Page 178 of No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding

“What has that got to do with anything?” Harper asks. “Are you getting to some point? Because Shawna is dead right there on the floor, if you didn’t notice?”

Inspector Tucci is not deterred. “This is a play.” He puts his hand out in front of him in a sweeping gesture. “All a performance.”

“Tucci, I swear to God,” Simone growls.

“No, let him talk,” Oliver says. “What’s your theory?”

“We have been behind the killer the entire time. A new clue, a new misdirection, a new victim seem to happen right when we think we are figuring it out...But what ties them all together? What is the connective tissue?” He looks around us as if it should be obvious. “It’s Emma.”

“What?” Emma says. “Me?”

“Yes, you. Where did this all begin?”

“With the movie,” Connor says. “When in Rome.”

“No, it was before. Long before.” He sweeps his hands in front of him, then forms a square like he’s directing the scene. “A love affair gone wrong.”

“What are you talking about? Fred and I only got together on set.”

“You and Tyler. I have watched you all this time, young lady. I have observed and noted, and it is clear you are not being truthful about that relationship.”

Emma rolls her eyes. “Give me a break.”

“It is true. You claim now that it was not serious, yes? That your heart was never involved. But I saw the way you looked at him. How your eyes followed him around the room and would not let him go.”

Emma starts to laugh. “So I’m in love with Tyler, but I married Fred? Why would I do that?”

“To make him jealous.”

“What?”

“That was your original intention. Perhaps you took it too far. Perhaps you fell in love with Fred and changed your mind about the whole thing. I cannot fathom your actions.”

“That doesn’t make sense, Tucci,” I say.

“Which part?”

“You’re saying Emma was in love with Tyler, so she took up with Fred to make him jealous and then, when that didn’t work, she decided to try to kill him at her wedding?”

“Precisely.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“Me too,” Allison says.

“Me three,” Oliver adds.

“Spell it out,” Officer Anderson says. “From the beginning.”

“I don’t have all the details, I grant you. But when Tyler rebuffed her attempts to reunite, she decided to use Fred to get back at him. Make him jealous. Win back his heart. And when that didn’t work, she decided to get revenge. To lure everyone here under the guise of a wedding and to kill Tyler.”

“And instead, I killed José and Ken and Shawna?” Emma says.

“They were your accomplices. Your decoys. No one would suspect the bride. It was the perfect plan.”

“Is anyone buying this?” Emma says. “Because this is the worst script I’ve ever heard of.”

My head is spinning trying to follow Tucci’s logic, but that word stops me: “script.”

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