Excerpt: The Wedding Party by L. R. Jones

For a bride-to-be and her fiancé, secrets and lies make this a killer celebration in this psychological suspense.

Carrie and Oliver. A couple completely in love and the hosts of a wedding to remember at Colorado’s legendary Stanley Hotel. This is Carrie’s fairy tale come true. Her fiancé, Oliver, is Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome; successful; and utterly devoted to her. Now family and friends have gathered to celebrate. It’s sure to be a wild night as the drinks flow freely and the fun begins.

But the morning after is murder.

FBI agent Andi Castle was just supposed to be a plus-one. This should have been a calming weekend getaway from what she does best: catch killers. Instead, Andi’s on the hunt again. The hotel is on lockdown. Secrets are being unearthed. And no one is above Andi’s suspicions. But which secrets are worth killing for? Andi’s forced to find the answers fast…before someone else dies.

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EXCERPT

Denver, Colorado 

Present day . . . 

In life, there are light moments, moments that twinkle like stars in the sky, moments that stand out even in the darkest of times, giving us joy, strength, and renewed energy. And then there are dark moments that scorch us with pain and torment and leave us desolate, struggling to move forward at all, and when we do, we’re walking on eggshells, tentative, afraid of what comes next. 

I’ve known a lot of those dark moments. The first time I felt one, I was twelve. My brother was fourteen. Neither of us saw the car coming. I don’t remember much about that day. 

Suddenly, he was just— gone. 

Instead of him and me walking to school together, I walked to school alone. There were no more varsity football games to attend. No more sibling arguments over breakfast. No more video game battles. No more games of hide-and-seek. 

Struggling to shake off the horrid place my mind has taken me, I finish filling the wine fridge with the new bottles I picked up on the way home. Oliver, the blessing that man is in my life, sensed I was off today when we talked on the phone and suggested wine and takeout, despite his work on some multimillion-dollar acquisition for Phoenix Technology. Of course, his father decided to retire right after we set our wedding date, which was unexpected. Once Oliver was forced to claim the reins of a multimillion-dollar company, we had to put the wedding off a year. 

But almost a year later, we’ve settled into all that is new. Almost. 

Reaching back into the wine fridge, I grab a half-full bottle of Riesling and pour a glass. We’ll open a new bottle when Oliver arrives. I walk to the kitchen island, sit down on a stool, dig into my giant Louis Vuitton bag, and pull out a bottle of pills. Contrary to what I, a nurse, would recommend to my patients, I down my nightly cocktail of medication with my wine before tabbing through an architectural magazine, looking for ideas for the house Oliver and I want to build. After the impending wedding and holidays are past us, of course. Coming right off the holidays to dive into our wedding in January is a big undertaking. 

The front door alert goes off, and I quickly slide my pill bottle back in my purse and settle the strap on my seat. Oliver rounds the corner, Mr. Tall, Dark, and Handsome, and so JFK Jr. in his navy suit and tie. Some might say I’m marrying up. Not that I’m horrid or anything. I have nice long brown hair, warm brown eyes, good skin, and a heart-shaped face, but it comes together as rather average. And it’s an unsaid thing that I’ll always need to lose a little weight. Meanwhile Oliver is a lean, mean muscle machine, eating whatever he wants, while I diet. It’s the curse of my life. And being five foot three doesn’t help. A few pounds are like pudding pads on my hips. 

Oliver sets his briefcase down on the counter behind us, eyeing my wine as he does rather than kissing me. I’d prefer the latter, but we don’t always get what we want in life. Don’t I know that for a fact. 

“Started without me, did you?” he asks, shrugging out of his jacket and settling it on the back of the stool next to mine. 

“A few sips,” I say, “but I bought some new bottles. Let’s try one of those. And where’s my takeout?” 

“I ordered your favorite. Giovanni’s lasagna coming up in”—he glances at the Rolex his father gave him when he took over the company last year—“fifteen minutes, I would guess,” he adds. 

“Perfection,” I say as he kneels in front of the wine fridge and starts reviewing my purchases. 

“How was work?” I ask. 

“Complicated and exhausting,” he says. “But that deal I told you about is coming together.” 

He actually didn’t tell me anything about “that deal,” as he calls it, except that it’s worth millions for his company and is some sort of an acquisition of a smaller competitor. He’s always too exhausted to dive into the nitty-gritty with me. But I’ve come to know that men share differently than women. They give us pieces, while we read them a book right out of our minds. 

