Free Janine Marie - Rigging a Murder 01 - The Single Shoe Mystery by Janine Marie

general conversation started up about what everyone had done after leaving Princess Louisa three weeks earlier. This, too, was awkward because no one mentioned Lorenzo’s murder. Realizing that the presentations were to begin soon and wanting to sit with our regular group of friends, including Greg and Stephanie, we started to make our excuses. That group had saved seats for us at a table at the back of the room, where those of us who don’t have huge fortunes to give big donations are relegated.
    “It was good to see you all again; the program is about to start, so we had best get to our seats,” I said, standing to an approving nod from Thomas
    “No, no; you mustn’t go. We’re short two people at our table and it would look bad to have a front table not full,” Catherine pronounced emphatically, looking concerned.
    Thomas and I exchanged looks. There were two empty seats besides the ones we had filled, and we really didn’t feel comfortable sitting with this group.
    As if on cue, Trent Braise-Bottom the Third and his wife appeared, and with smiles all around took the remaining two seats.
    This was getting stranger by the minute, and to my great dismay the MC got up to start the event, thus making escape impossible. We were now, by all standards of polite conduct, committed to spend the evening, at least the dinner and presentation part of the evening, at the Blackwoods’ table. This in itself was an interesting thought as they were not actually members of the club. Regardless, we were stuck, and could only wave sadly to our friends, who sat toasting and laughing at us from the back of the room. To add insult to injury, the table we had been trapped at was at the very front of the room and its occupants were actually expected to bid on auction items… we neither wanted nor could afford to bid on items like a weekend via private jet to Disneyland or a weeklong stay at a member’s vacation home on Mystic Island in five-star luxury.
    We managed to survive the bidding part of the evening and were relieved when the dancing started. Or so we thought.
    “Thomas,” I whispered. “Ask Catherine to dance!”
    “Why?” he inquired, looking very perplexed
    “She is getting sloshed and just ordered her third bottle of wine!”
    “So? Lots of people are getting drunk.”
    “Right, but the more she drinks, the more she leans on John, and Stella looks furious.”
    “It’s too bad John is such a nice guy… anyone else would have sent her home.”
    “Thomas, please?”
    “Oh, okay, but you owe me.”
    So off they went to dance. Fortunately for Thomas it wasn’t a slow dance, and they ended up dancing in a group.
    “What’s going on?” asked Steph, coming to sit beside me at the now empty table. Trent and his wife, Wiffy, had left early, and John and Stella had gone to join the dancing circle.
    Looking at the dancing group in dismay, I replied, “I sent Thomas to dance with Catherine as she was downing bottles of champagne like water, then flirting with John. Stella is fuming, so I hoped to diffuse the situation, but as you can see it didn’t work very well.”
    We both looked up to see Thomas at the bar, happily talking to our friends, Catherine dirty dancing with John, and Stella desperate to get John’s attention by dirty dancing with another Yacht Club member, who was looking very uncomfortable and confused, thus ruining her whole performance.
    “I just can’t see this ending well,” I said to Steph with a shake of my head, “but I don’t know how to derail this train wreck.”
    Laughing at my analogy she said, “We need to get Catherine in a taxi and send her home!”
    “And how do you propose we do that?” I inquired.
    “Hmmm, good point. First we need to get her off the dance floor.” Steph paused, looking around.
    “Right,” I said following her gaze. “Thomas failed to keep her dancing—”
    “Maybe we can get John to dance her outside to a taxi?” she suggested.
    The dance ended and