Page 112 of No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding

“We should leave that for the police,” Harper says.

“Just give me a second.” I tap in 000000 and get nothing. Then 111111. Nothing again. I try 123456 and it works. “Oh, I’m in. Let me see if—”

“Freeze! All of you! Hands in the air!”

I drop the phone and wince as it hits a rock and cracks, the screen shattering into spiderwebs.

64Connor blew through most of the finder’s fee he got when we solved the original case we worked on in Rome ten years ago at the baccarat tables in Monte Carlo, and the money he got from my books God knows where.

65When people audition now, they put themselves on tape reading lines from the script—it’s called a self-tape.

CHAPTER 19

If Your Hands Are Up, Are You Under Arrest?

“What are you still doing here?” Mr. Prentice splutters at us. “Why are you not in your rooms as you were instructed?”

“Can we put our hands down?” Oliver asks.

“Slowly,” the police officer says. She’s wearing an LA County Sheriff’s Department uniform—forest-green trousers, a long-sleeved khaki shirt with a green-and-gold patch over the breast—and looks to be in her late twenties. Her reddish-blond hair is in two braids, one over each shoulder, and she’s holding her arms out straight with her gun pointed right at us.

She looks deadly serious.

I mean, the gun kind of gives it away.

“What did you drop?”

She’s looking right at me.

Which means the gun is pointing at me, too.

Right at my heart.

“It’s José’s cell phone.” I nod behind me. “The victim. I found it on the ground.”

“Give that to me.”

I pick it up and walk it to her slowly, my eyes on the gun, and give it to her in the palm frond. She takes one hand off hergun and takes it, palm frond and all, then lowers her gun arm slowly.

“There’s an evidence bag in my pocket. Reach in and take it out.”

I do as she asks and pull out a folded piece of plastic with an orange seal on it. She instructs me to open it and deposit the phone inside. I do it, then hand it back to her. She slips the gun into a pouch that she’s wearing like a cross-body bag.

“Return to your friends.”

“They’re not...Yes, of course.”

She holsters her gun, then puts her hands on her hips. “Who are you?”

“We’re here for a wedding,” I say.

“Why didn’t you evacuate?”

“Seemed unnecessary,” Fred says. “After all the planning.”

“There was an evacuation order issued.”

“Yes, but that happened last time, didn’t it? Hurricane Hilary? And then it was all for nothing. Just some rain.”

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