The Wedding Thief Read online

  “Wait a minute. Hold on here.” Link Overstreet strode toward the two men. “That sale’s not valid. I was trying to make another bid.”

  “Well, you didn’t make it,” Rosenthal said.

  “I had my arm up, but Kingsley didn’t see.”

  “Then you should have spoken up. That hand belongs to me.”

  Overstreet pointed to Kingsley. “He doesn’t even know how to run an auction. He should have seen me. That sale’s not valid. We need to do it over.”

  “Nobody’s doing anything over, Lincoln.” Rosenthal, who had a good twenty-five pounds on Overstreet, took a step closer to him.

  The temperature in the room jumped several degrees. The place was so quiet, you could have heard a thread land on the floor. “That sale is invalid,” Overstreet repeated, standing so close to Rosenthal I was sure the other man felt his breath.

  “You don’t think it’s valid?” Rosenthal thrust a finger at Overstreet. “I’ll show you what’s valid.”

  “Please, please.” Kingsley’s voice quavered. “This is an art gallery. I think we’ll leave the Larry Lingon right here for now and discuss it more civilly in the morning. I’m certain we can come to—”

  “This is supposed to be an art-show opening,” Alex said, looking furious. “My art-show opening. I think we should all forget about the hand and have a drink. I’m ready for one.”

  I thought that was a great idea, but Overstreet didn’t agree. “I’m not discussing this in the morning,” he said. “And I’m not leaving until we redo the auction. That’s the only way to settle it.”

  Rosenthal tugged the front of Overstreet’s shirt. “No, that’s not the only way to settle it.” He drew back his arm and sent his fist flying into Overstreet’s cheek; it landed with a thud. People screamed, some edging closer to see what was going on. Overstreet staggered for a moment, and I thought he was going to fall. But he managed to right himself, and before Rosenthal realized what was happening, Overstreet punched him in the stomach, which caused him to wobble back a few steps, double over like a jackknife, then collapse onto one of the giant orange bales of hay, plastic stalks breaking as the sculpture absorbed the impact of the body.

  “Get out of there!” Alex ran to the block of hay, his hands in the air. “You’re ruining it! Get out!”

  Ana, who seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, was at Alex’s side screaming for someone to help.

  “Please!” Kingsley yelled. “Get off that! Off! Off! This is terrible! Isn’t this terrible?”

  It was terrible.

  Kingsley and two other men pulled Rosenthal out of the plastic hay bale, where he’d left a large indentation in the shape of a body. Ana was trying to calm Alex, but it wasn’t working. I could see a vessel throbbing in his neck, and I worried another fight would start.

  I also worried about David. What would Alex do if he discovered David was the one who’d brought the sculpture here? I never learned the answer to that question because the next thing I knew, the police had arrived. Four officers rushed inside and began talking to Kingsley, Overstreet, Rosenthal, and Alex.

  I looked for David a final time, then headed toward the door.

  “Miss Harrington?”

  A man approached me. Something about him looked familiar. He wasn’t in uniform, so it took me a moment to realize it was Officer Madden from the Eastville Police Department. Uh-oh. What did he think I’d done now? “Yes?”

  “Hey, good to run into you. Timing couldn’t be better.”

  Good to run into me?

  He was smiling. “What a show, huh?” He glanced around, and I thought about making a run for it. “I love this guy’s work. Lucky thing I’m off tonight. Heard I just missed an altercation, though. Two art collectors getting into it? What’s this world coming to?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, still wary.

  “Hey, let me tell you what’s going on. We just made an arrest an hour ago. The Baked-Goods Bandit.”

  It took a few seconds for that to register. “You arrested the Baked-Goods Bandit?” I felt such relief picturing the culprit in a jail cell, imagining a thug from a street gang, somebody who dealt drugs to children when he wasn’t stealing their cookies.

  Officer Madden nodded. “Yeah. Sure did. You’re not going to believe this. It’s the guy who owns the house. The house where we arrested you.”

  He’d lost me. “What guy?”

  “The homeowner. The husband. Cadwy Gwythyr.”

