Page 34 of No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding

“Oh, Fred,” Emma says. “Not this again.”

“I’m telling you, Em. He wants to ruin me.”

I squeeze Emma and stand up. “Ruin you? That’s a bit dramatic isn’t it?”

He gives me a hard stare. “You don’t know Tyler.”

“You’re right, I don’t. But still. You’re starring in his movie. He needs that to succeed. Bad publicity won’t help.”

“You know the saying...”

There’s no such thing as bad publicity.

Only I don’t think that’s true.

People get canceled now. So thereareconsequences for bad publicity.

Sometimes. Not often enough.

“What happened between you two?”

Emma makes a slashing movement with her hand against her throat, but I pretend I don’t see it.

“Fred?”

“What? Oh, some silly dispute over money. I’m good for it. A gentleman never goes back on his obligations.”

I do a mental eye roll. That Oscar that Fred won? It was in a Jane Austen adaptation. And ever since then, he peppers his conversation with garbled quotes from the books or the movies or the SparkNotes.

I haven’t figured out which yet.

Not because I haven’t read Austen.

I have. I just haven’t committed the books to memory the way some people do.

“Why does he think you aren’t good for it?”

“I simply asked for more time to pay it off, that’s all.”

“And this was because ofJulius Caesar?”

Fred grimaces. “Yes. Though it wasn’t my fault the movie failed. You saw those beastly reviews the critics gave it. Like locustsswarming...And Tyler’s an old friend. I didn’t force him to produce the movie. He waseagerto do so. We all thought it would be a hit.”

So Fred and Tylerarein a dispute over money. And the wedding schedule is, what? Some kind of revenge? A real threat? Just a stupid accident?

No, there’s the note, which I notice Emma isnotbringing up.

The note is not an accident.

“Can you find out who did this?” Emma asks, tapping the schedule against her hand. “Make sure I’m not in danger?”

“I’m not an investigator.”

“You do it in your books all the time.”

“That’s a fictional version of me.”32

“But you always solve the case.”

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