Save the Date(104)

Bill headed over to the truck, and I followed, not even caring that my skirt was blowing every which way—I was just focusing on getting this cake inside. We were halfway across the parking lot when I heard it—a low rumble of thunder, followed immediately by a flash of lightning illuminating the sky for just one moment before disappearing. “Uh-oh,” Bill said, and I saw him pick up his pace. He beeped the truck open—the headlights coming to life—just as thunder sounded again and I felt the first drop of rain on my shoulder.

“Oh no,” I muttered, moving as fast as I felt I could without dropping my cake. The rain was coming down steadily harder, splashing on my head and arms and leaving faint watermarks on my dress. It was falling in droplets that were bouncing off the plastic top of the cake box, then running down the sides, and I just hoped, as I hurried across the parking lot, that the box was watertight and we weren’t going to show up with soggy supermarket cakes to my sister’s wedding.

Bill made it to the truck first, and he balanced the cakes under one arm as he opened the back door of the cab. He leaned down to place them inside just as I caught up with him. It was pretty much pouring now, the sky dark except for the occasional lightning bolts that would fork across it, the wind howling. It felt more like October than April, and I could feel myself shivering as I held on even tighter to the cake box.

“Got it,” Bill said, reaching for my cake. He placed it on the floor next to the other two, then slammed the door. He ran for the driver’s side, and I ran around the hood to the passenger seat, and we both threw ourselves into the car and closed the doors at almost the exact same moment.

It was much warmer, and quieter, inside the cab of the truck, and I looked across at Bill as the rain beat down on the windshield and the roof, all around us.

“Wow,” Bill said, looking out through the windshield as he ran a hand through his hair.

“I know,” I said, watching the rain run over the glass, then turned to look at Bill. There were still droplets of rain clinging to his tuxedo jacket and on the side of his neck, and I felt the impulse to reach out and brush them off before I caught myself. “Shall we?”

“Let’s.”

We were almost home when Bill glanced over at me and took a breath. “So,” he started, then cleared his throat. “Charlie. I—”

But I never heard what he was about to say, because at that moment a police car, sirens on and lights flashing, zoomed around us to pull into the driveway of my house.





CHAPTER 23


Or, DUUUUUUUCK




* * *



BILL PARKED ON THE SIDE of the street, and as soon as he’d cut the engine, I jumped out. Two officers were already out of the patrol car and heading around to the back of the house. They’d turned the sirens off but left the lights on, a kaleidoscope of red and blue swinging in arcs and flashing against the garage door.

“Hi,” I called to them over the sound of the wind as I hurried to catch up. “Um. Officers? Is there a problem here?”

They turned to look at me, and even though I was getting soaked by the rain and holding my skirt down against the wind, I gave them my best responsible, non-lawbreaking smile. This faltered a little, though, when I realized I recognized the older one of the officers—he was the one who’d told me and Mike to move when we’d turned down Grant Avenue.

“We’re responding to a call,” the older officer—Ramirez—said just as Bill hurried to join me. He looked between the two of us, me in my dress and Bill in his tux, and raised an eyebrow. “Is it prom night already?”

“It’s my sister’s wedding,” I said as I rubbed my hands up and down my arms, trying to get some feeling back in them.

The officers exchanged a look I didn’t understand. “Well, that explains it.”

“Explains what?” Bill asked, looking between the officers, his hair getting steadily wetter.

“We had a noise complaint,” Officer Ramirez said, starting to walk around to the back of the house again. “Wedding this way?”

“In a tent in the backyard,” I said, following behind them, still trying to wrap my head around this. “You said a noise complaint? But . . .” All at once I realized, with a flash of white-hot fury, just why I was currently talking to two police officers in the rain. “It was our neighbor, Don Perkins. Wasn’t it?”

“We can’t disclose that information,” Officer Ramirez said as he continued around the house and to the backyard.

“Look,” I said, my heels slipping on the slick grass as I struggled to keep up with him. “I think this is all just a big misunderstanding. Our neighbor Don is nursing a personal grudge. There’s a whole garden thing involved. I’m sure he called you out here just to wreck my sister’s wedding.”

“That may be so,” Officer Ramirez said as he continued across the backyard to the tent. “But we still have to check out these calls. We don’t have the luxury of deciding what is and isn’t a problem before we even investigate.” The younger officer—I could see now that his name tag read HOPPER—nodded seriously at me as he passed, like he was trying to underscore this point.

“But,” I said, talking louder now, and faster, as I tried to keep up with them, brushing my sodden hair out of my face. I didn’t know how I was going to do it, but I knew I couldn’t let them go into the tent. What would that do to Linnie’s wedding, if the police suddenly burst in? Enough had already gone wrong. I couldn’t let this happen too. “Look,” I called, as Officer Ramirez reached for the handle of the door to the tent. “I promise you it’s all fine. And that there’s really nothing to see—” But whatever I was about to say died partway to my lips as Officer Ramirez opened the door to the tent, because I could now see there was a screaming fight going on in the middle of the dance floor.