CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

"It doesn't mean anything." I trailed Binder and Tom down the hallway. "We tell our waitstaff to introduce themselves to each table. That way the diners can hail them by name if they need them. Also, it improves the tips."

"Clarkson wasn't with the group when they sat down," Tom argued. "He wouldn't have heard the introduction."

"Jordan told him later." We were on the landing at the top of the stairs by that point. I lowered my voice because an army of people was running back and forth below, readying the foyer for the ceremony and preparing the main salon for the meal.

"We have to talk to the kid, Julia," Binder whispered. "You know that. Our victim fell over right after Jordan left him."

"Fine." I put my foot down. I didn't stomp, but apparently unconsciously I picked it up and put it down again, causing both Tom and I to stare at my sneaker-shod foot in surprise. "Fine." I sounded short, but I was serious. "But could you please talk to him after the dinner? This is an island. He's not going anywhere. And you," I turned to Tom, "need to get dressed. And so do I."

Binder hesitated, but then gave in. "Okay. Okay."

"Good. I'm going to—shoot!"

Down at the dock, a marine patrol boat had arrived with Binder's additional detectives, all four dressed for a wedding, as Binder had promised. The lone woman, wearing a stylish blue suit, held a bright green cocktail dress on a hanger.

I ran to the dock to collect Derek and Amelia's stuff to deliver it to their room. They would no doubt have a few choice words to say about the late timing.

* * *

But when I got to their door, laden with hanging dress, garment bag, makeup kit, and a canvas bag that I suspected contained underwear, Derek wasn't there.

"Come in." Amelia sniffled from behind the door when I knocked. "It's open."

"Where's Derek?" I hung her dress and his suit on the closet door.

"Dunno. Don't care."

I had told Tom and Binder and the other detectives that they couldn't deliver the clothes. I knew what would happen if any of them got into that room, and there wasn't time for questioning witnesses. That was why I was schlepping all the stuff on my own. Mercifully, Tom had gone to shower, and Binder was bringing the rest of the team up to speed.

But here was Amelia, alone, sitting on an unmade bed, crying. I couldn't leave her like that. I sat next to her, but didn't touch her. "What's the matter?"

"What isn't?" That brought a fresh round of crying. Fortunately, I'd supplied the room with a box of tissues. I fetched it and handed one to her.

Eventually, she stopped crying enough to talk. "I agreed to come with Derek on this trip for several reasons. For one, there was no way he wasn't going to come to Zoey's wedding, and I didn't want him to come alone. Not that I thought he was going to stand up and object at the ceremony or anything. I only wanted him to remember I'm alive. But the main reason was curiosity. I was dying to meet this paragon of womanhood—talented, beautiful, successful, everything that I'm not."

"You've met her now. What do you think?" I asked.

"I wanted to dislike her. I hated her before I met her. But she's been lovely to me, even when I've been terrible to her. She talked to me like I was a regular, interesting person. She wanted to know about my art. It's her wedding weekend. I would have understood if she was distracted. But she was kind."

"Zoey is kind."

"I hoped before we came that Derek would see her as she is today, older, and in love with someone else. Then he might realize he was holding on to someone who didn't exist anymore." Amelia hunched in on herself, looked at the floor, but then looked up at me. "But that isn't how it worked out. Just the opposite. I think Derek fell in love again. You saw him." She turned to me. "He's like a puppy dog around her. All bright eyes and wagging his tail. It's disgusting."

"And disrespectful," I added, "to you."

"And disrespectful," she agreed. "Everyone here saw it. Zoey was lovely and patient with him. She never told him to go away, but she steered him back to me whenever she could."

"She probably sensed your discomfort," I said.

"My discomfort was there for everyone to see."

"But that's not all." Something more was troubling her.

"That's not even the half of it." Tears squeezed from the corners of her eyes. "Do you see what she looks like?"

"She looks like you." Making Amelia the most reboundy of rebound girlfriends. The shadow twin.

It must be so hurtful. I hadn't liked her. She'd been brittle and demanding, even allowing for the tough spot she was in. But I couldn't help but feel for her. What was she—twenty-two, twenty-three?

"She looks like me because I'm her sister." And then Amelia broke down completely.

Which was a good thing because I couldn't speak. I felt like I'd taken a punch to the gut. How many relatives was Zoey going to have crawling out of the woodwork this weekend?

"Why do you think she's your sister?" Amelia had calmed down and was hiccupping into a tissue. It had to be more than the resemblance. But then my mind began to tick off other things. Their Los Angeles origins. That Amelia had said she was an artist, like Zoey.

"I think she's my sister because he was here. My father. Her father, too. He must be. Why else would he have been at her rehearsal dinner?"

My brain disappeared for a moment. I couldn't process the information. Finally, I asked. "Mr. Clarkson? The man who was murdered was your father?" I flashed on the scene at the cocktail party when Amelia had very deliberately turned her back on the man in the blue blazer and then crowded in, protecting Zoey.

"Do you know the expression ‘things can't get any worse'?" Amelia asked.

I smiled despite the tension in the room. "It's usually said right before—or, more often, right after—things have gotten much worse."