  He might as well have told me it was my mother. “Cadwy Gwythyr? That’s impossible. He’s just a little guy who…I mean, he sells herbal remedies and drives a car that runs on cow dung. It can’t be him.”

  “He confessed. Apparently, he goes all over the county making deliveries for a healing business they have. He was taking the food from his customers. Said he couldn’t help himself. His wife doesn’t let him eat sweets.”

  I couldn’t believe Jeanette’s refusal to let her husband eat sweets had pushed him into a life of crime. Poor Cadwy. “What’s going to happen to him? I know he stole some food, but aren’t there more serious crimes to worry about?”

  Officer Madden hooked his thumbs in his belt loops. “Yes, Miss Harrington, there are. We’ve already let him go. Nobody wanted to press charges.”

  I was glad to hear it.

  Officer Madden grabbed a crab cake from a passing server. “You know, if you hadn’t taken that pie from their house, we never would have solved it so fast. His prints were all over the pie plate, which isn’t surprising. But so were the pie owner’s. We were able to connect the dots.”

  I remembered the Gwythyrs were supposed to be in New Mexico. “But I thought they were away. How did you arrest Cadwy?”

  “They were away, but New Mexico authorities extradited him.” Officer Madden glanced across the room and nodded. “Yeah, they take their desserts pretty seriously down there.”

  They certainly did.

  Chapter 28

  The Confession

  I left the gallery and headed straight to the Kitchen, where the rehearsal dinner was going on. The maître d’ ushered me into the private room where the wedding party was seated: Mariel and Carter; Mom; her brother, my uncle Jack, who was going to walk Mariel down the aisle; Jack’s wife, my aunt Ann; my mother’s sister, Aunt Beth; Carter’s parents, Jim and Sandy; the bridesmaids; and the groomsmen, one of whom was Carter’s older brother.

  I’d known Carter’s family since we began dating, and I must have wondered a thousand times what it would be like to run into them again. At one point it would have mattered; I would have been embarrassed. Now, as I took a seat, I realized I didn’t feel that way at all. Like water seeking its own level, they’d settled into the right place in my life.

  “It’s only a small part,” I overheard Mom say, “but I think it’s going to be fun.”

  The word was out. She must have gotten the contract. I was happy for her.

  “Wow, Mom, what a surprise,” Mariel said. “I didn’t know you’d auditioned for anything.”

  “Let’s toast to Mom,” I said. “To a successful show.”

  We raised our glasses and I sipped my Riesling. As I sat there, half listening to the conversations around me, I couldn’t stop wondering what David was doing. He and Ana would be leaving soon for France. Maybe next week.

  I pictured them at Le Jules Verne, crisp linens on the table, gleaming silver, Paris glowing through the windows, little buttons of light against a velvet sky. The server bringing Ana a dessert plate with David’s proposal written on its rim and, in the middle, the box with the ring inside. What would he say? Something about how much he loved her, how happy she made him, and how he wanted to be with her forever. Something traditional like that. He’d said she was traditional. She’d say yes, of course. Then he’d slip the ring on her finger. Happy tears from her, big smiles from him. Hugs. Kisses. And on to a lifetime together.

  Uncle Jack turned to me and asked how I liked Chicago. I pasted a smile on my face
and proceeded to give him my pat answer.

  I got home and took Mariel’s wedding gown out of the back of my car. As I was going down the hall, I heard voices in the kitchen, water running in the sink, ice being dropped into glasses, a champagne cork popping. Aunt Ann and Uncle Jack were laughing. “I never did that!” Mom said, but she was laughing too. I didn’t hear Mariel’s or Carter’s voice. I headed up the back stairs and into my room, took the wedding gown from the garment bag, and laid it on the bed.

  Mariel was in her bathroom, sitting in front of the vanity. She leaned into the mirror, reapplying her mascara.

  “I need to show you something.” I stood in the doorway.

  She ran the tiny brush over her lashes. “Hold on a sec. Let me just get this…” Another go with the brush. “There.” She turned to me. “What’s up?”

