12. Morrie

We returned to Argleton in another Uber. On the way, I mentally ran over all the methods I had at my disposal to locate and neutralise Dorothy Ingram. Once I'd discarded all the non-violent options (damn that birdie and his conscience), I had only a handful of methods left.

First, we returned to Nevermore so I could pick up some supplies. Quoth was perched on his favorite swing beside the fireplace, well out of reach of Grimalkin's kittens and their obsession with pulling out his tail feathers.

Mina's sound asleep,he told us as I rummaged around in my desk. Remember, we're solving this non-violently.

With my devices in hand, we returned to Dorothy's home under the shadow of night, where I placed a tracking device on her car and a small hidden camera in a tree, pointing at her front door. I pulled up the app and showed Heathcliff the camera feed and a blinking marker on the map.

"We'll be able to keep tabs on her movements. She'll have to take her car if she wants to get back to Lachlan Hall?—"

"Sssssh. She's right there," Heathcliff growled, pointing at Dorothy's house. Sure enough, a light went on in her shed. A few moments later she emerged, her arms loaded down with flower arrangements. Of course, she would be replacing the flowers for the week's church services. But where had she been before, if not at her sister's? Picking up flowers from another parishioner? Late at night? Without her car?

Her garden was a barren stretch of overgrown grass. She wasn't out picking flowers in the moonlight.

Heathcliff and I exchanged a look, and we both took off at a run back towards the church. Behind us, I heard Dorothy close the boot of her car.

"We need to beat her there," I whispered, realizing that we'd have to run the long way around the block. "Let's take a shortcut."

We were directly in front of the row of terraced houses behind the church. I vaulted the low fence that led into the first house, leapt gracefully over a bird bath, and attacked the next fence.

I landed in Maisie's yard, directly in front of the spot where James Pond had been duck-napped. Heathcliff grunted as he came down beside me, his boot getting tangled in the wire of the duck palace.

"Stop flailing around," I hissed as I freed him. We raced across the yard and vaulted the next fence, landing in Stanley's tidy garden. We dodged around an enormous birdbath and water feature. From inside the house, I heard a musical tune, like someone whistling, but the whole house was in darkness.

Two more yards, and we made it into the churchyard. Dorothy's car wasn't in the parking lot.

The ancient church lock took me all of thirty-two seconds to pick, and Heathcliff and I snuck inside and hid in the sacristy.

Not three minutes later, the main doors creaked open. I leaned around the sacristy door, observing Dorothy strolling down the aisle, her arms loaded down the floral arrangements. Her permanent frown had mellowed into a shy little smile. She actually looked…happy.

Did Dorothy Ingram know how to be happy?

Was she feeling smug because she'd just destroyed our wedding cake?

We were here to find out.

I stepped out of the sacristy. "Hello, Dorothy."

"Get away from me." She swiveled on her heel and made a run for the church doors, scattering flower petals behind her. Heathcliff stepped out from behind the baptismal font and slammed the door shut, blocking her escape with his bulk.

"I'll scream," she yelled, her body taut as she whipped her head between us.

"Go ahead," Heathcliff growled. "You're standing inside a box of medieval stone, and the nearest people are all at the pub, jiving along to the mediocre Saturday night covers band. No one will hear you."

"No one says jiving anymore," I told him sternly. He shot me one of those exasperated Heathcliff looks that made me want to back him up against a wall and shove my tongue down his throat.

But first, the foreplay.

I cracked my knuckles. "We don't want to hurt you, Dorothy. We've come to chat."

"I have nothing to say to you."

"That's funny, because you've been awfully chatty, leaving us a note so that we'd know exactly why you were sabotaging our wedding."

"I didn't write you any note and I don't know what you're talking about. I want as little to do with you as possible."

"The feeling is definitely mutual," Heathcliff growled. "But you're the one trying to sabotage our wedding. I thought Morrie made it clear that if you continue to mess with Mina's special day, we won't hesitate to use our considerable resources to make you stop."

Dorothy folded her arms and glared at us both, although her eyes betrayed a flicker of fear. "I'm sure I don't know what you mean."

"Thou shalt not lie, Dorothy. We know that you've been lying about going to see your sister. So where are you? Up at Lachlan Hall messing with our chair covers?"

"Or in Oliver's kitchen, destroying our cake?"

"It's none of your business where I've been, and I don't have to tell you anything."

I grinned. "But that's not true, is it? Surely you remember the little secret Mina and I uncovered about that baby you secretly got rid of. I wonder if your fellow villagers would like to know the truth?—"

"You can't hurt me with that secret," Dorothy sneered. "As soon as I found out that you knew about my shameful decision, I confessed it all in my prayer circle. Everyone already knows. My Lord forgives me for my sins."

Heathcliff's dark eyes narrowed on me. I lifted an eyebrow at him, my mind whirring as I searched for a way to save this situation.

We may not have leverage on Dorothy, but we do have one thing going for us.

We're morally bankrupt and willing to do anything to protect Mina.

"That's not the only secret you're keeping, is it, Dorothy?" I smiled. "You've told Father Clarence and everyone else who will listen that you're looking after your sister, but she told us that she cut you off. Her legs were perfectly fine. So where have you been going on those nights you claim to be the good samaritan? Nights that just so happen to coincide with the destruction of certain elements related to our wedding."

Now that flicker of fear was back in her eyes.

"What I choose to do is none of your business," she snapped. "And as for your wedding, perhaps the Lord is visiting his vengeance upon you for your sins."

"Love is never a sin," Heathcliff rasped, his whole body trembling. He was going to lose it in a second.

I placed my hand on his shoulder and gave him a shove toward the doors. "We're watching you."

"I'm not afraid of you," she spat the words. "I answer to a higher power. You don't intimidate me. And just because you shut down my prayer meeting about your blasphemous union doesn't mean that you've seen the last of me."

She tossed the flowers at Heathcliff. He flailed, trying to catch them, and she ducked around him, tugged the door open, and fled into the night.

I picked rose petals out of his beard. "That went well."

"It did not. Now she knows that we have nothing useful on her, and she's got even more motivation for ruining our wedding. And we don't even know if she's the saboteur. It could still be Wayne or someone else."

"Whoever they are, they've already messed up the chair covers and the cake. What's the next big wedding thing that's happening?"

Heathcliff furrowed his brow in thought. "Sixteen boxes of fancy Swiss chocolates are getting delivered tomorrow evening. They're for the wedding favors, provided Helen actually gives us monogrammed bags to put them in."

"Okay, that's good." I rubbed my hands together. "The saboteur won't be able to resist screwing that up. I propose that we lay a trap."