Page 1 of Don't Make Me Fall
Chapter One
Alanna
“Where the hell is Gabby?” I mutter to the group of women gathered in the airport departure terminal. We haven’t checked our bags, and the clock is ticking. As the maid of honor, I made certain everyone had the itinerary emailed, texted, and printed out to avoid any mishaps. I want this trip to be perfect for Erin. “I knew I should’ve fudged the show time for her.”
“You ready to pay up?” Stormi, the bride-to-be’s sister, holds out her hand.
“You haven’t won the bet yet,” Devin, the bride-to-be’s book club bestie, argues. “She still has two minutes. Right Erin?”
When she doesn’t immediately answer, we all turn our heads. Since we first told her about the bachelorette trip to Cancun we planned for her, she’s hardly been able to shut up about it. I’m tempted to blame her unusual silence on the early morning and severe lack of coffee. But it’s the blank look in her eyes that has alarm bells sounding in my head, warning me this is something much worse.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
It’s not low enough, though. Stormi and Devin’s carefree expressions morph into concern just as Gabby rushes through the automatic doors, frantically searching for us. I wave my arm until she sees us.
“It’s over,” Erin says, her tone flat. Her vacant stare locks on nothing as she slowly sits on the bench behind her and lowers her phone face down in her lap.
“What’s over?” Stormi asks.
“I’m not late!” Gabby declares, running right at our group and slinging her arms over both Devin and Stormi’s shoulders. “The itinerary said—” Gabby stops mid-sentence, her gaze locked on Erin. “Oh fuck. Whose body do we need to hide?”
“The wedding’s off,” Erin says, letting out a soft sigh that matches her even tone. As though someone just informed her that they ran out of her preferred meal on the flight and she has to pick a different one. It’s…unsettling.
“What do you mean the wedding’s off?” I do my best to keep my words delicate, but panic worms its way into my chest, determined to make itself right at home. We need to get our bags checked in the next eleven minutes, or they may not let us on the flight. This was not part of the itinerary.
“You remember how Chad went to Vegas a few days early for a work conference?” Erin asks us, still staring at nothing. A curve bends her lips into a smile, but it’s far from genuine. It’s off somehow. I’m not the only one in the group concerned about this. “And how everyone else was going to join him for his bachelor party tonight?”
“I have a shovel in my car,” Gabby insists, her tone so serious it’s a little scary.
“Are we rerouting to Vegas to hunt him down?” Devin asks, her tone both confused and slightly eager.
“Can we change our tickets last minute like that?” Stormi asks.
“I’ve heard the desert is a really good place to dump a body,” Gabby adds.
“Oh! We don’t even have to kill him,” Devin says. “We could let Mother Nature do her thing. If the cold desert nights don’t take him out?—”
“Oh, I like the way you think,” Gabby says, her eyes twinkling with alarming excitement.
“Wait just a damn minute,” I say, effectively silencing the group who obviously watches too many true crime documentaries. “No one ismurderinganyone.” My declaration turns more than a few heads in the small but busy airport, but I ignore them and lower my voice. “Not until we know what happened, anyway.”
“He cheated.” Erin lifts her shoulders once in the most nonchalant shrug I’ve ever witnessed.
“With a stripper?” Stormi guesses.
“No.” Erin holds up her phone to show us a picture. “With Gwen.”
Gwen, the fifth bridesmaid who agreed to meet us in Cancun because she had a family emergency. Gwen, Erin and Stormi’s stepsister who’s been nothing but a pain in the ass during this entire wedding planning process. Gwen, the bitch who obviously thought it would be okay to sneak over to Vegas and let the groom-to-be suck on her tit in a hot tub while she humped his brains out before meeting us for a bachelorette weekend in Cancun like nothing happened.
“What the actual fuck?” Stormi practically hisses when she sees the photo.
“So we’re dumpingtwobodies in the desert,” Gabby decides.
“Gwen won’t be there,” Erin points out. “She’s getting on a plane this morning, headed to Cancun.”
“That two-timing bitch plans to act like everything is normal? Oh no. She’s not getting away with this,” Gabby declares.
“Who sent you this?” Devin asks.
