I heard Hector opening the heavy stairwell door behind me. With no other way to escape, I pushed through the glass fire exit and staggered outside the museum, onto the soft grass of Central Park. The door closed behind me. Hector crashed into it a split second later. I thought he was going to shoot me through the clear pane, but he smiled triumphantly instead.
I heard a muffled burst of applause from inside the museum and realized the wedding party had finally come down from the roof! Hector realized it, too. He tucked the gun inside his black evening jacket and turned around. As soon as he was out of sight, I ran back to the door. It was locked! Hector
knew
I was stuck outside, and he didn’t care. Which meant he was on his way to kill Breanne—and maybe Matt, too—right
now
! He was gambling I wouldn’t have time to warn them!
No!
I stumbled across the lawn, my low heels sticking in the still-damp ground; then I reached the sidewalk and took off at a dead run. The Metropolitan Museum covered five city blocks, and I had to travel at least half of that distance to reach the front entrance.
Panting, I cleared the modern art wing and blew past a bronze statue of three bears nestled among a circle of benches. Fifth Avenue and Eightieth Street were just ahead. I wended my way through a mass of exiting tourists, sprinted the long flight of stone steps, and burst into the museum’s lobby. Breathlessly I stumbled up to a tall African American man in a guard uniform and flashed my events pass.
“Help, please . . . there’s a man . . . he’s armed . . . in the Sculpture Court . . .”
The guard tensed. “The wedding?”
I nodded. Clearly, he’d been briefed. He grabbed my arm and spoke into the radio headset he was wearing. As we ran toward the back of the museum, I told him everything I knew. He related the information over the radio to the NYPD.
Two minutes later, we were entering the European Sculpture and Decorative Arts wing, and the guard visibly relaxed. “They have him in custody, ma’am,” he told me, tapping his earphones. “He tried to approach the wedding party, and they grabbed him.”
“Oh, thank goodness.” I gasped, the tension flowing out of me.
Although the pubic was still milling around the museum, the European Sculpture Court was closed for our private party. I saw its atrium ahead, the waning sunlight glinting off its marble figures. Tired as I felt, I increased my pace.
Entering the court, I spotted a flurry of motion near the table of wedding gifts. Sully and Lori Soles had a tuxedo-clad man in handcuffs. As the detectives turned him around, I saw his face.
“You’ve got the wrong man!” Javier Lozado cried. “Listen to me! Why won’t you listen?”
There was no time left. I raced forward, toward the coffee and dessert station. Matt and Breanne stood there alone, framed against Nunzio’s star-crossed fountain. The guests were at least ten feet back, clearing the area for the photographers to snap away. Madame was stepping up to the couple, her sterling silver gift tray in her hands, two freshly pulled shots ready to be served.
That’s when I spotted Hector, hiding behind a cameraman. He was reaching into his evening jacket! I was too far away to do anything more than shout at the top of my lungs, “Matt! It’s Hector! Hector’s got the gun!”
Matt turned at the sound of my voice, but the photo flashes had limited his vision. He couldn’t see Hector in the crowd! Breanne froze with stark fear, but she didn’t know where to look, and her bodyguard had stepped far back from the couple so he wouldn’t be in their wedding photos!
Madame was right beside them now, and she knew what Hector looked like. Spotting him, she lurched forward as he raised his weapon and aimed for Breanne. The gunshot boomed, the sound echoing inside the massive space. Breanne, Matt, and Madame all went down in a tangle. The silver tray clanged against the floor; dark liquid seeped across the white marble. Screams and shouts lifted up, echoing off the pitched roof, drowning out the mannered music. The crowd shrank back, and I rushed forward.
A scuffle broke out: Rocky Friar wrestled with Hector Pena. The Colombian refused to release his small-caliber weapon, even as the muscle-bound detective squeezed his wrist.
“Give it up!” Rocky cried.
“You heard him!” Sue Ellen Bass shouted, rushing forward to Rocky’s aid. Together, the two disarmed Hector and cuffed him.
