Terror in Taffeta (32 page)
Authors: Marla Cooper
“Yeah!” said Zoe enthusiastically. “Dad's flying down on the company plane to pick us up.”
“I didn't want to have to spend one more night in this awful little town,” Mrs. Abernathy said, fluttering her hand dismissively toward San Miguel in general.
“Although you have to admit, Momâ” Nicole was stopped dead by her mom's stare. Mrs. Abernathy didn't have to admit anything.
“Anyway,” Nicole continued, “we're leaving for our honeymoon, like, right now, so it seems a shame to waste all that extra space on the plane.”
Mrs. Abernathy offered a tight-lipped smile. “I suppose there's room for one more.”
“Great!” said Nicole. “It's settled then.”
Mrs. Abernathy reached out and pushed a strand of hair behind Nicole's ear. “Honey, don't think I don't want you kids to go have fun. I do. But this has been such an awful ordeal. And if you think about it, it wasn't even a real wedding. Don't you want to try again?”
Looking confused, Nicole took Vince's hand protectively. “What do you mean, try again?”
“We could do a
real
wedding in Napa, like we had planned. Wouldn't that be lovely? I could invite all of my friends.”
Laughing, Vince held up his hand to stop her. “Please, no more weddings! Once was enough.”
“Yeah, Mom,” said Nicole, “I think we're done with weddings. No offense, Kelsey.”
“None taken, believe me!” I was ready to move on with my life, and I was sure they were, too. Not that Mrs. Abernathy would have hired me to plan Nicole's “real” wedding. Or maybe she would have, just so she'd have another shot at firing me.
We said our good-byes, and I hurried back to Evan's house to get my things. In a couple of hours, I'd be heading home. On the way, my cell phone buzzed again to let me know I had a voice mail, so I dug it out of my back pocket and pressed it to my ear to listen.
“Hi, Kelsey, this is Jacinda. I got the strangest call this morning from a Mrs. Abernathy?”
Oh, dear Lord. What had she said?
If she had blown this job for me, I was going to strangle her with my own two hands. Although perhaps I'd wait until we were back home to do it, because I'd quickly grown accustomed to the idea of hitching a ride on their private plane.
Jacinda continued: “I'm not sure how she got my number, but then again, San Miguel is a pretty small town. Anyway, Mrs. Abernathy recommended you very highly. In factâwhat was it she said? Oh, yeah. She said I'd be a fool not to hire you.”
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This book would never have been written if I hadn't met Ali Wing, who asked me to help her write a baby-gear guide for Chronicle Books. Or if my editor at Chronicle, Lisa Morris Campbell, hadn't reached out to me to ghostwrite a second book: a guide to destination weddings. Or if Alison Hotchkiss Rinderknecht of Alison Events hadn't taught me basically everything I know about destination weddings during the writing of said guide.
Once I started writing, my mystery writing group was a great source of inspiration, laughter, and bagelsâand Diana Orgain and Laura-Kate Rurka proved to be awesome partners in crime. Not only did they make brilliant suggestions, they corrected my Spanish and reminded me that sometimes people and places require physical descriptions.
After I finished the book, the fabulous Marina Adair was kind enough to introduce me to her agent, Jill Marsal of Marsal Lyon Literary Agency. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Jill for believing in this book and for getting it into the hands of Anne Brewer at Thomas Dunne Books, who waved her magic wand and made it a reality.
I'd be remiss if I didn't offer a shout-out to the NorCal chapter of Sisters in Crime, the SinC Guppies, and my coconspirators at Chicks on the Case: Lisa Q. Mathews, Kellye Garrett, and Ellen Byron, who provided much needed moral support as we juggled book launches, platform building, and writing second books together.
I'd also like to thank Jeff Fowler, who was always there when I needed a plot twist; Eva Guralnick, who dropped everything to proofread my first chapters for submission; and my wonderful husband, Tim Bauer, who read this novel more times than really seems fair and cheered me on the entire time.
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MARLA COOPER
was astonished when, at the age of eighteen, she realized people could actually get paid to write things. So she switched her major from business to advertisingâmuch to the relief of her accounting professorâand began her career as an advertising copywriter. Since then, she's written all sorts of things, and it was while ghostwriting a guide to destination weddings that she found inspiration for her first novel,
Terror in Taffeta
. Originally hailing from Texas, Marla lives in Oakland, California, with her husband and her polydactyl tuxedo cat. You can sign up for email updates
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CONTENTS
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This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
A THOMAS DUNNE BOOK FOR MINOTAUR BOOKS.
An imprint of St. Martin's Publishing Group.
TERROR IN TAFFETA.
Copyright © 2016 by Marla Cooper. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
Cover design by David Baldeosingh Rotstein
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Cover images: bride by Terri Francis/Shutterstock; skulls by rvvlada/Shutterstock; floral pattern by MarushaBelley/Shutterstock.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-07256-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-8438-0 (e-book)
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at
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First Edition: March 2016