Weddings can be murder. Roxy’s trying not to be the next victim.
About the Book:
Roxy Constantine and Nate Robicheaux are
into weddings, both for work and family. But when the obnoxious father of the
bride is murdered at their catered engagement party, they find out more about
his business than they bargained for.
Now
someone wants to stop Roxy from investigating even as she pulls out all the
stops on a super New Year’s Eve wedding celebration for her uncle.
She’ll
need more than wine jelly favors and wedding cake to stop the killer.
An Excerpt:
“You ready to go?” Nate asked.
“Pretty much. Did you check to see if Thalia’s still around? I saw her
talking to Pollack. She might have some last-minute stuff to tell us.”
Nate grimaced. “Grab your coat. We can check for her and then keep
going out the front entrance. Thalia can always call tomorrow if she’s got something to pass on.”
I followed him into the dining room where the janitor was running the
Zamboni-style sweeper around the room. I didn’t see
Thalia or anybody else. “Looks like she’s gone.”
“Probably,” Nate said. “Everybody else has taken off. Let’s take one
more pass at the stairs.”
He stepped out the doors that led to the stairwell. It looked pretty dark to me, but as I stepped onto the landing,
I heard something that sounded like a sob. For a moment I pictured Jennifer
Pollack staring out at the falling snow like she wanted to escape. I hoped she hadn’t been left behind by
mistake “Did you hear that?”
“What?” Nate turned to stare at me.
“That sound. It was over…” As I started across the landing toward the
stairs, I heard another sob, much louder this time, coming from the stairs
leading down to the lower floor. “Is anybody there?” I called.
“Roxy?” It sounded like Thalia, but a very
different Thalia from the normal, terrifyingly efficient woman we’d been working with. I stepped quickly to the
landing and peered toward the lower floor.
And saw Thalia Rosenberg leaning over Emerson Pollack, who lay
spread-eagled on the concrete floor.
From where I stood, he looked very dead.
I ran down the
steps, which is to say I went down quickly, not exactly running. The stairwell
was very dark although the light from above streamed down on Pollack’s body
where it lay. Nate was at my heels.
Thalia knelt
beside Pollack, her face the color of the snow still falling outside. “We need
to call an ambulance,” she said. “He’s…hurt.”
Judging by the
way Pollack was splayed on the floor, I didn’t think an ambulance would do much good. I put my
hand on her shoulder. “Come on, Thalia. Step away from him now.”
Nate had
climbed up the stairs and was now speaking urgently into his phone. I heard the
words “accident” and “serious injuries,” which might well be true, as far as
the “serious injuries” went. I was less certain about the “accident” part.
Still, he was talking to the police, who were better
equipped than us to figure out what had happened.
Thalia looked
like she might faint or have hysterics, neither of which I wanted to deal with
right then. A pool of blood spread under Pollack’s body; some had soaked into
the hem of Thalia’s bright blue suit. I didn’t
think she’d noticed. I couldn’t
see any good reason for her to go on kneeling next to Pollack’s body.
He obviously wasn’t in any condition to need her help.
Thalia leaned
toward me, her brown eyes huge in her pale face.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “My God. He’s dead, isn’t he?”
“Looks like
it.” I pulled her a little farther away from the body just as I heard the sound of sirens outside. The Shavano Police
Department had taken Nate seriously when he’d told
them we needed help.
“Did he fall?”
Thalia said, her voice trembling. “I didn’t hear anything.”
“Maybe,” I
said.
“He looks
so…flat.” Her voice was rising, and she sounded much closer to the faint or
hysterics option I’d sensed earlier.
“The police
will figure it out.” I took her elbow and nudged her gently toward the stairs.
“That’s what they do.”
One flight up,
I heard someone banging on the front door. Nate was already undoing the front
door lock, while the guy who’d been running the
Zamboni peered out of the dining room. “What’s going on?” he called. No one
bothered to answer him.
Nate got the
door open, and I heard a lot of voices, including Nate trying to explain what
had happened. I edged up the stairs, still holding Thalia’s arm. Then I heard a very familiar voice, one I’d been expecting. “Well,
well. Nate Robicheaux and Roxy Constantine. Here you are again.”
The Wine Jelly Murder can be found at:
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FCVCRC6S/thewildrosepr-20
Barnes
and Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-wine-jelly-murder-meg-benjamin/1147592049?ean=2940184558462
Apple:
https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-wine-jelly-murder/id6747186348
Kobo:
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-wine-jelly-murder?sId=1b710c3e-005f-485c-9d5f-1e7fae3124c2
Google
Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Meg_Benjamin_The_Wine_Jelly_Murder?id=pf-AEQAAQBAJ
Walmart:
https://www.walmart.com/search/?query=9781509261482
BooksaMillion:
https://www.booksamillion.com/p/9781509261482
