* * *
JOSIE LYNN STARED at the motionless body of the bride, Zelda.
Well, there was no denying this bride would remember her wedding night. Or if she was like the rest of them, remember that she didn’t remember her wedding night. Josie Lynn was also pretty sure she wasn’t going to be pleased to find her wedding dress, her gifts, and her groom for God’s sake, all missing. This was a nightmare.
Josie Lynn wondered if all of her catering supplies were gone, too. Her cookie tins and serving platters. Her mixing bowls and serving spoons. Everything could very well be gone, and she had no means to replace it. She didn’t see how she could recover from another major financial hit. If those items were all gone—stolen or whatever happened to them—she didn’t think she could salvage her catering career. If she could anyway. It was safe to say the bride and groom probably weren’t going to have anything positive to say about their wedding reception, period.
So much for rave reviews.
She immediately felt selfish. Everyone had lost things last night. And a person was missing. That was far more serious than her nonstick pots and pans.
She curled her arms tighter around herself. And there was another niggling thought that wouldn’t leave her mind. What if she was somehow inadvertently involved? Everything had gone crazy after she let those transvestites into the reception. But how could they be involved in the drugging? After all, they’d just entered the party moments before Josie Lynn had started to feel so funny.
It didn’t make sense.
But Josie Lynn didn’t have time to ponder other explanations, because her thoughts were interrupted by the other guy, Johnny, she thought she heard his name was, shouting to the pirate.
“Hey Drake, there’s an alligator in the hallway, so be careful.”
An alligator? In the hallway? This had to be a joke, right?
She looked over at the pirate—Drake, who was regarding her rather than reacting to what his friend had said. Looking at her? Rather than reacting to a deadly reptile on the loose? She didn’t think that could be a good sign.
He walked back over to her, and he obviously hadn’t found anything to use as pants or a diaper or even a loincloth. But she must have been growing accustomed to his state of undress, because she was definitely more concerned about the expression on his face than his wiener hanging out.
“Did they say alligator?” she said once he got closer.
He nodded.
She looked toward the other couple just as they called out they were leaving.
Josie Lynn gave Drake a startled look. “They are going into the hallway with the alligator? Do you think that’s a wise idea?”
“They’ll be fine,” he said, almost as if he were distracted. But still, there was an alligator out there. She’d grown up on the bayou and knew gators were no joke. And frankly, that French woman didn’t look like she could hold her own with a kitten, much less a vicious beast with a gazillion teeth and a jaw like a steel trap.
“I’m not sure they should go out there,” she said, and again he repeated that they would be fine.
She watched the door close behind the couple, feeling certain she would soon be hearing shrieks of terror and pain.
“Who were those people you let in the back door at the reception?”
Josie Lynn’s stomach dropped and all thoughts of impending gator death vanished. Slowly she looked back to Drake. He’d seen her take the money. Great, he thought she was involved. Hell, she thought she might be involved, too, but purely by accident.
“They were a group of transvestites who said they were friends of the bride.”
“All dressed like Cher, right?”
Josie Lynn nodded, and he looked almost relieved, but that expression quickly faded as his dark eyes narrowed with suspicion.
“You didn’t think it was weird a group of trannies wanted to come in through the back door?”
“Yes I did, but they said they wanted to surprise the bride, and given what the rest of the wedding guests looked like”—she gestured to the shirt she now wore, his shirt—“I didn’t think it was terribly weird that transvestites all dressed like Cher would be her friends.”
He didn’t argue that, but he did bring up the very thing that had troubled her for the moment it happened.
“So why did they give you money?”
She had wondered that, too. Would they have done that if they were just friends? There was something rather desperate about that action. And she’d been rather desperate to take the money.
“They just offered it to me as—a way of thanks, I guess.”
“Or as a payoff.”
“No,” she said shaking her head, even though she wasn’t sure that wasn’t what it was.
“And we’ve already figured out the one thing we have in common is the punch. And who made the punch?” He gave her a pointed look.
Josie Lynn gaped at him. Now that she knew she’d had no part in. “I did not tamper with the punch.”
“Well, you’re going to say that, aren’t you?”
“But I didn’t. That punch was right out in the open on the buffet table. Anyone could have laced it. Besides I drank some, too. Why would I drug myself?”
“It’s a pretty good alibi,” he said, eyeing her even more distrustfully. “If you are drugged-out and with us, then your band of Chers can do the dirty work and split the money with you at a later date.”
“That isn’t what’s going on. My stuff is missing, too. Including the money they gave me for letting them in.” She frantically gestured to the fact that all she wore was his shirt. She had nothing, just like everyone else. Except—
“That Frenchwoman with your friend. Who is she? And why is she the only one who has a purse? Or a cell phone? Maybe she’s somehow involved.”
He seemed to consider her suggestion, then shrugged as if he didn’t really care and he’d already made up his mind that Josie Lynn was the culprit.
“The way I see it, there is only one solid lead, and that’s to find the Chers and find out what they did with all the stuff you guys stole.”
“I didn’t steal anything,” she insisted more frantically. He had to believe her. His accusation was a whole lot worse than just losing her catering company. If he told his friends about her taking the money and his theory that she was involved, who were they going to believe? Even she could admit that she looked like a likely suspect.
“I want to help you find them,” she said, knowing she had to locate these guys—gals—to clear her own name.