'Til Death Do Us Part by Kate White Read Free Book Online Page A

look into it, Miss Weggins,” he said pleasantly but the tiniest bit patronizingly. “Until we know more, I’d ask you to please be careful.”
    Oh sure, I thought. Let me just give Britney Spears a call and see if she’d loan me one of those four-hundred-pound bodyguards I’d seen in paparazzi shots of her. Michaels rose from the table and directed me out of the main kitchen along a narrow corridor to a small room in the back. Mary and the rest of the staff were sitting around a table, with a uniformed cop holding up the far wall. Peyton was nowhere in sight.
    “Where’s Ms. Cross?” Michaels asked after a quick glance around the room.
    “I think she went to the ladies’ room,” Phillipa said sullenly. “It’s down the hall.”
    Michaels strode off, looking slightly annoyed.
    For the next hour I waited in that small room, ready to jump out of my skin. I felt a strong urge to be on the move and find things out, but I didn’t know
what
. Every ten minutes or so Michaels would pop in and collect someone for her interview with the police, while the others waited behind silently. All the women seemed stunned. The one who had sniffled earlier continued to do so off and on, and periodically several others followed suit. I wasn’t sure whether it was because they were close to Ashley or were just completely distressed by their proximity to her death. Mary, her expression impenetrable, turned her attention to a pile of paperwork she’d brought in with her. With her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose, she went through the stack methodically, sometimes scribbling notes in the margin. And Phillipa chose the most interesting pastime of all: She gave herself a mani. Filling the air with the overpowering scent of nail polish remover, she stripped off her color with cotton balls and painted the nails on her surprisingly slim hands with three coats of dark pink polish. Though she was careful with each stroke, there was a manic quality to her work, as if she had chosen to concentrate intensely on this one task so she wouldn’t have to focus on the tragedy at the farm.
    As for me, I sat there sullenly, sickened by the thought of Ashley’s death and also feeling guilty as hell. Just three hours earlier I had stood in Ashley’s kitchen and advised her not to worry. Now she was dead. I was desperate to know what had actually happened to her. I was also nervous about my own safety. Three of Peyton’s bridesmaids were dead, which left me, Maverick, and the maid of honor, Prudence.
    Periodically I glanced out the window. From this end of the barn I couldn’t see any of the police activity, but I could watch the storm. It had turned into a real nightmare, and driving back to the city would be hairy. I decided that the smartest thing would be to ask Peyton if I could spend the night at her place. That would also give me a chance to talk to her and discuss everything that had transpired.
    Gradually the space emptied. Since no one came back into the room after being summoned, I assumed the cops let them go home before the storm worsened. Peyton never returned to the sitting area, either, but at one point I spotted her in a small kitchen across the hall, about a quarter the size of the main one. A couple of minutes after the last employee had been summoned, the uniformed cop left, too.
    “Am I allowed to leave now?” I called out to him as he headed down the corridor.
    “You need to check with Detective Pichowski.”
    I stuffed my belongings into my bags and hurried down the corridor to the big kitchen. The two detectives, both of them now bundled up in their coats, were standing by the door, talking to Peyton. She looked weary and frazzled. Strands of strawberry blond hair had come loose from her updo, as if she’d just played several rounds of Twister.
    “I have a reputation to protect,” she nearly shrieked as I strode across the room. “You have to figure out what happened.”
    “I understand,” Pichowski