Beach Wedding(65)

The crowd oohed and aahed again as the ladies began processing down the steps. The bridesmaids wore long strapless flowing chiffon dresses that were the same pale plum color of the peonies.

My two girls couldn’t have been more beautiful.

Viv looked striking with her hair fashioned in an elaborate updo replete with tiny flowers as she came through the enchanted forest behind Angelina, who was sprinkling rose petals.

Then all eyes were on Emmaline as she came down the steps with her dad. She scrubbed up pretty okay. Her scooped-back princess dress had a tulle skirt with a bodice made of Swarovski crystals. As she glided through the beach fairy forest toward us with her strawberry blond hair and big green eyes behind her birdcage veil, I truly thought Tom was going to pass out.

Then Emmaline’s dad handed her over and a look of such sublime happiness passed over my brother’s face that I found myself wiping away a tear. I looked out at the ocean behind us and thought about my dad, our lives, life itself.

It actually might have even been more than one tear that rolled down as the violins ceased and the ocean roared and the priest cleared his throat and smiled.



90

We were back up on the lawn in the receiving line awaiting the stream of wedding guests in front of the huge white tent when I received the call.

I had my phone in my pocket, and when it rang, I was going to just leave it, but then I looked up to see Mickey on his, so I said to heck with it.

I took it out and saw that Marvin Heller was calling, so I sort of scooted away to the right and took it.

“Hey, Marvin. Why aren’t you here yet? The ceremony just ended. You need to hurry or you’re going to miss the reception.”

“I’m on my way, Terry, believe me. You have a wife, don’t you? Mine takes about ten years to get ready. Anyway, sorry to bother you with the wedding and all, but you really need to hear this.”

“Hear what?”

“I just got a call from my boy Stan.”

Stan, I knew, was Stanley Lubbock, Marvin’s old buddy on the Southampton PD who was a forensics tech.

After I had recovered the stolen evidence from Tapley, I dropped it off at Marvin’s house. He immediately sent it down to his buddy Stan to make a backup copy of everything on the down low.

We needed to be safe, I knew, just in case Hailey in her new trial managed to bribe some other bad cop to make it disappear again. Once bitten, twice shy.

“What’s up?”

“Hope you’re sitting down, my friend,” Marvin said. “You got a hit.”

“What?”

“You got a hit on the bullets. Stan put what he had into NIBIN.”

NIBIN was the National Integrated Ballistic Information Network. It was like a fingerprint database for forensic evidence.

I hadn’t even thought of that. I had just wanted a backup forensic file.

“It came back as a hit, and not just a hit as in a match either,” Marvin said.

“Slow down. Walk me through it. What are you saying?”

“Remember the wadcutter bullets they found in Noah Sutton’s head in July of 1999? Well, another couple of wadcutter bullets were fired from the same exact gun and found in the head of another victim, Julie Rainard, in May of 1999 down in Maryland.”

What?

“Another victim? From the same gun?”

“Yes. Two bullets, as well.”

“What the hell does that mean? Disenzo whacked someone else with the same gun?”

“I don’t know. Because here’s where it gets interesting. Are you ready? The victim was a twenty-eight-year-old biotech researcher who worked for a little company called...”

“Shit, no! No!” I said. “Cold Springs Chemical!”

“Shit, yes! Yes!” Marvin said. “Cold Springs Chemical got all these government contracts, and they say Rainard was a whistleblower. Nothing was stolen, and the neighborhood where she got shot while jogging had literally zero crime. People say it seems like it was a hit.”

Cold Springs Chemical, I thought.

What had Father Holm said?

I thought it had to do with the family company.

“The same gun?”

“Yep. Same exact gun.”

I stood there in shock, my head swimming.

So this meant what? Hailey actually didn’t do it? She hired a contract killer? Or the family hired a killer because of the company stuff? But what about Hailey’s hoodie? Had I somehow gotten it all wrong? After all this?

“Where are you now, Marvin?”

“Home, getting ready, like I said. What do you want me to do?”

“Hey, Terry, ixnay on the phone already,” Finn said. “Here come the guests.”

“I’ll call you back,” I said. “Or talk to you when you get here. I need to think this through.”



91

We were on the sundeck steps finishing up the picture-taking when my cell jingled.

I thought it was Marvin again, so I snuck it out for a peek. It was a text message from a number I didn’t recognize.

Been following you around. Feel like I actually know you.
I froze.

Who is this? I texted.

Bedroom terrace. Cute kid.
My blood went cold. I glanced up.

I felt numb, faint.

Between the balustrades, there was a long thin cylindrical object pointing down at the gathering.