GROOM UNDER FIRE Read online

  The door to the room behind the altar stood ajar. She pushed it open to darkness. “Stephen?”

  Had he changed his mind, too? She didn’t blame him, but she doubted that he would have just left without talking to her first. She fumbled along the wall, feeling for the switch, when her fingers smeared across something wet. That wasn’t something Mrs. Payne would have missed either. The chapel was spotless.

  Tanya flipped on the switch, bathing the room in light—and discovered it had already been bathed in blood. It was spattered across the floor, the couch and the wall. Panic and fear rose up at the horror, choking her, so that she could barely utter the scream burning her throat.

  *

  COOPER HEARD IT. Even though the scream wasn’t loud, the sheer terror of it pierced his heart. He ran past his mother, who was already halfway down the aisle of the church—and toward the danger. Years had passed since he’d heard it, but he had instinctively recognized Tanya’s voice.

  “Stay here,” he ordered his mother as he reached beneath his leather jacket and pulled his weapon from the arm holster.

  She pointed behind the altar, to the room from which light spilled. And Tanya. She backed out of the doorway, her hand pressed across her mouth as if to hold in another scream. As he rushed up behind her, she collided with Cooper. Then she pulled her hand away and screamed again.

  He spun her around to face him. “It’s okay,” he assured her. “It’s me.”

  Her green eyes, damp with tears, widened, and then she clutched at him, pressing against his chest. “Cooper! Thank God it’s you!”

  Her slight body trembled in his arms that automatically closed around her, pulling her even closer. She fit perfectly against him. But he was just comforting her, just making sure she was all right.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked. “Are you hurt?”

  She shook her head, and her silky blond hair brushed against his throat. “No, no…”

  He peered over her head into the room, and then he saw it. All the blood…

  So much blood.

  Despite his order to stay put, his mother joined them. “What’s wrong—” she started to ask but gasped when she saw it, too.

  “Call 911,” Cooper said, thrusting his phone at her.

  Then he stepped inside the room to look for the body. With that much blood, there had to be a body…

  A dead one.

  Chapter Two

  “There is no body…”

  Cooper’s words drifted to Tanya through a thick haze of shock. He wasn’t speaking to her, though; he hadn’t since he’d asked if she was hurt. Of course he had been busy—searching the church and the surrounding grounds as well as talking to his family and the police officers who had arrived to investigate the scene of the crime.

  The police had spoken to her. A somber-faced male officer had asked countless questions and not one of them had been if she was okay. Mrs. Payne had shooed off the man a while ago when she’d brought Tanya the cup of tea that was cooling in her hands. What the older woman had told the officer was right—Tanya had no idea what had happened. She’d only turned on the light to find the blood. All that blood…

  The smear she’d found on the wall stained her hands. That was why she hadn’t lifted the cup. It was why the heat of the tea would never warm her. She had blood on her hands…

  “So we don’t know,” Cooper continued, his dark head bent close to his brother’s, “if we’re looking at a homicide or abduction.”

  Was it Logan or Parker to whom he spoke? They were identical twins. Whichever one it was asked, “Why would it be either?”

  Cooper shrugged shoulders so broad that they tested the seams of his black leather jacket. Despite the blood and the fear, during that moment she’d clung to him, she’d felt safe—with his arms around her. Just as he hadn’t talked to her, he hadn’t touched her since then either. Maybe that was why she felt so cold that she trembled.

  “This is Stephen we’re talking about,” Cooper’s brother persisted. “He was everyone’s friend in high school. Did he change that much?”

  “No,” Tanya replied. “He’s still everyone’s friend.” Her best friend. Where was he? And what had happened to him?

  “Then maybe this isn’t what it looks like,” the twin replied.

  “It looks like a crime scene,” Cooper said. Yellow tape cordoned off the groom’s quarters that police techs had photographed and processed for prints and whatever other evidence they’d found. “There’s a lot of blood. The signs of a struggle. It’s obvious somebody was dragged down the aisle.”