  “It’s in my room.”

  “Give me a hint. Animal, vegetable, or mineral?”

  I smiled. It was something we used to say as kids, and I hadn’t heard it in a long time. The question was a tough one. Where did fabric fall? It didn’t really fit into any of those categories, although some fabrics came from animals and some were grown, of course. Silk, though, came from silkworms. So was animal the right choice? “I can’t. You’ll just have to come see. But I need to explain something first.”

  “Okay.” She picked up an eyebrow pencil and dabbed at her brows.

  “Your wedding gown isn’t exactly the same gown it was. I mean, it’s close. It’s definitely close, but…” How could I say this? There was no good way. “Okay, I had Bella alter your gown to make it smaller so it wouldn’t fit you.”

  Mariel dropped the eyebrow pencil. “You did what?” I felt the heat from her eyes as she stared at me.

  “I was angry with you. About Carter. About the wedding. And then you asked me to be a bridesmaid, to take the place of that girl who broke her leg. I didn’t want to be in your wedding to begin with, and there I was, being asked to sub for someone else at the last minute. That put me over the top. And that’s when I decided I’d be a bridesmaid and be your wedding planner, but my real motive was to sabotage the wedding.”

  Mariel sat bolt upright. “Sabotage my wedding?”

  I wanted to evaporate into the air, disappear through the mirror, but I knew the only way I could ever have a clean slate was to keep telling her the truth, get it all out there. “The day we were at Marcello’s, I re-pinned your gown so it would be too small.”

  “My Valentino! Sara, how could you?”

  I held up a hand to stop her. “Bella fixed it, though. She did a really good job. She took some fabric from the train and added it in a couple of places. And she covered the seams with lace. I don’t think you can tell at all.”

  Silence filled the bathroom like toxic gas. I stared at the vanity, at a swirly gray spot in the marble that looked like the vortex of a tornado. I wished I were in a tornado. One that would pick me up and plunk me down somewhere miles away. Another continent might be good.

  “There’s more,” I said. “I did some other things too.”

  “Other things?”

  “The seating arrangements, the music, the food—”

  “Oh my God, Sara. How could you do that?” Her voice broke. She covered her face with her hands.

  “I know. It was terrible of me. Horrible. I’m so sorry. I didn’t want you and Carter to get married then, but I do now. I want that more than anything for you. And for him. I tried to fix everything, to put all the arrangements back the way they were. And I have. Well, all except for the flowers.” I paused. “Do you like mums?”

  “I think I’d like to kill you,” she said, the words coming out in a convulsive-sounding whisper.

  “I know. But you’d get jail time. Although you’d have a good excuse for the murder.”

  “It would be worth it.”

  “Maybe. But think about those orange jumpsuits. That’s all you’d ever get to wear.”

  There was a long stretch of silence while I waited for her to scream and yell and chase me from the room. But she didn’t.

  “Wow,” she said finally. “You really hated me.” There was something in her eyes I hadn’t seen in a while. Something that looked like empathy. “I’m sorry I made you so miserable, that I pushed you that far. I’m sorry I’ve been so selfish.”

  “I’m sorry too. For the mean things I’ve done. For not listening to you, not understanding you, not realizing what you’ve been going through. I’m going to be a better sister.”

  I took her hand and tugged her off the vanity, and we hugged for a long time. I could feel her tears on my cheek. Maybe she felt mine on hers.

  Chapter 29

  With This Ring

  The wedding took place at four on Saturday. Looking handsome in his tux, Carter stood at the altar waiting for Mariel. He winked when he caught my eye, and I gave him a thumbs-up. Mariel looked gorgeous in the Valentino gown, and I don’t think anyone suspected a single stitch had been changed. No wedding rings were lost or swallowed.

  Mom cried during the ceremony. Then she said she felt old. I wasn’t sure if she was crying because of the wedding or because she felt old or both. I didn’t ask. I was concentrating on the words my sister and Carter were saying to each other. Words like forever and love and understanding. Words like forgiveness and patience. Words like together and always. I wasn’t envious of her. I was happy for her. I just wished someone would say those words to me.

