Two weeks before her wedding, Aurora Larrimore slapped her
wedding planner, punched her florist, stole the florist's van, and drove off.
Her family calls her unstable. Melissa "Pissy Lou" Jenkins isn't
convinced. A blunt, brilliant skip tracer for the family's law firm, Pissy Lou
notices what everyone else misses, and her Tourette's has a habit of announcing
exactly what she thinks of the people she questions. She is sent to find Aurora
in time to save the wedding, and she starts with the question nobody else
asked: is Aurora missing, or is she just gone? Those are two different types of
investigations.
Her interviews turn up stories about a controlling mother, a fiancé whose
answers don't fit, and a carefully polished lie the whole family seems to be
protecting. Before Pissy Lou can find the runaway bride, she has to answer the
question at the heart of the case. Everyone involved in the wedding has a
theory about Aurora, but Pissy Lou is the only one asking why she ran.
Chapter
4
Vendors
and a Client
Pissy Lou was at her desk by eight the next morning. She
poured her yellow-orange mug full of iced coffee and opened her notebook to a
fresh page. The Larrimore file was open in front of her. She had a list of
calls to make before she drove out to Devereaux Heights, where Richard and
Celeste Larrimore lived. She had verified information on the people she had
intended to talk to the day before.
First on her list was the caterer,
a woman named Darlene Puckett who ran the Fork & Flourish out of a
commercial kitchen on the east side of town. Ms. Puckett answered on the second
ring.
After introductions, Pissy Lou got
down to work. “What did you do when Celeste Larrimore called to change the menu
for the wedding?
“I told Aurora everything,” Puckett
said. She had the tone of a woman who was waiting to talk about this situation.
“As soon as I realized what her mother was doing, I called Aurora directly. I
did not care whose toes I stepped on. It is her wedding.” She paused. “That
woman, Celeste Larrimore, called me four times in two weeks. She wanted to swap
out the entire menu. Aurora and Hayes had tasted everything; they’d signed off
on a menu, and we had a contract. The menu was set. Then here comes Celeste wanting
another tier on the cake, to swap out the wedding topper, and then she wanted
chicken marsala and salmon added to the menu. She said Aurora was ‘too
informal’ in her choices, like it was a character flaw.” Another pause, a
deliberate one. “I have dealt with a lot of difficult mothers of the bride.
That woman is in an extra-obnoxious category by herself.”
Pissy Lou thanked her and moved on.
The printer, a slow-talking man who
identified himself only as “Bill, from Printed to Perfection,” confirmed the
invitation situation, Aurora and Hayes had selected a plain card with an
elegant texture, letterpress printing, a classic Garamond font, and wording
that named them both first and their parents second. Celeste had called and
instructed him to change the wording so that it read: “Mr. and Mrs. Richard
Larrimore request the honor of your presence at the marriage of their daughter
…” which was not what Aurora had ordered, and not what was on the signed
proof. Celeste provided her credit card, so he did a second run with the new
wording. He then emailed the new proof to Aurora. She called back and sounded
angry. She told him to throw those out, and hoped he still had the original
invitations. He did. She also made him promise to call her again if Celeste
tried to change them again.
"This happens more often than
you might think," Bill said in his deadpan way. "Parents argue about
wording. Grandparents argue about wording. I once had a bride's aunt threaten
to sue over cardstock. That is why I never throw invitations away until after
the wedding. Somebody is always upset about something.”
"Was this unusual?" she
asked.
"As I said, no, happens all
the time. But this was a bit new, Aurora wanted me to call her personally if
her mother contacted me again. I mean the woman got caught the first time. Why
would she try it again?”
Pissy Lou’s call to BarbyAnne
Knowles, the events coordinator at the wedding venue, was more involved. Aurora
and Hayes had booked The Carrington, an estate property outside of town with a
bridal ceremony and reception space, gardens, and a catering kitchen. Celeste
had called The Carrington and, citing unspecified “concerns,” canceled the
booking, then booked a different property, Magnolia Hall, which had a more
formal aesthetic. Pissy Lou suspected this site had a greater prestige among
the circles Celeste traveled in. Aurora had called The Carrington, discovered
the cancellation, and re-booked it immediately.
“I was surprised at how calm Aurora
was. If my mother had pulled that on me, I would have been swearing something
awful,” BarbyAnne said. “Then she asked that no further changes be accepted
from anyone other than herself, and that such changes had to be in writing. I
could tell she had thought this out before she called. I have never had another
bride who had to ask me to do th Her last vendor call was to Beaufort Bridal,
the shop where Aurora's gown had come from. The owner, Serafina Beaufort, ran
the store her grandmother had opened and had been dressing Nunenberg brides for
over forty years. She remembered the gown without having to look anything up.
"Aurora picked an ivory,
sleeveless couture gown, clean lines, no fuss. It had a slightly uneven hem,
and ended just above her ankles so she could move easily. It suited her
perfectly, and she knew it the minute she had it on. You can always tell,"
Serafina said. "And she had an eye, that girl. She chose all four
bridesmaids' dresses here too — peacock blue, midcalf, with three-quarter
sleeves of ivory illusion lace, and little flowers embroidered into the lace in
the same blue, so they seemed to bloom right on the skin. Each one was cut a
little differently, but you could see at a glance they belonged together. Those
women came to their fittings laughing, and every single one asked me if she
could wear hers again afterward. In this business, that is the highest
compliment there is."
"And the bride's gown?"
"Then the alterations
started.” Serafina Beaufort paused before continuing. “Her mother ordered the
changes directly, four separate times, and mostly between fittings, so Aurora
never saw them coming. Lace sleeves. A higher neckline. Lace layered over the
bodice. She addeda train and veil. Mrs. Larrimore was paying for the work, so
my hands were tied, but every fitting, that poor girl came in and found less of
her own dress waiting for her. At the last one she said something about us
turning it into a lacy burka. One of my fitters laughed. I did not."
"Four rounds of
alterations," Pissy Lou said. "Is that normal?"
"Honey, in forty years I have
taken gowns in, let gowns out, and re-beaded an entire bodice overnight for a
bride who changed her mind. I have never un-designed a dress four times for a
woman who was not the one wearing it." She paused. "I heard Aurora
took the gown with her when she left. Good. She should burn it. I've unpicked a
lot of mistakes in forty years, but that gown's got four rounds of her mother
sewn in too deep for any seam ripper. Fire's just the last alteration, and it's
the only one her mother can't reverse."
"So, you think Aurora intends
to burn the dress?" Pissy Lou asked.
"Honey, if that were my dress,
I'd pour a can of gasoline on it and strike a match," Serafina said
without hesitation.
Nora Kingsley lives on Cape Cod in Massachusetts, where the
landscape, the weather, and the Atlantic provide a constantly changing backdrop
for an active imagination. Why Aurora Ran is Nora Kingsley's debut and the
first in the Lou Jenkins mystery series.
A lifelong reader, Nora is happiest wandering through
historical fiction, mysteries, science fiction, and fantasy, especially books
that offer a compelling world, an intriguing puzzle, or characters worth
following well past bedtime. Her interests extend beyond the page to music,
movies, cooking, and art, and she has always been drawn to the many different
ways people create and tell stories.
She shares her life with the people and animals she loves,
an unreasonable number of interests, and the firm conviction that there is
always room for another book.
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