  That was why the runner had been bunched. Like the walls of the groom’s quarters, it had also been stained with blood. While she’d been in the bride’s room, someone had attacked her groom and dragged him from the church. How hadn’t she or Mrs. Payne heard any of the struggle?

  Tanya had been in the bride’s room, deciding that she did not want to be a bride. Mrs. Payne had been downstairs in her office talking with the reverend. Unable to have a rehearsal without a groom, the minister had left after talking to the police.

  “What the hell did you do?” the maid of honor, Tanya’s sister, shouted. She ran down the aisle toward the front of the church where Tanya sat in the pew near where the Payne brothers stood. But Rochelle didn’t make it very far before she tripped over the rumpled runner.

  Tanya’s only other bridesmaid, who was also Cooper’s sister, rushed up behind her and helped her to her unsteady feet. “Rochelle, let me get you some more coffee…”

  “I don’t need coffee!” Tanya’s little sister shouted, her words only slightly slurred. “I need to know what she did with Stephen!”

  “What I did with him?” Tanya asked. She set the teacup on the pew and rose up to meet her sister as Rochelle finally made it down the aisle.

  “You don’t care about him at all,” Rochelle accused. “You’ve just been using him to get Grandfather’s money. That’s all you care about!” She vaulted herself at Tanya, knocking her to the ground.

  The shock finally wore off—leaving Tanya able to register the pain. She felt the hardness of the floor beneath her back and the weight of her sister, who, despite the fact she was younger, was quite a bit taller and heavier. She could barely breathe with her on top of her. And she felt the sharp sting of her sister’s slap. She had no right to fight back—not when everything Rochelle said was probably true.

  But this was not the time or the place for Rochelle to throw one of her temper tantrums. Tanya had been trying to hold herself together for so long that she finally snapped under the emotional and physical pressure. “Grow up, you brat,” she yelled. Using probably more strength than necessary, she shoved her sister back.

  Rochelle didn’t stay off. As Tanya stood up, her sister launched herself at her again. But this time strong hands caught Tanya before she hit the ground. With an arm wrapped around her waist, Cooper lifted her nearly off her feet.

  The other bridesmaid, Nikki Payne, caught Rochelle, and tried to control her swinging hands and flailing feet. For her efforts, she took a hit to her face.

  “Whatever happened to Stephen is your fault,” Rochelle accused. “It’s all your fault!”

  Another stinging blow connected, bringing tears to Tanya’s eyes. But the tears weren’t from physical pain. Rochelle’s verbal assault had hit her harder than her slap. Because she was right.

  Whatever had happened to Stephen was all Tanya’s fault. She literally had his blood on her hands.

  “Aren’t you glad you had brothers?” Cooper asked his sister as she rubbed her fingertips along the scratch on her cheek and winced. Nikki had somehow subdued her friend while Cooper had carried Tanya out of her reach. When Rochelle had been swinging, Tanya had barely defended herself from her younger sister’s attack. Maybe she was in shock over having found Stephen’s blood in the groom’s quarters.

  “Yeah,” Nikki agreed. “You guys just punched each other. It was more civilized.”

  “We never pu
nched you,” he said.

  “No,” she agreed with a heavy sigh, almost as if she was disappointed that they hadn’t. As the youngest and the only girl with three older brothers, she had often been left out of their roughhousing because they hadn’t wanted to hurt her.

  Tanya and her sister didn’t have that relationship. Rochelle had definitely wanted to hurt her. How badly, though?

  He could understand Rochelle being resentful of her sister. Tanya was far more beautiful—with more delicate features and blonder hair and a thinner figure than her sister. But how deep was that resentment?

  “Why’d you bring her here?” Cooper asked. At least he hoped Nikki had been the driver.

  “She’s Tanya’s maid of honor,” she replied. “I’ve been looking for her all night to make sure she got to the rehearsal.”

  “Mom put you to work, too?”

  She sighed. “Enlisted me as part of the wedding party. I think she suspected there’d be a problem with Rochelle, and she and I have known each other since high school.”

