Page 19 of The Engagement Party

Ruthie almost laughed at how true that snide comment was.

Cassie just kept rolling, ignoring every attempt to derail her. “You plant yourself in our lives, convince us to come out here, send out your invitations, and now someone is dead.”

“What’s wrong with you?” Sierra asked.

Ruthie appreciated the support, but she didn’t need it. She had this. She’d been ready for the surface sheen of friendliness to melt away. For every question she asked to be greeted with ahow dare you?attack. An immediate rush to anger and practiced victimhood.

She’d been dealing with overly confident blowhards her entire life. Fake friendliness, demeaning comments disguised as compliments about how articulate she was. She had to play this to perfection, which was exactly what she planned to do.

She slipped back into the role she’d created. Back before the death and the games. “I wanted to meet you all before the wedding because you matter to Will. The idea was to celebrate.” It wasn’t but she still needed them to think it was.

“Right. The wedding.” Cassie snapped her fingers. “The superfast, not-at-all-suspect wedding. You’d been dating, what, six weeks or so before the proposal?”

Alex groaned. “Cas, stop.”

“I didn’t know this Tyler person. Other than Will I’ve never met any of you before today.” If they wanted fire, Ruthie vowed to light the damn match. “For all I know Tyler was innocent.”

Will swore under his breath. “Jesus, Ruthie.”

Ruthie saw Sierra studying her and rushed to steady her onepotential ally in this room. “I’m not blaming Mitch. I’m saying maybe someone out therethinksTyler got a bad deal and blames Mitch for that.”

Sierra didn’t break eye contact. “Who?”

Ruthie turned back to Mitch. “Why did he really want to talk with you?”

“I swear I didn’t wait around to find out.”

“Wait around?” Sierra’s voice sounded deadly cold. “Did he get a message to you, or did you actually see him?”

Mitch sighed. “He visited that converted copper refinery site twice. Security kicked him out without me seeing him the first time. They just told me an old friend stopped by and gave me Tyler’s name.”

Ruthie wanted to look away from the intimate, painful implosion happening between Mitch and Sierra. Sierra’s shoulders slouched. Her expression, flatlined and strained, reflected the pain slashing through her.

“You said earlier you hadn’tseenhim, and made it sound like you got a random message.” Sierra’s voice didn’t contain an ounce of whatever emotion had to be flowing through her.

“I can’t relive this, Sierra. He’s my nightmare.”

Ruthie wanted to chalk up the verbal bouncing to a rough childhood, but Mitch was a grown man. A businessman. Letting the truth leak out in tiny drops didn’t help his case.

“But you made it sound like it happened twice.” Cassie waved off the stress tearing the two people in front of her apart. “What about the second time you saw Tyler?”

“He said I needed to be careful and not trust anyone. I was being followed. Watched. Then Security dragged him away.” Mitch shook his head. “That’s it.”

Cassie frowned. “Are you telling us the whole truth this time?”

“Cas, shut up,” Alex said.

She turned on her husband as if she did it every day, like a habit. “Don’t talk to me like that.”

“We need to stay focused on the dead man in the trunk.” Ruthie no longer cared what they thought about her because she already thought very little of them. “What would Tyler’s killer think you need to confess to, Mitch?”

“Technically, we don’t know the notes and the killing are tied,” Alex said.

Ruthie pushed on, ignoring the audience and targeting Mitch. “Were you ever accused of collaborating with Tyler and your mom?”

Mitch didn’t immediately answer. After a lot of uncomfortable staring, he gave in. “Yes, but I didn’t kill my dad.”

Chapter Fifteen

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