Page 142 of Beach Reads and Deadly Deeds

“But Sherry and Diana didn’t go to the same college.”

“No, but we knew each other through the national office.”

“You know Sherry?” Brie said, taking a step forward.

Amber rolled her eyes. “Scary Sherry.Keep your men far from that one.”

“Why?” Brie demanded. I winced, but Amber didn’t seem to sense the change of tone.

“Because Sherry is after one thing: marrying rich. She did it once, got a good settlement in the divorce, did it again and the guy croaked. Now she’s getting married again! Poor guy. Idiot.”

Brie opened her mouth, and I interrupted whatever she planned to say. “Sherry has convinced Andrew Locke to move up the wedding to tomorrow,” I said. “We’d really like to stop that. Do you have anything you can share about her? I mean, I read the book. I know Diana was waiting for the marriage to get paid for something. What’s that something she’s keeping secret?”

Amber opened her mouth, closed it. Looked from me to Brie. “Why?”

“He’s my dad,” Brie snapped.

“Oh. Sorry.”

“Tell me,” Brie said. “You can’t let her manipulate him like this!”

“He’s a big boy. If he gets sucked into her games, that’s on him.”

“You know something! Please tell me.”

“Why? You two haven’t helped me with anything. I have no fucking idea where Diana hid the documents, and if I don’t find them by tomorrow? Parker will ruin me.”

These people all deserved each other, I thought. But if I walked away now, Brie would be hurt. And while Andrew might be naive, he didn’t deserve to be manipulated by Sherry.

“I have an idea where the documents might be,” I said.

Amber jumped up, then wobbled on her feet and grabbed the couch. “Tell me! Where?”

“We need to know what you have on Sherry.”

“So you can take the information and then get the documents and screw me over? No thanks.”

“You can come with us. Tomorrow morning. We can’t go in the storm anyway.”

“Are you bullshitting me?”

“No.”

I hoped she believed me.

“I’ll tell you this,” Amber said a moment later. “I have a video of Sherry five years ago with a group of us on New Year’s Eve in New York City. She’d divorced her first husband and had set her sights on number two. She was drunk and very chatty. All I’ll say is, any man who watches it would never marry her.”

“Youhaveto send it to me,” Brie pleaded.

“When I get the documents. Parker is flying home Sunday. If he doesn’t have them, he’ll destroy my career.”

“Maybe you should find out what they are and destroy him,” I surprised myself by saying.

“Mutually assured destruction? No thanks. I like my career. The only reason I wasn’t here with Diana last weekend was that I had an audition.”

“Tomorrow morning, 9:00 a.m.,” I said. “Meet us downstairs in the restaurant.”

“You’d better be there.”

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