“You got that pinot I like,” he says, holding up the bottle. “I approve.” He pushes to his feet, grabs two glasses, fills them, and then joins me at the island, and we angle toward each other. 

“Talk to me,” he urges, sliding my hair behind my ear, his touch tender and attentive. 

“What’s going on with you today?” 

Attentive is really the word I highlight in my mind. Oliver is always attentive and present. No matter what is going on in his life or in the world, when we’re together, he’s engaged. 

“We lost a little boy today.” My voice hitches. “It was, uh”—I look away and reach for my wine—“rough.” I sip and glance over at him. 

“How old?” he asks. 

“Twelve, Oliver,” I say. “And the mother . . . as you can imagine, she was devastated. You couldn’t help but feel her emotions.” I ball my fist between my breasts. “Her pain just bled right from her heart and soul to ours, all of us there when it happened, and twisted around us like, like a rope choking the life out of us.” 

“Holy hell, I can only imagine.” Oliver contemplates, sipping his wine. “Just hearing you talk about it gets to me, too. And, babe, I know this was bad timing.” 

He means the anniversary of my brother’s death. 

“I was worried about you taking that job in the ER department,” he adds, taking this topic one step further, as he always does. 

“It’s a supervisory role,” I remind him. “And a big promotion for me.” 

“That your parents pressured you to take,” he reminds me. “I mean, I get it. Your father runs three hospitals in Houston, and your mother heads the nursing staff for the largest hospital in Texas. 

You’re following in her footsteps, but at what mental health cost?” 

“Someone has to do it and do it well.” 

“And you do. I know you do, and I’m proud of you. You’re a hero. And I’m just some guy in a suit you helped save on a rainy night in Houston.” 

He’d been in town on business when his rental car had caught a rough spot on a narrow, wet road and flipped. He’d broken a rib and an arm. He could have punctured a lung. He was lucky. 

And so was I that night. I helped save his life, I think, but since then, he’s saved me in all kinds of indiscernible ways. 

“But you know,” he continues, and because I know him, and I know he’s about to launch into a protective bear lecture, I head for a detour. 

“What I know,” I say, “is that my mental health is just fine. Made possible by the fact that my parents are in Houston and we’re in Denver, thank you, Lord. They micromanage me to the point of causing insanity.” The doorbell rings, a blessed relief from the deeper conversation about my history of personal tragedy that had been sure to follow. “That will be the lasagna,” I say. “And lasagna makes everything better.” 

“And the pinot,” he says, pushing to his feet and kissing me. 

He rushes away to grab the food, and I stand up and hurry about the kitchen, grabbing plates, napkins, and silverware that I set up on the island. The oversize black-and-white granite island is one of the things that sold us on this house. The house itself was Oliver’s way of inviting me to live with him, and his gift to me for waiting on the wedding date. 

My fingers thrum on the island, and time ticks by a bit too heavily. Curious about what might be taking so long, I head for the front door. I find Oliver resealing what looks like a big white box, a red ribbon hanging from its side. 

“Oh. Did we get an early wedding gift?” 

Oliver’s spine stiffens slightly, and he slides the box under his arm before facing me. “A gag gift, and a bad one.” 

“I see. Well, I’m sure I’ll laugh about it. What is it?” 

“Not a chance. I’m not letting you see this.” 

“You’re kidding, right?” 

“Not at all.” 

“Who sent it?” 

“It’s from one of the groomsmen, Carrie. You’d hate him if I told you who, and I’m not doing that to us right before the wedding. Grab the food if it shows up, babe. I’m going to call and ream out a certain someone.” 

He doesn’t wait for a reply. He walks to his right and into his office, and to my shock, he shuts the door. He never shuts the door. The card for the gift is lying on the hall table, and I pick it up and glance at the front of the envelope. It reads “Oliver Phoenix,” not “Oliver and Carrie.” That gift was for Oliver, and the writing is distinctively female. 

My hands begin to shake and my stomach twists in knots. I walk to the office door and tentatively turn the handle. The door is locked. 

BUY HERE

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L. R. Jones is a pseudonym for New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Lisa Renee Jones, whose dark, edgy fiction includes the highly acclaimed novels The Poet, A Perfect Lie, and the Lilah Love series. Prior to publishing, Lisa owned a multistate staffing agency recognized by the Austin Business Journal. Lisa was listed as #7 in Entrepreneur magazine’s list of growing women-owned businesses. She lives in Colorado with her husband, a cat who always has something to say, and a golden retriever who’s afraid of her own bark. For more information, visit www.lisareneejones.com.

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Category: Contemporary Women Writers, On Writing