  “You did subdue her.” So much so that the woman sat quietly in a pew now, tears streaming down her flushed face. She seemed more distraught over the groom’s disappearance than the bride was.

  “Please point that out to Logan,” Nikki beseeched him. Their eldest brother was on the other side of the heavy oak doors, talking on his cell phone in the vestibule. She shot him a glare through the windows at the back of the chapel. “He keeps me tied to a desk. He refuses to let me do an actual physical protection assignment.”

  Cooper bit his tongue before he verbally agreed with Logan. Nikki was so petite and fragile looking—just like their mother with her copper-colored hair and big brown eyes. But she had handled herself remarkably well with the taller and heavier Chesterfield sister. He touched her scratched cheek, making her wince again.

  “Hey, I didn’t want to hurt her,” Nikki explained. “Or I would have taken her down faster. She’s a friend, though…” Then she reached out and squeezed his arm. “I’m sorry about Stephen. Do you have any idea what happened?”

  “We don’t know anything for certain. There’s a hell of a lot of blood in the groom’s quarters. But until the crime lab does a DNA test, we don’t even know for certain that it’s his.” Except if it wasn’t, where the hell was he, then? If there wasn’t all that blood, Cooper might have believed his friend had just gotten a case of cold feet. He might have believed that if Stephen was marrying any woman but Tanya.

  “Mom confirmed he was the only one in the room,” Nikki said.

  “Where was his best man?” Cooper asked.

  Nikki lifted a reddish brow. “Where was he?” she asked, obviously referring to him.

  “I told him I couldn’t do it,” Cooper reminded his little sister.

  “Why not?”

  “Why?” Cooper asked. “Why did he even ask me? We haven’t seen each other in years.”

  “He showed up at the house to see you every time you were home on leave,” Nikki said. “He stayed in touch.”

  But they’d both been busy. The letters few and far between and Cooper’s visits home even more infrequent. He shrugged. “I just thought it was weird that he didn’t have a closer friend he wanted to stand up there with him.”

  And weirder that he wanted Cooper. They had been good friends in high school—so good that Stephen must have realized how Cooper had really felt about Tanya. Had he wanted to rub his face in the fact he’d gotten the girl Cooper had wanted? And if so, then they hadn’t really been that good of friends.

  But Cooper still cared about him—still wanted him safe—which he probably would have been had Cooper actually been his best man. Then Stephen wouldn’t have been alone in the groom’s quarters.

  “There are a couple of guys who were planning on standing up there with him,” Nikki said. “A friend from his office and a cousin, but I recruited them to help me find Rochelle. We’d been searching all the bars in River City.”

  “How’d you know that’s where she was?” Maybe Logan was underestimating their sister’s potential as a security expert.

  “She left me a drunk voice mail.”

  Cooper glanced over at the crying woman and sighed. “So interrogating her would probably be a waste of time until Mom gets more coffee in her.”

  “You don’t need to interrogate her,” Tanya said as she rejoined them with an ice pack pressed against the cheek her sister had viciously slapped.

  Apparently his mother was prepared for every wedding emergency—even catfights between the bride and maid of honor. What was her plan to handle a missing groom?

  “I can tell you whatever Rochelle can,” Tanya said.

  But would she be truthful with him? “You’ll tell me why she thinks you’re just using Stephen to get your inheritance?”

  Nikki nudged his arm. “Easy. She’s not a suspect.”

  Maybe she should have been. As he’d already noted, she wasn’t nearly as upset as a madly in love bride should have been when her groom mysteriously and apparently violently disappeared. When Cooper had quietly, so she wouldn’t overhear him, questioned her reaction earlier, his mother and brother had insisted she was in shock.

  But her green eyes were clear now and direct as she replied, “I’m not using Stephen.”

  “What about the inheritance? Your grandfather died a decade ago—don’t you already have your money?” But if she did, why pick his mom’s place for her wedding? The chapel was small and the reception hall in the basement was hardly elegant enough for a billionaire bride.

