the tears take me.