I turned at a new sound: my partner’s voice. Matt was sitting up now, clutching his new bride in his arms, wailing like a man who’d lost his one true love.
“No . . .” I whispered.
I saw the dark stain on Breanne’s delicate white wedding gown, right over her heart. The liquid bled slowly across the handmade silk. Then Breanne’s royal blue eyes fluttered, and I saw the empty espresso cup in her lap. The dark fluid wasn’t blood! It was coffee!
But if the bullet missed Breanne, who did it hit?
I whirled. Madame was still on the white marble, Otto Visser bent over her, his face twisted with emotional pain.
My God, no! Not my mother!
I rushed to her side, fell to my knees. “Madame? Are you . . .”
Her gently creased face turned toward mine. She pointed to the sterling silver tray on the floor. The metal was badly dented: the tray had deflected the bullet!
“You saved Breanne’s life!”
“Your cry saved her, Clare. And Matteo, too . . .” Madame grabbed my arms, pulled me in. “Thank you . . .”
Relieved beyond words, I hugged her tightly. When we parted, Otto and I helped Madame to her feet. We took a moment to check her out, make sure nothing was broken.
“I’m afraid
my gift
is broken,” Madame said, shaking her silver head at the dented tray.
“On the contrary.” Otto laughed. “I think the couple will cherish it for years to come.”
Nodding in complete agreement, I looked around, wondering where the bullet had ended up. Noticing the slight damage to a nearby stone pedestal, I pointed. “Thank heaven no one was hurt. Not even a sculpture.”
Otto smiled and squeezed my shoulder. Then Madame’s gaze shifted—and she gasped. “Look, Clare,” she whispered. “Look at them
now
!”
I turned to see Matt still sitting on the stained marble floor, holding Breanne close, kissing her, petting her, telling her he was there for her.
“Madame? I don’t understand. What is it?”
Her blue eyes had dampened. “It’s love, my dear.”
Otto laughed. Then he put his arm around his girl and kissed her, too.
“I’m so happy, Otto!” Madame declared as they headed for the bar. “My son
does
love his bride . . .”
Still uneasy, I remained behind, surveying the crowded room. When I saw Hector being led out in handcuffs, I finally sagged against my perfect coffee and dessert table.
Matt was still holding his new bride in his arms, kissing her with a passion I hadn’t seen him display since our own Hawaiian honeymoon.
It was then I finally noticed our daughter in the crowd, watching her father, her pretty young face full of mixed emotions. I knew how Joy felt. It was surreal, given all that had happened, all that we’d been through.
Oh, sure, on the scale of human history, you could hardly deem the wedding of my ex-husband a significant event. Not like, say, Christopher Columbus discovering the New World. In my own little life, however, it was a moment that changed everything. This really was good-bye to the handsome groom of my youth; the swaggering father of my child; the globe-trotting spouse who liked to pretend that, no matter how many women he slept with, I was his only love.
For a fraction of time, I felt a sadness grip me, the quaking that comes from unforeseen loss. But the seismic shift was a small event, and when it was over, I heard another man call my name.
“Clare! Over here! I’m over here, sweetheart!”
I saw Mike then, breaking through the crowd. With a sure and steady voice, I answered him, because now I was ready,
more
than ready, to explore his new world.
EPILOGUE
DESPITE starting off with a bang (literally), Matt and Breanne’s wedding reception came off quite well. The champagne started flowing, and the well-heeled crowd was soon buzzing with the realization that they now had a fabulous new saga of urban survival—a wedding favor that would keep on giving with retellings at cocktail hours and dinner parties for months to come.
Nunzio’s fountain turned out to be the biggest draw of the night, making our coffee and dessert bar a huge hit. (Janelle received no less than thirty requests for her business card.) And Matt’s passion fueled Breanne’s emotional recovery. Giddily soaking up her groom’s repeated, ardent kisses, the usually restrained, ultra-cool sophisticate was feeling no pain, laughing and animated and uncaring that her exquisite Italian silk creation had been stained like a
macchiato
. I had to give the woman credit, she wore the espresso like a badge of honor—even insisted more photos be taken with the damaged tray and the spattered gown.
