Free The Bride Wore Black by Ally Gray Page A

fair! That old bat—pardon me, actual bats overhead—held me at gunpoint and kidnapped me, and they didn’t do anything to her. Talk about your privileged class getting away with murder!”
    “Now, now, she was cleared of the murder. Lady Persephone didn’t mean to hang herself, it was staged to try to make this place off limits so Cat couldn’t get married here. The raccoons chewed through her safety rope and she ended up actually hanging herself. Mrs. Davenport couldn’t have known that would happen.”
    “And the frogs? And the screaming? And the kidnapping of your favorite flower boy ?” he demanded, frowning into his drink.
    “Well, those were unfortunate. She staged them to give the reporter plenty to write about in order to keep her daughter from doing this. But look on the bright side… Cat got to have the wedding she wanted and she still got to have her mom at her wedding—or force her mom to attend her wedding, if you want to get technical, which in my book makes it all worth it—while you got to spend quality time in close quarters with Corey getting to know each other better.”
    “I’d let a momzilla lock me in the trunk of a car with Corey,” Mandy said, letting her whiskey do the talking for her. She looked up in alarm when she realized she’d said that out loud, but grinned sheepishly when Corey smiled at her.
    “So if this was all a dumb trick, why’d she come back to the house that night?” he asked, his tired and somewhat alcohol saturated brain trying to make sense of it all.
    “She called that reporter with another anonymous tip. Turns out, she was the one telling him all these things in the first place. He called me after learning that the ‘ghost’ had been sighted at the house again, and I filled him in. He was supposed to document everything and get us the proof we needed that the old mom was in on it, but when you called Rod, there was no need for the reporter’s help anymore. He invested in a much better camera that doesn’t require a flash, so he still got enough pictures to go with the ghost story he originally planned. By the way, Tori, you’re gonna look fabulous in his article!”
    “Oh really? Well, speaking of looking fabulous…” She got up and crossed the room with far more stable direction than she should have been capable of. She reached out both hands to Stacy and pulled her to her feet, then led her to the side room where the wraps had been stored for the evening. Tori pushed aside a few leftover coats until she found a garment bag, then handed it to her boss. “Get in there, and put that on.”
    “Why?”
    “Just do it,” she answered with a smile.

Chapter 10
    W hen Stacy stepped out of the closet, everyone had vanished. She stood in the middle of the parlor surveying the remnants of a Goth wedding, but couldn’t find any of her friends or co-workers. A ringing bell outside caught her attention, and she followed a path of black rose petals to the back doors of the house.
    She opened the doors to the veranda and gasped. While Stacy and company had been toasting to another successful event, an unknown number of helpers had been whisking away the blood wedding and replacing it with a modest garden party theme. An aisle of white rose petals led in a meandering path through the gardens to a festooned arch where Nathan waited in a white suit.
    “What is this?” Stacy asked, looking around at her friends’ beaming faces and gesturing to the simple peach dress she wore.
    “I told you I was gonna get back at you for that whole hanging bit,” Tori said sweetly, wearing an adoring smile for her best friend. “So here it is—your wedding day. Er, night. Whatever.”
    Music began to play and everyone took their seats. Tori pressed a small nosegay into Stacy’s hands and gave her a gentle push forward before coming around to walk ahead of her. Mandy joined her, and for the first time Stacy noticed the similar style and coloring of their outfits. Jeremiah