Blood Noir - Laurell K. Hamilton [65]
Peterson got the reporters outside the room with the help of the uniformed guards. Two of the younger suits stayed on our side of the door and took up positions against it, as if the press might try to break down the door. Surely not, but I was beginning to realize that we’d passed into a sort of press Twilight Zone, where the normal rules did not seem to apply.
The brunette offered me her hand. “I’m Trish, friend of the bride’s, and I’m sorry that I couldn’t stop her in time.” She had a good handshake, though her hand was big enough, and her nails long enough, that it felt almost dangerous, as if she’d cut me if she shook too hard.
“How did she find our room?”
“The reporter knew your room number. He told her they’d seen Keith check in with a brunette. They had pictures of the two of you in the hotel obviously going to a room.”
“The bachelorette party must be in full swing for her to be this drunk,” I said.
Trish shook her head. “It hasn’t really started yet. She was this drunk when we got to the room for the party.”
I looked over at the small blond woman, inches shorter than Jason and me. She swayed against him, clinging to his robe as if without it and his hands on her slender frame she’d have hit the floor. It must have shown on my face because Trish said, “Apparently she got drunk alone in her room. Her bridesmaids found her this way, clutching a handful of pictures of Keith with you.”
“Not Keith,” I said.
Trish nodded. “Apparently not, but the resemblance is eerie.”
I couldn’t argue with the eerie part. Now that Lisa wasn’t screaming or crying hysterically or trying to claw Jason’s eyes out, I realized that she and he looked alike. In fact, Lisa Bromwell looked more like Jason’s sister than either of his actual sisters.
“You are the first woman I’ve gotten to talk to who isn’t from this town. Is it just me or do they look alike, too?” Trish said.
“It’s not just you,” I said.
“Have you seen many of the descendants of old Jedediah and the original families from his little town in the hills?”
“Not yet,” I said.
“They all look like that, like they’re related.”
“Jason said that Jedediah Summerland helped populate most of the town in his day.”
“When you see the wedding party, you’ll believe it.”
I gave her a look.
She nodded, eyes a little wide. “Just wait, you’ll see, it’s very Twilight Zone.”
“We just had a reporter with camera and lights burst into our hotel room, I already feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone.”
“I’d like to say it’ll get better, Anita, I can call you Anita, right?”
“Sure.”
“I’ve been friends with them since they announced the wedding, and the closer it gets the weirder the press get. One of the reasons that they were so sure of you and—Jason, right?”
I nodded.
“—of Jason being Keith is that there is a rumor going around that he has a brunette on the side. It may even be true.”
Jason had sat Lisa down in the chair. He rubbed her shoulders as he talked softly to her.
“If it’s true, then why is she marrying him?” I asked.
Trish gave me a look.
“What?”
“He’s rich, he’s handsome, he’s fun as hell when he’s not being a bastard. His father is governor of the state and about to run for president. He may even make it all the way to the Oval Office.”
She stopped talking, as if that explained why a woman would put up with a man who would cheat on her days before her wedding. I finally said, “You haven’t said anything that would get me down the aisle with someone who would cheat on me days before my wedding.”
“How about it’s one of the biggest weddings of the year in this country, and backing out now would be more humiliating than going through with it?”
I shook my head. “That doesn’t work for me either.”
Trish studied my face, as if she were trying to decide if I was serious or not. “You really would just dump his ass, wouldn’t you?”
“In a hot minute.” It was