  The weather was a sunny eighty degrees, perfect for an outdoor reception at the club. The tables on the slate patio looked lovely with their white linens, and although I’m sure the orchid arrangements Mariel had chosen would have been spectacular, Ginny Hall had done a nice job on the daisy-sunflower-mum centerpieces. And Mariel had taken the Benadryl.

  Tate sat next to me with his plus-one—Amy, the new vet in his practice. He confessed to me he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to mix business with pleasure, but I told him you only live once and wished him luck. I was the last person to be critiquing relationships.

  During dinner (I had the Dover sole, by the way, which was excellent), Carter’s best man, Tim Rucci, got up to give a toast, which included a story about how Carter had had to break into Tim’s Jeep one night when they were in college because Tim had locked the keys in the car. I’d never heard that story before and it made me wonder if Carter could have blasted open that elevator door the day I met him.

  After dinner, I walked over to Mariel and Carter’s table and set a small box in front of my sister. “It’s not your wedding gift,” I said. “I actually got you that Japanese screen you wanted, but they couldn’t figure out how to wrap it.”

  Mariel laughed. Carter looked perplexed.

  “An old joke,” I said. I tapped the box. “This reminded me of when we were little.”

  She opened it and held up the snow globe with the two horses inside. “I can’t believe it. They look exactly like Crackerjack and Two’s Company. The bay even has the same star Two had,” she said, giving the globe a shake. White flakes swirled, floating over the ponies and the red barn, collecting in a little drift at the bottom. “I love it. I really love it. Thanks, Sara.” She threw her arms around me.

  The band began to play “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours,” an old Stevie Wonder song. As I headed back to my seat, I saw someone come through the French doors onto the patio and I stopped. It was David. In a suit and tie.

  “David?” I scurried toward him, wondering why he was here. Something bad must have happened, probably something to do with the hand. “What’s going on?”

  “Ah, there you are,” he said, looking relieved to see me. “I’m sorry to show up unannounced. I’m not trying to crash your sister’s wedding. It’s just that I’m on my way back to Manhattan and I needed to talk to you.”

  I didn’t like his serious tone. In his eyes, things swirled and pitched, but I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. “What’s wrong?”

  “I want to apologize fo
r the way I treated you the other night. For what I said, how I said it. I was rude, and I never should have criticized you like that. I had no right to make judgments about you or your sister. I’m sorry.”

  That’s what this was about? An apology? “I thought something bad had happened to you. Maybe something with the hand. That you were in trouble.”

  He smiled, and I remembered what a lovely smile he had, how it lit up his whole face. “No, I’m not in trouble.”

  “David, you don’t need to apologize for anything. You were right about what you said. About my sister and me acting like children. We were acting like children. The two of us have been working at cross-purposes for a while, but I think we’re starting to straighten things out.”

  “That’s great, Sara. I’m glad.”

  “And you were also right about me and Carter. He belongs with my sister.”

  I gazed across the patio. People were talking and dancing. Someone tapped a spoon against a glass and others followed, the ringing prompting Carter and Mariel to kiss. I watched their embrace, a bittersweet feeling in my heart.

  A server walked up to us. “May I get you something?”

  I shook my head.

  “No, thanks,” David said. He watched the server walk away. “You know, I’m not usually so reckless about what I say to people. I just felt you were making a big mistake with Carter. It didn’t seem right for a lot of reasons.”

  “You weren’t reckless. You were being honest. Friends should feel they can be honest with one another. That’s what you said, and you were right.” Friends. It wasn’t what I wanted, but at least I had that.

  “Yeah, well, you’re an interesting friend to have. You know, I had a crazy couple of weeks here. I can’t believe I did half the stuff I did with you. Tried to fix what I thought was an Alex Lingon sculpture, broke into a house, got arrested, had my mug shot plastered all over town and on the internet. Did I leave anything out? Oh yeah—¡viva la revolución! Almost forgot that. And I learned you set the art room on fire in high school.”