  She shook her head.

  “Not yet,” another voice chimed in to answer for her. A burly gray-haired man joined them inside the church. With his muscular build and military haircut, he looked more like a cop, but Cooper recognized the lawyer, Arthur Gregory, who’d made countless house calls to the mausoleum. “Neither she nor Rochelle will inherit until they marry.”

  If Rochelle was right and her sister was just after her inheritance, wouldn’t she have gotten married ten years ago? Wouldn’t Rochelle have?

  “He’s trying to control us even after his death,” Rochelle murmured. “Mean son of a—”

  “Miss Chesterfield,” the lawyer admonished her. “Your grandfather had only your best interests at heart.”

  “He had no heart,” Rochelle retorted. “The only reason he wanted us married was because he didn’t think a female had enough brains to handle the kind of money he was leaving to us.” She uttered a derisive snort. “Like our father did such a great job. He blew through all that money Grandfather gave him to divorce Mom and take off.”

  Cooper had never known what had happened to Tanya’s father. She had always avoided talking about him. He’d been sensitive to that since he’d never wanted to talk about how he had lost his dad either.

  “Mr. Gregory, is there a way around the will?” Tanya asked the lawyer.

  Her sister gasped. “We don’t even know what’s happened to Stephen and all you care about is the money?”

  “I care about him,” Tanya said. “That’s why I need the money. In case this is a kidnapping, I’ll need it to pay the ransom to get him back.”

  Arthur Gregory sighed. “There is no way to inherit that money unless you’re married, Miss Chesterfield. And as you know, you only have a few more days…”

  Tanya flinched as if the lawyer had slapped her, too.

  “Why only a few more days?” Cooper asked.

  “If she doesn’t marry before she turns thirty, she forfeits her half of the inheritance,” Rochelle replied. “Then I’ll get it all when I marry.”

  The young woman must have been too drunk yet to realize that she’d just announced her motive for getting rid of her sister’s groom. But if she was behind Stephen’s disappearance, why was she so distraught over it?

  “I need that money,” Tanya repeated, “in case there’s a ransom demand…”

  If Stephen was alive…

  But if he wasn’t, why wouldn’t his bod
y have been left in the room? Someone had taken him for a reason. And what better reason than money?

  “The only way you can access your funds is to marry,” the lawyer insisted.

  “Then she’ll have to marry,” Cooper’s mother said as she joined them inside the church. She carried a tray with cups on it—probably filled with coffee, judging by the rich aroma wafting from the tray.

  Rochelle seemed to have already sobered up. But Cooper was tempted to reach for a cup. He suspected it was going to be a long night.

  “But if Stephen’s been kidnapped, we won’t get him back until I’ve paid for his return,” Tanya pointed out.

  “So you’ll marry someone else,” the wedding planner matter-of-factly replied as if it were easy to exchange one groom for another.

  “Who?” Cooper asked.

  His mother turned to him, her eyes wide with surprise that he hadn’t already figured it out. “You, of course.”

  Cooper had had no intention of attending this wedding, let alone participating in it. He hadn’t wanted to be the best man…and he sure as hell wasn’t going to be the groom.

  Chapter Three

  Tanya’s heart stung with rejection. She hadn’t had to hear his words to know that Cooper had no intention of becoming her husband—for any reason. When his mother had suggested it, he had looked more horrified than he had when he’d seen the blood in the groom’s quarters.

  But she could hear his words now. He didn’t know that, though. His family had gone into the bride’s room for a private discussion. Tanya hadn’t intended to invade their privacy, but she’d left her purse in that room along with her dress. And she really wanted to leave.

  She couldn’t stay here any longer—not with that crime scene tape draped across the entrance to the groom’s quarters. Not with Stephen’s blood on her hands…

  And not with Cooper’s words ringing in her ears.

  “There is no way in hell that I am marrying Tanya Chesterfield!”

  “Cooper!” his mother admonished him as if he were a little boy who’d cussed in church.