Wedding Day of Murder Read Free Page A

had wound up
wrapped in canvas and stuck to the floor with paint. She should put him out of
his misery and tell him the whole story, but she couldn’t bring herself to
reveal the extent of her paranoia and clumsiness.
    “I haven’t checked. I’ve been
busy,” she said. He put his arms around her and levered her to a standing
position.
    “You need some help with that
hair?” he asked.
    Before she could answer, a movement
to her left caught her attention. Lacy jumped and would have toppled again, but
Jason righted her and turned accusingly toward the intruder.
    “What are you doing up here?” he
asked.
    Michael stared at them in
open-mouthed surprise; rather, he stared at Lacy. “The lights went out. I was
coming to check on Lacy.”
    “In the shower?” Jason said. He and
Michael rarely saw each other. When they did, their interactions were
contentious, usually because Jason made them that way. Michael had no problem
with Jason; Jason had a big problem with Michael. Just a few days ago, Jason
and Lacy had discussed the situation. She had reiterated that he had no need
for jealousy. There was nothing but friendship between her and Michael. They
often worked closely together on Stakely-related causes. He had become a
valuable helper in the fight to advance the local economy. More than that, she
genuinely liked him. But she wasn’t attracted to him. Though he hadn’t said as
much, Lacy knew that Jason would prefer her to have less contact with Michael,
but that wasn’t going to happen. She saw him every day at work, and she refused
to curb her social life to appease his unreasonable jealousy. For the time
being, they had agreed to disagree over the matter.
    “I wasn’t going to pop in on her,”
Michael said. “I was simply coming up here to make sure she found her way in
the dark. Looks like she did fine on her own.” His eyes twinkled with merriment
at Lacy’s predicament. He would no doubt put this in the archives and pull it
up whenever he wanted to tease her, and since he liked to tease her all the
time, she would probably hear about it a lot. Maybe for the rest of her life.
    Lacy jumped in before Jason could
respond. The less interaction between the two men, the better. “Thanks for
checking, Michael, but I’m doing well.”
    Michael laughed. “Clearly.”
    Joe, her erstwhile security guard,
appeared as he always did, as if he had been conjured from thin air. One minute
he wasn’t there, and the next he was. Lacy had no idea how he did that. “Lacy,
we’ve got a problem.”
    Jason shifted irritably from foot
to foot. “Lacy, why are you allowing people up here? This is your personal
space. It should be off limits. This is not safe.”
    “It’s off limits to strangers,”
Lacy defended.
    “Did you give them a key?” Jason
asked. He gestured to Joe and Michael.
    “Joe has a skeleton key. And so does
Michael. The door to this floor is unlocked, but I did put up a sticky note
that says, ‘Please do not enter,’” Lacy said.
    “Well, if you put up a sticky
note,” Jason said. “They’re practically impenetrable. Geez.” He closed his eyes
and squeezed the bridge of his nose.
    “What’s the problem, Joe?” Lacy
asked, thankful for a subject change. Jason didn’t believe she took security in
the building seriously enough. She routinely pointed out that nothing ever
happened anyway and she had Joe who practically lived at the building.
    “Them,” Joe said. He pointed behind
him to the door. The group of protesters filed in and began chanting.
    “What do we want? Equal protection
and fair trade for all nations, whether developed or rural, and an end to sun
grown coffee and chocolate. When do we want it? Now!” The dreadlocked woman who
had verbally attacked Lacy outside seemed to be the leader. She was also the
only one who knew all the words to the chant. The others randomly called out
“coffee” “chocolate” and “fair.” They became cohesive when they reached “now.”
The