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No one said anything.
“I’m waiting.”
“May you find happiness in spite of yourself,” she said, her eyes mocking him as he quaffed his drink.
The second cup went straight to his head. Carter clutched the podium as the room wobbled. Damn cheap champagne.
“Carter?” Two Nikkis spoke to him. He closed his eyes. One Nikki was more than enough.
“’S hot.” He tried to loosen his collar, but the pearl stickpin got in the way.
Saunders took his arm. “Do you want to sit down?”
Irritated, Carter shook off his lawyer’s hand. “Wrinkle my panths.” Oh, great. His tongue was swollen. How could he recite his vows? Maybe if he practiced.
“I, Cawtuh, take thee, Dee Ann, do be mah lawfoolly weddud wahf…”
“What’s he saying?”
“Shh.”
Water. He needed water. Cold water would shrink his tongue and cool his burning face. He took a step backward and the room tilted, then began a slow spin.
Drunk?
Dee Ann would be livid.
“Not dunk,” he muttered. Not on two paper cups of champagne.
“Carter, sit down.” Saunders urged him in the other direction.
“No.” He closed his eyes against the spinning room and concentrated on putting one foot directly in front of the other. He would stand in front of that altar. He would marry Dee Ann…
“Carter! Carter…Car-ter…Caaaaarterrrr…”
The sound came from all around him. He took another step and missed the floor.
Clawing at air, he landed on his knee, then fell prone.
His boutonniere would be completely crushed. Trying to save it, he rolled over and opened his eyes. Four anxious faces peered down at him. Four anxious and guilty faces.
He was the only one on the floor.
Black ringed his vision as the faces receded down a tunnel.
Realization struck. “Dug! You…dug me.” He tried to point, but his arm was too heavy to lift.
A cool hand touched his forehead. Huge green eyes filled his vision. From a distance, he heard, “Trust me.”
Through sheer force of will, Carter managed a reply as darkness overtook him. “Fahd! Yoo awl fahd!”
2
“FIRED? Fired? I heard him say fired.” Saunders shredded what was left of the carnation. “He fired us, didn’t he?”
Nikki sat back on her heels. “Sure sounded like it.”
“Oh, no, oh, no,” Bob, the chief accountant, groaned. “I’m refinancing my mortgage. I can’t refinance if I’m out of work. And I’ve got to lock in my rates!” He grabbed Julian’s arm. “This might cost me as much as one and a half percentage points!”
Julian clamped a hand on the accountant’s shoulder. “Carter’s drunk. The man can’t make valid business decisions when he’s drunk.”
“You know he’s not drunk!” Bob said in disbelief.
“I don’t know anything of the kind.” Julian, his hand still on Bob’s shoulder, hustled him toward the door.
Bob’s eyes bulged. “But…but—”
“It isn’t uncommon for a groom to take something to calm his nerves,” Julian stated, calmly brushing away the wrinkles Bob had left on the arm of his perfectly cut suit. “He probably shouldn’t have had alcohol with it, though.”
“But—”
“Bob.” Nikki cut him off. She signaled Julian with a jerk of her head.
He opened the door. “Did you actually see anything unusual prior to Carter’s drinking the champagne, Bob?”
“No, but—”
“Neither did we,” Julian said as they left the room.
“Remind me not to involve Bob in any more high-level management decisions,” Nikki muttered.
“They’re coming back, aren’t they?” Saunders began to hyperventilate.
She eyed him with dismay. “Not you, too?”
Saunders threw away the remnants of his boutonniere. “Why couldn’t you have just told him?”
Nikki looked down at Carter and brushed a strand of hazel hair off his forehead. She knew his eyes, if they were open, would match. She’d always thought it an extremely attractive combination.
“Nikki?” Saunders squatted beside her.
She sighed. “He wouldn’t have believed me.”
“I would have backed you up.”
“You’re backing me up now,” she said ruefully. “Besides, I didn’t want anyone else to know.”
“You mean…you mean, even Julian doesn’t know?”
Nikki shook her head.
“How did you talk him into this?”
“With Julian, it’s all a matter of approach. I believe he was dating DeeAnn and introduced her to Carter. She immediately dropped Julian and went on to bigger game.”
“And now he’s getting even. I thought he bought into our takeover theory too fast.”