Amelia nodded. "Exactly." Now that she'd decided to tell me, she seemed to find momentum. "I thought coming here with Derek would result in a horrible week. Then it got so much worse." She blew her nose. "I never knew my dad. I was raised by my grandparents. My mother was . . ." Amelia made a motion with her hand that might mean anything from "took off," to "crazy," to "in an iron lung." I didn't probe.

"My grandparents didn't know who my father was. When I became an adult, I started looking. I spit in a test tube and sent the spit off. I didn't think about it much after that. I'd taken a big step and was content to wait. Maybe he was looking, too. Maybe he wasn't. I was fine either way. Or I told myself I was."

I made a sympathetic sound, and she went on. "Then this man showed up at my work. He was handsome, dressed in nice clothes. Very respectable. He asked if I was Lauren Gerhart's daughter. One bit of conversation led to another. He said he was my dad. We went to a café and talked for hours. He knew everything about my mom. Not just what she looked like, but what she'd studied in college, what her favorite song was. Her favorite color—even I didn't know that. He told me things about my grandparents that I didn't know, and I lived with them for eighteen years."

"Where did he say he'd been all those years?"

"He said he hadn't known about me. That he'd run into my mom recently, at a music festival. That tracked. And she'd told him. That's how he knew how to find me, which surprised me, because I didn't think Mom knew where I was.

"I wasn't a fool." She thrust her chin at me, as if daring me to say she was. They were the exact words Zoey had used. "I had him take a DNA test with the same company I'd used. I thought it would come back he was my father. But the tests take time. We had to order the kit, have him spit in the tube, and send it back. All during the wait, I was spending time with Ken." Her eyes started to well. "He told me to call him dad." She stopped, drawing in her breath in great gulps. I was afraid she wouldn't be able to go on, but she squared her shoulders and continued.

"He said it was too expensive for him to stay in his hotel while we waited for the results. I invited him to stay at my place. He was there for two months." She stopped, bright red with embarrassment.

I knew where this was going. "Then left with any money you had and anything else of value." I said it because I thought it would be hard for her to say.

She didn't seem surprised that I'd guessed. "Yes. My car, every bit of cash I had, including in my checking and savings, and a pearl necklace from my grandmother."

I wasn't sure she would welcome it, but I put my hand on her shoulder. "I'm sorry. That must have been terrible."

"Terrible emotionally and financially." The tears that had been threatening spilled over again. "I had no money. The amount he stole was trivial, but it set me back for months."

"I'm sorry," I said again and waited while she dabbed her eyes. "What about the DNA?"

"I watched him spit into the tube. I mailed the sample myself. I waited for weeks and weeks. I wanted to know even more after he was gone. But the company claimed they never received it. I couldn't understand it for the longest time, but then I realized that he must have removed the label before he put it in the envelope, so they couldn't match the sample to his registration. That's the only thing that makes sense."

"How long ago was this?"

"Three and a half years."

What Clarkson had done to Constance Marshall was awful enough, but doing something even crueler to this fatherless girl turned my stomach. "Don't you think the fact that he sabotaged the DNA test means he's not your dad?" And therefore, not Zoey's dad. "Plus, he stole from you. Wouldn't that mean you aren't his kid?"

That got me a raised eyebrow from Amelia. "You've never had a parent steal from you? You must have great parents."

I did have two wonderful parents. My dad had died when I was twenty-five, and I missed him terribly, but he'd left the best of himself for me to treasure.

"Either he's not my dad and it was all a con," she said quietly, "or he is, and I won the genetic lottery, two awful parents."

"At the party, you avoided him because you didn't want to confront him," I said.

"I spotted him on the boat and almost fell overboard. How in the world did Zoey or Jamie know him? But then I saw Zoey. My heart beat faster. I began to sweat and was tongue-tied. Not the way you want to meet your boyfriend's ex. Suddenly, the stakes were huge. I wanted to know everything about her, and not just because she's Derek's ex."

"Did you tell anyone about your history with Kendall Clarkson?" I asked. "Did Derek know the story before you came here, even if he didn't know a name or a face?"

"I never told Derek. I never told anyone. Not before."

"Not even your grandparents?"

"They're the last people I would tell. What would be the point? I told you they never knew who my father was. It would only upset them."

"But you did tell Derek at some point this weekend?"

"About an hour ago."

I didn't like Derek, but I had to admit he wasn't stupid. He would have put it all together—Clarkson leaving Zoey's studio, embracing her, her tears, Clarkson showing up at the rehearsal dinner, apparently a surprise to everyone except Zoey. Clarkson had been running the same con on Zoey that he had on Amelia. What would Derek do with that knowledge?

Amelia exhaled noisily and stood. "I have to get dressed."

She still planned to go to the wedding. "You don't have to. I can find you someplace in the house to stay. You don't have to see Derek."

She shook her head. "I want to see Zoey get married. She's my sister."

I had to get a move on, too. I started for the door and turned back. "Please, don't tell Zoey your big secret until after the reception. She'd be thrilled to have a sister, but she's already absorbed too many blows this weekend. Tell her after."

Amelia turned, holding her bright green dress up in front of her. "Okay," she said. "I understand."