Kathleen Creighton - Eve’s Wedding Knight

Tradition to the rescue!

It was Eve’s moment, and she wasted no time in taking advantage of it. In a flash she was out from behind the row of parked cars, sprinting barefooted down the middle of the side street to the corner, then across to the square. Crouched behind the car that was parked just behind the van, she took a moment to catch her breath while her mind careened wildly through the obstacle course of her options and possibilities. Which by this time, admittedly, could be classified as DWI.

Which probably explained why she arrived at the conclusion that the van was God’s answer to her prayers. Such a nice big van, the kind with double doors that opened in the back. All she had to do, it seemed to her, was open those doors, get inside that van and close them up after her, and she’d be safe. The best part of it was, she wouldn’t have to commit grand theft auto after all. Unless the doors were locked, and then maybe just a wee bit of breaking and entering… Hey-what was a little thing like a locked door to Evie Waskowitz? Piece a‘cake.

First, though, just a little bit more champagne to bolster her courage…oops-all gone. C‘est la guerre.

Her determination freshly primed, Eve tucked the empty bottle under her arm like a swagger stick, marched up to the rear of the van and took firm hold of the handle.

Jake could not believe his eyes. What was this? What in the hell was going on?

First, Cisneros and a couple of his goons come running around the corner from the back alley, looking like kids with their pockets full of money and they’d just missed the ice cream truck. They look around all over the place for a while, up and down the street, then back they go.

A few minutes later, one of ‘em takes up a position at the front door, and tuxedo or no, the guy looks more like a bouncer at a biker bar than an usher at a wedding. Now here comes the bride herself, creeping up and down the street, hiding behind parked cars, looking in all the windows, like, if he didn’t know how crazy it was, he’d swear she’s looking to boost one.

Then the minute Cisneros’s goon turns his back, she’s hotfooting it across the street, looking like she’s got every intention of climbing into his van! What the hell was going on?

And what in the hell was he going to do about the woman out there right now, tugging and rattling his door handle? This wasn’t exactly a situation covered in the procedure manuals-not that Jake normally paid much attention to things like that-and there wasn’t anybody he could consult, as his partner, Burdell “Birdie” Poole, had gone for coffee about half an hour ago. Not that Jake would have heeded Birdie’s advice in a situation like this anyway. This was strictly his call.

Something was about to fall into his lap-he could feel it. And Jake wasn’t one to let such an opportunity pass him by.

He peeled off his headset and dropped it beside the bank of monitors, then rose to his feet and moved stealthily to the back door of the van. For a moment or two he listened to the ambiguously furtive sounds coming from the other side of the door. Then he took hold of the inside handle and gave it a turn.

He heard a little grunt of surprise and an exclamation of satisfaction as the door flew outward, and then had to dodge backward as the bride came lurching through the opening. An instant later, though, she froze, poised half-in and half-out of the van, resembling nothing so much, in her voluminous white skirts, as a large, extremely agitated swan.

“Yikes!” she exclaimed under her breath, and then, as her eyes traveled upward from the scuffed tips of Jake’s cap-toe oxfords, along the nonexistent creases of his charcoal-gray cotton coveralls, added a chagrinned and breathy “Busted.”

To his surprise, Jake found his customary dour demeanor being tested as it had not been in a very long time. Even maintaining a standard Bureau deadpan took every ounce of his will, as he responded with mild sarcasm, “Not at all. Would you like to come in? Do you need a hand?”

But she was already inside the van, straightening up and looking around-and he got a good clear look at her for the first time. My God, he thought, jolted in a way he’d no longer believed himself capable of. My God. What the hell was going on here?

Her face was scraped across one cheekbone and down the side of her face all the way to the jaw; she had a cut over one eye and another smaller one on the bridge of her nose; and either a very lopsided mouth or one helluva fat lip. He was about to say something, ask her what had happened to her, when he noticed the champagne bottle tucked under one arm. That and the bleary way she was looking around her seemed to him to offer one explanation-maybe even an obvious one-but somehow he didn’t think it was the right one. Somehow it didn’t fit.

She moved slowly past him, her mouth opening in silent awe as she took in the video monitors, the computer, the whole array of state-of-the-art electronic surveillance equipment. Then she rounded on him and exclaimed, “This is a surveillance van!” She leaned forward, eyes narrowed accusingly. “Who are you surveill-llin-watching? Hmm?” And she waited for his answer, breasts heaving and eyes shooting dark fire.

Even given her battered condition it was a potent combination, and possibly one reason why it took Jake a beat longer than it should have to become aware of the particular… aura she’d brought into the van with her. Once noticed, though, it was hard to ignore the unmistakable aroma of ripening garbage. And he saw now a few other things he’d missed in his preoccupation with the condition of her face: blood spatters, as well as a good many unidentifiable stains and smears on the white satin wedding dress, and something in her hair that looked very much like coffee grounds.

Though completely mystified as to what could possibly have happened that would explain the woman’s condition, still he began to feel deep within himself the stirrings of a strange excitement. Treading carefully, he ventured, “Ma‘am, would you like to…sit down? I think you’ve had quite a bit to drink-”

“I’ve had a whole bottle of champagne to drink,” she readily acknowledged, looking mysteriously pleased with herself, and the almost feline satisfaction in her smile sparked unexpected responses in the bottom of Jake’s belly. Then, before he could even wonder about that, she was stern and serious again. “However, I am drunk, not unconscious. This is-these are-video monitors. I’m a TV producer. You think I don’t know a video monitor when I see one? Listen, buster-”

She gave a soft gasp, then, and crouched down for a closer look at the monitor in question, which at the moment was displaying a fairly wide-angle shot of the front of the church, where a number of people were just emerging through the high-arched, ornately carved double door entrance. Jake reached past her to the remote controls. The grim little knot of men surrounding Sonny Cisneros grew larger. Jake zoomed in tighter still, until Sonny’s face all but filled the screen, until he seemed to be looking right into the camera, right into the eyes of the woman who watched on the monitor screen with the frozen fascination of a bird in the thrall of a snake.

Without taking her eyes from the screen, she took a step backward, then another. Which was as far as she could go before her back was smack up against Jake’s chest. He could feel the moist heat of her body, hear the rapid, rhythmic whisper of her breathing. Her blond hair, short and tousled as a small boy’s, was just about on a level with his lips, and even through the overriding stench of champagne and garbage he caught a mouth-watering whiff of strawberries. He didn’t think about putting his hands on her shoulders-didn’t even know he had until he felt the crusty texture of lace and pearls beneath his palms. He snatched them away just as she turned, her face chalk-white behind her scrapes and bruises, her eyes enormous and the dark slate-blue of rain clouds.