“Hector’s shot missed Breanne,” I told Madame as the evening wound down, “but it killed bridezilla for sure.”
As for the sad-eyed Colombian murderer, I had to wait two more days to hear what the police finally got out of him . . .
“SUICIDE by cop?” Mike told me.
“Suicide by what?”
“You’ve never heard of it?”
I shook my head.
Mike paused to sip the latte I’d made him. “It’s when a perp commits a crime, expecting the police will gun him down.”
“And that’s what Hector told the Fish Squad? That’s what he thought was going to happen at the wedding reception after he shot Breanne?”
Mike nodded.
It was late Monday evening. I’d taken so much time off work before the wedding that I was giving my baristas a break and closing myself for a few nights in a row. Mike and I were the last ones in the Blend. While I finished wiping down the café tables, Mike watched me from the coffee bar, where he’d been filling me in on the details of Hector’s interrogation.
Distraught and unbalanced, Hector had broken down fairly quickly, spilling everything when Lori Soles and Sue Ellen Bass played the “sympathetic ear” gambit.
Just as I’d guessed, Hector confessed to wanting to kill Matt’s bride in order to cause him pain—as much pain as he’d felt when his own daughter had been (in his words) “driven to suicide by the wedding announcement she’d received.”
Apparently, Andelina Pena had left a long, rambling note professing her love for Matteo. Hector saw the note, saw Matt’s name, and focused on the idea of vengeance. To him, the wedding announcement was salt in a wound—a cruel trick. The fact that it was clutched in his daughter’s hand when she took her own life hadn’t helped, either.
“Hector Pena believed he had nothing to lose,” Mike said. “He’d already been diagnosed with cancer. Knowing he didn’t have long to live, he became obsessed with the idea of avenging his daughter’s death.”
“Then Hazel Boggs really was a case of mistaken identity, just like Matt thought?”
Mike nodded. “Soles and Bass linked the crime through ballistics on Hector’s small-caliber weapon. He hadn’t meant to kill the innocent young Hazel. After that, he was even more distraught. He was also reluctant to use the gun again. The poisoning would have worked if Breanne had gone into the office that morning. Instead, Monica Purcell was the one who died.”
“What about Machu Piccchu?”
“Hector attended the luncheon at Javier’s urging,” Mike said. “He hadn’t planned on an attack there, so he didn’t have his weapon on him. But when he heard that Breanne had been behind sending that wedding announcement to his daughter, he became enraged. After Matt ran off and he was asked to help find him, Hector broke away from the other men, doubled back, bought a coat and ski mask from a clothing store near the restaurant, and slipped inside to wait in the ladies’ room—”
“Where I found him, still enraged, trying to strangle Breanne.”
“By the wedding day he was nearly crazy with rage and frustration. He felt sicker than ever, too, and just wanted to die himself.”
“So that’s why he was so brazen. He expected to be shot after killing the bride.”
Mike nodded, took another sip of his latte. “Suicide by cop.”
It was a tragic case on both sides, and I wasn’t exactly cheered by the body count. “It’s hard to believe one simple act could end up causing so many deaths.”
“One simple act?”
I nodded. “Breanne sending out those wedding announcements to Matt’s old flames.”
Mike shook his head. “Matt had a lot of old flames, Clare. Only one of them chose to make that a reason to kill herself.”
“What are you saying?”
Mike shrugged. “Life’s messy.”
“That’s it?”
He arched an eyebrow. “Can you foresee the harm of every choice you make?”
“No, but while I grant you Matt’s a cad where women are concerned, he isn’t a cruel man. After the reception, he told me that he’d broken up with Andelina months before he’d proposed to Breanne. He said he’d done it as gently as he could, but the young woman had been unstable for a long time, was seeing a therapist, and taking medication.” I shook my head. “Still, Breanne had to know she would cause a lot of women a lot of indigestion.”