Nikki reached out and gripped Saunders’s hand. “It’ll be okay. Carter will be mad, but I know if you keep digging, you’ll find that Karrenbrock is planning a takeover, outrageous as it sounds.”
Saunders nodded miserably. “How long do you think he’ll be out?”
“I have no idea.” Nikki eyed Carter, half afraid he’d come to. “They were your sleeping pills.”
Moaning, Saunders held his head in his hands. A lock of hair slipped, revealing a bald spot. “He’ll have us arrested.”
“He’ll give us a bonus.”
“I’ll be disbarred.”
“You’ll receive an official commendation.”
“He won’t let me be best man.”
Nikki glared at Saunders’ hangdog face. “Do you really think he’ll marry Dee Ann after this? Even when…everything’s clear?” She refused to consider it. As far as Nikki was concerned, this engagement was kaput. Eventually, perhaps within the next decade, Carter would thank them all.
She loosened Carter’s collar and felt his pulse. Slow and steady. Strong. His breathing was fine. He probably wouldn’t be out too long.
A single knock sounded at the door. Julian pushed a wheelchair inside and quickly glanced up and down the hallway. “No sign of the good reverend.”
“Where’s Bob?” Nikki caught the rose-decorated afghan Julian tossed to her.
“In the car.”
“He’s not going to drive, is he?” she asked.
“Hardly. He’s asking for the champagne.” Julian inhaled deeply. “I just may give it to him.”
“Which reminds me.” Nikki got to her feet and gathered the paper cups and bottle, emptying the contents in the nearest potted greenery. “This will liven up their drab lives.”
“Uh, Nikki?” Saunders pointed to a growing puddle. “That’s a fake plant.”
“At least she can’t kill it,” Julian said.
“Don’t say that word!” Saunders pleaded.
“Will you two please get Carter in the wheelchair!” Nikki closed her eyes and reined in her temper. Criminal masterminds they were not. “Everything is going to be fine.”
“I’ll find something to clean up the mess,” Saunders offered, carefully avoiding Carter’s comatose form.
Ultimately, it took Nikki’s help to maneuver Carter’s heavy, limp body into the wheelchair.
“Julian, see if there’s a back way out.” Nikki arranged the afghan around Carter, concealing everything but his shoes. Then she tied a scarf around his head, Russian peasant style.
“What do you think?” She pulled a few tendrils over his forehead and stepped back.
Saunders looked doubtful. Well, it was too late to quit now.
A tight-faced Julian returned. “There’s a back exit, but it would mean wheeling him around on the sidewalk.”
“Better than wheeling him through the front of the church,” Nikki decided. “Is the coast clear?”
“I’m just about finished here.” Saunders swiped at the puddle with something Nikki thought looked horribly like a child’s choir robe.
“You are finished.”
Saunders dropped the white cloth as though it had burnt him.
It was eerily quiet, with nothing but the occasional squeak of the wheels accompanying them as they maneuvered Carter down the hall. About the time Nikki pinpointed what was different, the organ began playing again.
The majestic sound reverberated in the empty halls.
Nikki gasped. “It’s ‘Trumpet Voluntary’!”
“So?” Julian said over his shoulder.
“That’s usually the processional music!” Nikki stopped and listened.
“Hurry up!” Saunders urged, his voice cracking. The pressure was obviously getting to him.
“I don’t like the sound of this,” she said to Julian. The music continued. “You go on ahead.”
“What?” Saunders screeched as Julian pulled him along. “She can’t abandon us!”
Nikki ignored him and ran in the other direction. She passed by the groom’s dressing room and reached the antechamber in time to see Reverend Royer swish through the paneled door.
Good. Maybe he’d stop the organist.
She waited several seconds, breathing quickly.
The music swelled.
Nikki made her way down the dark labyrinthine hallway toward a stream of light seeping from under a door. The music grew fainter. Holding her breath, she stopped in front of the door and slowly cracked it open, hoping it wasn’t the sanctuary.
No noise came from inside the room. Nikki pushed the door open farther. She had an impression of peach and blue, with a large mirror surrounded by lights. The scent of perfume and hair spray hung in the air. Plastic clothes bags, tissue paper and other wedding residue littered the sofa.
This was the bride’s room.
And it was empty.
