Page 6 of Say Yes to the Death

“Nice and quick to the car,” she muttered and thrust the door open. “Oh, shit.”

CHAPTER THREE

To Do:

- Get quote for bar service

- Grocery shopping

- Burn Wendy’s apartment to the ground

Just outside the warehouse, Jason stood in a circle of reporters. Half a dozen microphones were thrust into his face. There was an audible gasp from the crowd, followed by an immediate frantic shuffling as the press rushed past him. An anchorman from Channel Six News shoved Jason and knocked him to the ground as if Claire was a big screen TV on Black Friday. Jason moaned, cheek resting on a faded white parking line as reporters and cameramen descended from everywhere, stepping over and occasionally on him to block Claire’s path to her Audi convertible.

“Miss Hartley, what can you tell us about the ongoing investigation?” A toothy woman with bulging eyes bearing a striking resemblance to a beaver demanded. A lily that Claire had painstakingly planted in the bed around the warehouse was crushed under her Jimmy Choos. She clenched her fists.

Rosie barked fiercely. Her ears went back, and her teeth were bared. Claire reached down to pick her up as she sidestepped a reporter. If they trampled her dog, they would get way more on camera than they had bargained for.

“No comment,” she muttered, not as forcefully as she intended.

“Claire, how does it feel to be the only survivor of the West Haven Widowmaker?” A reporter with a handlebar mustache shoved a microphone in her face.

“Is it true that Mr. Windsor dressed you in your wedding dress and tied you to a pillar in the parking garage? The wedding dress you were supposed to wear today?”

That stopped her dead in her tracks, and she stared at a weaselly looking gentleman with an old-school press hat.

The police had never revealed that piece of information to the public. Her eyes swung to Jason, who had gotten to his feet and seemed to be struggling to open his car door. The back of his neck was bright red. That son of a bitch.

The reporters crushed around her, jostling her.Rosie continued to bark, trying to wiggle out of her grasp.

“How do you respond to the allegations that you assaulted your ex-fiancé’s girlfriend at an event last week?”

Claire edged around another reporter. Her purse dug into her shoulder blade, twice as heavy as usual because of the thick packet of legal papers stuffed inside. Had Jason told them about the lawsuit? Every face before her was desperate for a story. And they were everywhere lately—outside her business, her apartment, waiting for her as she left Luke’s.

Her throat closed, and her insides twisted like she had just swallowed a bag of jacks. She needed to get away, to find air. The stink of their desperation nearly drowned her.

The midday sun was warm and the dreamy blue sky was dotted with cottony clouds, giving her something to focus on for a moment. She took a deep breath and pressed the panic button on her key fob.

Her Audi set off a shrill, piercing alarm. The startled reporters backed away long enough for Claire to break through their masses.

They rushed after her, expensive shoes smacking against the asphalt. She fumbled her keys and almost dropped them, then wrenched the driver’s seat forward and deposited Rosie in the back seat. The dog seatbelt was twisted. Flashbulbs popped over her shoulder as she struggled to buckle Rosie in. Desperate shouts surrounded her. Maybe it was time to buy a four-door car. She climbed into the driver’s seat and buckled her seatbelt, hands shaking as she tried to jam the key into the ignition. Angry metal music blasted out of her speakers.

Rosie barked from the back seat as Claire threw her car into reverse. A news anchor dove out of the way as she squeezed out of her parking spot.

She floored it, tires squealing on the asphalt. As she lurched onto Market Street, the vice grip on her chest loosened. The warehouse grew smaller in her rearview mirror before disappearing entirely. She drove three more blocks with no one behind her. Maybe she had lost them.

As she braked for an elderly woman at a crosswalk, Claire glanced behind her. A news van with a satellite dish idled behind her.

“Shit.” She smacked her steering wheel. Could this old lady cross the street any slower? She must have been weighed down by the metric ton of cat food in her shopping bag. Maybe Claire should offer her a piggyback ride.

She took a deep breath and pressed a button on her console.

“Call Luke,” she ordered. He picked up almost immediately.

“Hey, you. How was your meeting?”

“Fine. Aaron liked the ideas.” The old woman inched her way onto the sidewalk, and Claire stomped on her gas pedal. The car shot forward and away from the news van. She was normally a painfully safe driver, but this was no day to dawdle.

“Are you still sold on the whole having-him-sketch-the-proposal-thing, because instead you could?—”

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