Page 37 of She Doesn't Have a Clue
Kate pushed the door open cautiously, not yet wanting to knock and announce herself until she knew what she was dealing with. The room was enormous and menacing, the dark wood walls overbearing and the curtains a heavy drape of deep purple that cast the corners in heavy shadows. It must have been the master suite at one point, considering the mural painted on the ceiling made to look like an evil Sistine Chapel, with devils instead of angels and a grinning satyr instead of a god. Kate wondered, not for the first time since arriving on the island, what Russell Hempstead and his Romanian bride got up to on their private island.
The bridesmaids must have camped out in there with Kennedy, at least for the previous evening. There were toiletry bags everywhere, makeup and champagne glasses and hair products on every surface, glittering dresses she recognized from the rehearsal dinner scattered throughout the space. There were several pallets laid out, mattresses that looked like they’d been dragged in from other rooms or sleeping bags and yoga mats piled up to make beds. But everything had been pulled out, turned over, and shaken up in their search for the missing necklace. It looked like someone had set off a bomb in a high-end shopping gallery, with lace bras and sparkling high-heeled shoes strewn everywhere.
“It has to be here!” Kennedy said, her voice pinched tight with worry. She popped up from behind a velvet divan, the light throwing ghoulish shadows under her eyes where Cassidy hadn’t yet applied makeup to hide her fatigue. She looked so fragile, with her big hair and her doe eyes and her bare neck, and she blinked in surprise as she spotted Kate in the doorway. “Oh, Kate! I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you knock.”
“That’s okay,” Kate said, skipping over the part where she didn’t actually knock. “Is everything… okay?”
“It’s my necklace,” Kennedy said, rubbing her hands over her bare chest where the diamond pendant usually hung. “It was my mother’s, and I need it for my wedding day.”
“Not here, either,” Cassidy announced, her hair sticking up from the static discharge of the sheets as they slid off. “I don’t understand, you never take that thing off. Where could it be?”
“I thought maybe it had fallen off while I was sleeping, or it got caught when I changed last night. But I can’t find it anywhere!”
“You think someonestoleit?” Cassidy whispered. She looked meaningfully at Kate.
“Have you checked the wine cave?” Kate asked, giving what she hoped looked like a normal smile. The pendant felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, jangling around in her pocket, just waiting to give her away. “Maybe it came off last night.”
“Oh, the wine cave, of course!” Kennedy said, smacking the side of her head and grinning at Kate. “Good thing I have Loretta on the case, I’d completely forgotten to check down there. Cass, would you go ask the kitchen staff to give the cave a good once-over? Maybe it got kicked under a wine rack or something.”
“Why doesn’t she do it?” Cassidy asked, still eyeing Kate suspiciously. “We need to finish your makeup.”
“I’ll be fine,” Kennedy said with a wave, wincing as she stood. “I can do my own foundation, and you can finish my eye makeup when you get back. We have plenty of time!”
Kate knew they did not, in fact, have plenty of time, considering the state of the generator. Not to mention a killer loose on the island. But she kept all that to herself, instead nodding along in agreement as Cassidy moved past her toward the exit. She paused beside Kate, mustering up her best bulldog impression as she stared Kate down.
“Nothing better happen to Ken while I’m gone,” she said.
“Well, you’ll know who did it if something does,” Kate said before realizing how menacing it sounded out loud. “That was a joke! I’m not going to do anything.”
“Mm-hmm,” Cassidy said, moving to the stairs. “Stay away from stairs, Ken!”
“She’s very… protective of you, isn’t she?” Kate ventured as Kennedy shook her head with a soft smile.
“Cassidy? Oh, she’s more bark than bite. We spent all our summers together here on Hempstead Island when Grandpa Ferdinand was still alive. We were inseparable. I guess we were both kind of lonely as onlychildren. We got to pretend we were sisters, and it didn’t feel so lonely. I never would have considered anyone else for my maid of honor.”
Kennedy turned and hobbled toward the bathroom door, wincing at the movement.
“What’s wrong with your legs?” Kate asked, wondering if the poison had any lingering side effects.
“Oh, it’s just my feet,” Kennedy said with a dismissive wave. “Too many hours in high heels, gave me blisters. That’s the last time I wear shoes embellished with Swarovski crystals.”
She gave a little laugh, showing off one heel. There were deep scratches running from the back of her ankle to the bottom of her heel, with spots of blue and purple bruising around the edges. Kate could only imagine the other foot looked just as bad. She knew all about blisters, considering the ones her own heels had given her last night, and those weren’t blisters caused by any shoes. Loretta would never miss a detail like that, not when the investigation was just heating up.
“Barefoot,” Loretta murmured to herself as she examined the bride’s body. The groom had said she’d been complaining about her shoes all evening. Had she taken them off? But no, Loretta remembered the way her feet had sparkled as she’d spun around the dance floor. Custom-made in Italy. A bride didn’t shell out for footwear like that only to ditch them halfway through dinner. There were scratches, too, along the backs of her heels, as if someone had dragged her bare feet over a rough surface.
“How is that possible?” Loretta asked, pivoting to glance up the stairs. Even if the bride had been poisoned and taken a tumble down the stairs, her feet wouldn’t have looked like that. And she’d have more bruising all over. No, the bride didn’t fall down those stairs at all, but someone certainly wanted to make it look that way.
“Kennedy, what do you remember about last night?” Kate asked, moving toward the bathroom where the other woman had disappeared to finish her wedding day preparations. She sat at an old-fashioned vanity, completewith a little wooden stool carved to look like a bloom of tulips. “After the rehearsal dinner, and the uh… the speeches. Where did you go?”
Kennedy pursed her lips in thought, taking the opportunity to paint a coral pink on them. “Well, I remember taking photos with the wedding party, and I started to feel sort of sick. I came in here to change, but I was so dizzy I could hardly stand. I thought it was the champagne at the time, you know? I don’t drink often, so my tolerance isn’t very high. I thought I’d lie down for a minute. And the next thing I knew, I was in the wine cave.”
“So, you don’t remember going down to the wine cave?” Kate asked. “Maybe to get another bottle of Dom?”
Kennedy shook her head slowly, frowning. “No, I don’t think so. The last thing I remember is lying down on the bed over there.”
Kate examined the room more closely as Kennedy layered on her foundation. There were several garment bags hung up at various points around the room, most likely the bridal party’s dresses. If Kate could figure out which one was Kennedy’s wedding gown, maybe she could hang the necklace on the hanger without anyone noticing.
“What about your shoes?” she asked, using the excuse to edge closer to the floofiest garment bag. She figured it stood to reason that the bride’s dress would have the most floof. The zipper made a loud, horrendous sound as she struggled to open it, and she pitched her voice louder to mask it. “Do you remember taking them off, or what you did with them?”