was finished. Felicity was now tucked under Rafael’s arm as the two of them made their leisurely way over to the bride and groom. A chill of foreboding raced down her spine as Rafael’s eyes landed on her and she froze like a deer in the headlights, every cell in her body quivering.
He tilted his head as though challenging her—to what, she had no idea—and she unfroze. “Oh no,” she said through gritted teeth. “Zero fucks.” She turned her back on him to enter the chapel, where she wasted no time making her way straight back out again through the infamous side exit she’d eschewed earlier.
She hadn’t known what to expect of the mausoleum, but it was magnificent. A circular stone structure set atop a platform on a grassy hill, surrounded by a veranda whose roof was supported by a series of columns all the way round. A stone path bisecting a pristine lawn connected it to the chapel but also seemed to isolate it, which seemed kind of surreal and yet completely perfect.
As Veronica slowly made her way along the path, she had the fanciful notion that the mausoleum wasn’t only a guardian of souls but a sentinel, keeping vigil over the brooding, untamed moors beyond the estate’s civilized perfection. Bleak, wild and lonely on one side, manicured perfection on the other—like the two halves of her.
She laughed as she ascended the steps, imagining what Scarlett would say if she started describing herself in such terms. Something like Stop hugging trees and get your head out of your ass! most likely.
That was Scarlett—always talking sense. And, by God, Veronica was ready to hear it!
She took her cell phone out of her purse, brought up her sister’s number and stabbed at the call button.
Scarlett answered on the second ring as though she’d been expecting the call. “So you’ve seen him,” she said without preamble.
“Yes.”
“And?”
“I’m scared when I talk to him I’m going to lose it. Or maybe faint. Which would be worse?”
“Maaaybe try to avoid either.”
“If you’re saying I shouldn’t talk to him, why did you let me come in the first place?”
“I didn’t ‘let’ you. Nobody ‘lets’ you do anything. You just do it! As I recall it, I had the temerity to remind you that you still go stratospherically apeshit when someone says his name and you were the one who insisted you were ready for this.”
“I may have been...premature in my assessment.”
“So what are you going to do? Hide in the restroom all night?”
“No.”
“Where are you now?”
“Outside a mausoleum.”
“Hang on! The wedding’s in a cemetery? Never would have picked Romy as a Goth!”
“Romy as a Go—? No! It’s not a cemetery, just a kind of...of burial place, near the chapel.”
“Ooooh, I see dead people!”
“That’s exactly the problem!” Veronica said. “I do see dead people. At least, I want to see dead people. Correction, I want to see dead person. Just the one.” Pausing, she thought about Felicity beneath Rafael’s protective arm back at the chapel. “Okay, maybe two.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I want to kill him! Obviously.”
“Okaaay, take a breath.”
“I’ve taken so many breaths I’ve used up half the oxygen in Yorkshire!”
“Well, take another and try to remember what I said about using a catastrophe scale to keep things in perspective.”
“Oh, on the catastrophe scale this is a ten!”
“No, Veronica, it’s not a ten. There are worse things than seeing your ex at a wedding, so take a moment now to think about them.”
“Um, like...say...a typhoon ripping through the estate and killing all the guests?”
“Yeees. Although somewhat unlikely, if that makes you feel better, relatively speaking, then—”
“All the corpses in this mausoleum rising up as zombies and swarming out to kill all the guests.”
“That’s a little macabre but—”
“A sudden blizzard—”
“In July?”
“—snap-freezing the moors and killing all the guests.”
“I’m sensing a theme here, Veronica.”
“Sharknado. Herd of trampling bison. An invasion of serial killers. Everyone dead.”
“Don’t you think killing all the guests is a little extreme when you only really want to kill one?”
“Yes!” Veronica agreed. “And all I need to do is go back to my cottage and get a knife from the kitchen. It’s close enough that I could be back in under five minutes. He’d probably still be kissing Romy and hugging Matt and shaking Teague’s hand and holding on to Felicity and do not—do not!—tell me ever again how good she is in This Time Forever—and it would all be over with one downward slice.”
“Okay, enough, Veronica! Nobody has to die!”
“Castration, then. I’ll find a rusty knife.”
“Can’t you just castrate the voodoo doll?” Scarlett said, and started laughing. “I can’t believe I’m telling you to castrate a voodoo doll like it’s an actual solution!”
“Don’t joke about my doll!” Veronica said. “Sticking pins in him has helped me a lot.”
“Okay, I surrender! Kill Rafael! Go ahead! Do it! Just don’t leave any DNA ’cuz Mom will freak out if you get caught. And if we’re talking catastrophe scale... Well, let’s just say I’d back her over the typhoon. The sharks, as well. Definitely the bison wouldn’t stand a chance.”
“Zombies?”
“Pfft. Child’s play. And she’d out-frost the July snap-freeze. I’m pretty sure she’d even give the serial killers a run for their money.” Pause. “You know, you really could just give up on achieving closure—or at least postpone it—and keep your distance.”
“Downside?”
“Being bitter and twisted forever.”
“You’re not being very helpful.”
“Okay then, how’s this? Don’t stab Rafael or castrate him, unless you want to be either in jail or in therapy for a thousand years! Maybe try going up to the guy exactly as you’d planned and talking about his books and being civilized and burying the hatchet somewhere other than in his skull and moving the fuck on.”
“We were never civilized before, what made me think I could be now?”
“That was then, this is now. College kids—mature adults. Get it?”
“Okay, but I haven’t read the books. His books. You know why.”
“So read his damn books! Who knows, you might learn something that will help you consign him to the past—or the devil—whichever. Now hang up before I need therapy!”
“Not. Helpful.”
“I’m hanging up, Veronica,” Scarlett said, singsong style—and the line went dead.
“Read his damn books,” Veronica muttered as she all but threw her phone into her purse. “As if!” She’d read the damn blurbs—they were enough to tell her she shouldn’t