Page 23 of Happily Never After

“Mario’s Italian Restaurant,” Claire said. “They have five Great Danes at home so they’re definitely animal lovers.”

Mindy pointed at her with the marker. “I love it. We’ll dress up one of the dogs in a chef uniform in front of a bowl of spaghetti. Boom. Sawyer will definitely buy an ad too, so let’s add Sanctum.”

“Yee-Haw’s,” Nicole suggested. “Perfect for a Western-themed costume.”

“Love it. Obviously the Rusty Rails. They have at least one game a season where you can bring your dog.”

They kept going until they had twelve places that were likely to cooperate and four alternates.

Mindy capped the market and sat back down. “So in case this doesn’t turn out to be a moneymaker, what are your other ideas?”

“A black-tie gala. Get local businesses to donate food, auction items. Hundred bucks a plate, maybe more depending on what our expenses end up being.”

Nicole nodded but Mindy frowned. “Where do you want to host this?”

“We have to go where the rich people are.”

“The country club,” Mindy decided. “Hopefully they won’t have anything booked. I’ll contact them. My uncle works there. I’ll see if I can persuade him for a discounted rate or dig upsome dark family secrets to threaten him with. Speaking of dark secrets, did you finish your thing for tomorrow, by the way?”

Claire flinched like she had been plunged into icy water. “No. I tried, but I have basically nothing.”

“Go.” Mindy jabbed a finger at the warehouse door. “You can’t keep avoiding it.”

“I’m not avoiding it.” She was very much avoiding it. “I just don’t know what to say.”

“If you write it tonight, I’ll take you to Sephora,” Nicole offered.

Claire sighed. “Fine. I need new mascara anyway. Is there anything we need to discuss about Brad’s proposal before I go? Luke’s following up with the helicopter, I’ll start working on the alternate transportation…” Was there something else she could bring up in order to delay?

“No. Go away. Love you,” Mindy said, waving at her.

“I’ll see you later,” Claire grumbled.

She stepped into the afternoon sunshine. It was warm enough to take her sweater off. The sun beat down on her woefully pale skin. Green buds were starting to pop through the thin layer of mulch she had carefully spread around the warehouse the week before.

She stopped at the liquor store and bought her favorite bottle of wine. If she was going to confront these feelings, she wasn’t doing it without a drink in her hand.

Forty minutes later, she sat in her office with the door closed. There had been no sign of Luke and the dogs. Knowing Luke, he was probably pricing lumber to build custom doggie bunkbeds.

The cursor blinked on her computer screen, mocking her. What was there to say? She took another sip of wine and wrotefartson the first line, just to make sure the keyboard worked. Maybe she should blast it with that canned air just in case. Infact, her whole desk could stand to be wiped down. How could she write with a dirty desk?

An hour later, her desk and office were sparkling clean, and she hadn’t written anything. She laid her head on her blotter and sighed. The wine was a quarter gone, and the blank screen was still staring at her.

How was she going to put this into words? What could she say about the man who stalked her, dressed her in her stolen wedding dress, and tried to kill her? She wasn’t even allowed to talk about ESA because it wasn’t relevant to the crime being charged.

Did she write about the little old lady she almost assaulted in the grocery store with a bag of frozen broccoli because her footsteps sounded just like Barney’s? Or how she almost had a panic attack the first time she went into her parking garage after the abduction? How sometimes she swore she could smell his cologne in the middle of the night?

The thought of pulling up to the courthouse churned her stomach. Press was sure to be everywhere. They had hounded her for months after Barney abducted her, culminating in her climbing down her apartment’s fire escape with Rosie just so she could pee. They were merciless in their pursuit of a story. Even with her friends and family accompanying her, climbing the steps to the courthouse was going to be almost as stressful as confronting Barney.

The cursor blinked. She pulled out her phone and called the first person she thought of.

“Everything okay?” Sawyer’s rumbly voice poured out of the phone. He had been the one to find her the night of the abduction. If anyone could help her put that trauma into words, it was Sawyer.

“Yeah, no one’s trying to murder me today. Not that I’m aware of, anyway. I’m trying to write my victim impact statement.”

“Ah,” he said. “How’s it going?”

“It’s not.”

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