Marie Ferrarella - Colton Copycat Killer

A sliver of guilt accompanied his thoughts before he pushed it—and those thoughts—away.

Sam rose again, knowing that more definitive information would be forthcoming from the medical examiner’s autopsy. He was already impatient to get his hands on it and the ME and his crew hadn’t even arrived yet.

“Definitely the same,” he said under his breath, more to himself than Ethan. “And yet, different.”

Ethan felt he should be there for him, seeing as how Sam had just lost his bride-to-be, but there were times he found it hard to get close to Sam. His younger brother had constructed an entire wall around himself and so far there were no cracks and no passkey.

We all fight our demons in different ways, Ethan thought. And those demons, he knew from experience, all bore their father’s face.

“Well, that makes it as clear as mud,” Ethan told his brother.

Sam laughed shortly, even though there was no humor in the situation. “I know,” he said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

There was sympathy in Ethan’s eyes as he touched his shoulder. When Sam turned toward him, a silent question in his eyes, Ethan said, “In case I don’t get a chance to say it later, I’m sorry.”

His mind going in a dozen directions at once, Sam asked, “About what?”

Confused by his brother’s response, Ethan gestured toward the body on the floor. “About your fiancée,” he said pointedly.

“Oh.”

For a second, he’d forgotten. This was a homicide and he was thinking like a homicide detective. Personal thoughts weren’t allowed to enter into that. He’d trained himself that way.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Sam shot out the words one at a time in staccato fashion, leaving his brother to wonder exactly what had gone on between Sam and the woman he could no longer marry.

Was Sam that good at hiding his grief, or had what had happened to all of them so long ago destroyed Sam’s ability to feel anything at all, not even sorrow, much less love?

Ethan was almost afraid to find out the answer.

Chapter 2

When she opened the door leading into the church where the actual wedding ceremony was supposed to be taking place, someone automatically cued the organist. Strains of “Here Comes the Bride” began to swell throughout the church and everyone sitting in the pews automatically rose to their feet and faced the back of the church.

Half a beat later, as Zoe continued to stand there, all but frozen in place, someone from within the crowd declared in disappointment, “Hey, that’s not the bride, that’s Zoe.”

The observation was immediately followed by a myriad of questions, all fired at once at Zoe who, since she wasn’t the missing bride, was expected to satisfactorily field the various inquiries.

“Where’s Celia?”

“What’s going on?”

“How long does it take for that woman to get ready? Let’s get this show on the road already.”

There were more questions and more irritated complaints, but those were entirely indistinguishable to Zoe. Shouted out, they mingled with one another until everything just became one huge, pulsating cacophony of noise.

Standing there, with one of the double doors closed at her back in order to afford her support—her knees still felt incredibly weak and she worried about them buckling—Zoe cleared her throat and tried, at first in vain, to get everyone’s attention.

Because her voice was initially so whisper soft, no one even heard her make the attempt except for a couple of the wedding guests who were closest to her at the rear of the church.

But others saw her lips moving and assumed she was telling them something.

“What?”

“Speak up!”

“I can’t hear you!”

“What the hell is going on here?” someone from the center of the crowd roared angrily, their voice louder than the rest.

It was the last disembodied question that caused Zoe to stiffen in response. Angry now, as well as incredibly upset and shaken, she raised her voice as she made a second attempt to be heard.

“There’s not going to be a wedding,” she began. Her voice was still somewhat shaky, but at least it was finally becoming audible.

“I drove all that way for nothin’?” an indignant woman cried angrily in response.

“What do you mean, there’s not going to be a wedding?” someone else demanded heatedly.

“Why the hell not?” yet another, deep male voice wanted to know.

As close to losing her self-control as she had ever come, Zoe raised her voice again and shouted, “Because there’s been a murder!”

Her voice cracked on the last syllable the moment she uttered it.

A sense of horror dropped over the gathering like an old-fashioned, heavy theater curtain made of asbestos.

“A murder?” someone near the front of the church cried. “What do you mean, a murder? Like with a dead person?”

A man two pews over spoke up. “No, she’s kidding. Right? This is what they call black humor or something, right? She’s doing this because Celia’s not ready.”

“Is that what you’re doing? Stalling until the bride’s ready?” a third person, a woman near the rear of the church challenged. “’Cause I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m getting real hungry just sitting here, waitin’.”

As the questions and retorts continued to fly fast and furious at her, Zoe gave serious thought to a full-on retreat. The wedding guests who had previously risen to greet the bride were still on their feet and more than a few were coming toward her, as if shortening the distance between them and her could somehow make what she was saying clearer to them—or better yet, transparent.

Zoe fumbled for the doorknob behind her, thinking to hold on to it and possibly swing the door open again in case she had to execute a very hasty retreat and create a temporary barrier between herself and the wedding guests who were quickly growing more annoyed by the second.

With her hand behind her back, Zoe wasn’t able to secure the doorknob, but she suddenly felt the door opening behind her. She knew she hadn’t managed to do that.

Was there someone behind her?

The next moment, her suspicions were confirmed as she heard Sam’s deep voice addressing the agitated wedding guests.

“No one’s stalling,” he informed them in a voice that was not to be argued with. “There’s been a murder and you all need to take your seats again.” It wasn’t a request, it was an order. “Someone from the police department is going to be coming to each and every one of you to take down all of your statements,” Sam briskly told the wedding guests in his no nonsense voice.

“All our statements?” one of the guests questioned in disbelief.

Both rows of pews were filled to capacity, which in turn translated to a great many statements that needed to be taken. It could literally take hours before anyone was allowed to leave.

“All of them,” Sam replied in a cool, concise tone of voice.

Someone closer to the rear of the church was definitely not satisfied with so little information. “Sam, what’s going on here? We came here to see you get married. Who was murdered?”

Zoe made a judgment call. Sam didn’t look as if he was willing to answer that question just yet, but she didn’t think it was right to withhold the information. These people were supposedly Celia’s friends. Still struggling to come to terms with what had happened practically under her nose, Zoe took the initiative and answered for Sam.

“Someone shot Celia.”

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sam fire her a look that would have definitely kept her silent had she seen it first.

Her immediate reaction to it was to offer Sam an apology for having overstepped her bounds.