Do-Or-Die Bridesmaid. Julie Miller

unsettling conversation he’d had all evening.

      After enduring a couple of quick dances with Lisa, reassuring her every way he knew how that her marrying Joe hadn’t damaged him beyond repair, he finally made his exit. He’d done his time. He’d saved face, rallied a bit of his pride. But he was more than ready to loosen his tie and unbutton the collar of his shirt as he pushed open the door to a rush of damp February air and strode across the parking lot to his SUV.

      Conor inhaled deep breaths of the cold, sobering air into his lungs, replaying this whole evening, replaying the last two years, actually, calculating just how quickly he could wrap up his mother’s business and get on the road to Kansas City before he got any more lost in the twilight zone of his old life.

      He was halfway to his SUV and mentally halfway home to KC when Laura came running out of the shadows from between two cars and slammed into him.

      “Whoa.” He caught her by the shoulders and steadied her in front of him to keep her from falling. “Where’s the fire?” Her bare arms were already dotted with goose bumps beneath his hands. His tone grew serious. “Where’s your coat?”

      She glanced back at the reception hall and muttered a choice word. “I’ll get it later.” A cloud of warm breath obscured her face for a moment before she broke away and hurried down the line of vehicles. “Chloe’s in trouble.”

      “Your friend?” Conor fell into step beside her.

      “I have to help her. I knew she was in over her head with Vinnie. It was just a stupid, stupid plan.” She stopped beside a compact toaster of a car and sorted through the keys dangling from her fingers. Before she found the remote, she dropped her keys into the snow beneath the car. Laura dropped down in a billow of cotton-candy pink to search for them. Conor knelt to retrieve them for her. Not only had she run outside without a proper winter coat, but the only things she’d brought with her were the keys and the phone she clutched in her left hand. Where was her purse? Her driver’s license?

      Conor’s fingers closed around the keys first and he stood. “You seem pretty upset, Squirt—”

      “Stop calling me that. I’m a grown woman.” She snatched the keys from his hand and tried to unlock her car. She tapped the remote a half dozen times. “Why isn’t this working? Dad said to get the stupid battery replaced.”

      Conor brushed his fingers along her arm, trying to calm her. “Hey, I’m not the enemy here. Tell me what’s wrong.”

      “Chloe had a fight with her boyfriend.”

      “You mean her fight with Isaac?”

      “Vincent. The one she dumped Isaac for.” She glanced a quick 360 around the parking lot. “Isaac’s car isn’t here. Maybe she called him, too. Why would she call me if she’d already talked to him? I don’t know... She sounded wrong. She wasn’t making sense. I have to get to her. I have a bad vibe about this.”

      “How bad a vibe?”

      “Bad. She said she needs my help.” Giving up on the remote, she pulled up a key to unlock the car the old-fashioned way.

      Conor curled his hand around hers, stopping her from turning the key. “I don’t know if you’re in the right frame of mind to drive. Have you been drinking?”

      “No!”

      “Okay, okay. This just isn’t you. At least, the you I remember. You’re wiggin’ out a little bit.” She rolled her eyes up at him. That was a condemning look. Fine. You’re not a little girl anymore. I get that. “You’re that worried about her?”

      “Yes. On the phone, when she finally called me back—she was out of breath. Like she’d been running or crying. Or she was hiding. Or hurt? She whispered everything. I kept asking her to repeat things.”

      “Why would she be hiding?”

      She hugged her arms around her waist, shivering. From nerves? Cold? A combination of both? “I’m not sure. I don’t think she was alone, and she didn’t want whoever was there to overhear. I could hear a man talking, but I couldn’t make out any words. Music was playing. She had it up loud.”

      “What exactly did she say?”

      “She said she was eloping with Vinnie—that she talked him into proposing to her. They’re driving to the airport. And then there was something about insurance and she’s counting on me to keep it safe and her mom could never find out, and she was hoping she wouldn’t have to use it.”

      “Keep what safe?”

      “I don’t know. She thanked me and said I was her best friend and that she had to go.”

      “Go where?”

      Laura turned the key in the lock. “Stop asking me questions like you’re a cop and I’m a suspect.”

      “I am a cop.” Her cheeks were pale, her whole body trembling when she glared at him a second time. Conor shrugged out of his suit jacket and draped it around her. Whether she was freezing or about to burst into tears didn’t matter. He clasped her shoulders and rubbed his hands up and down her arms, instilling what warmth and support he could through the jacket. “You’re upset. Enough that you’re scaring me a little bit. Talk to me.”

      The glare was gone when she tilted her gaze to his. “Vegas. She said they’re going to Las Vegas. They’ll get the rings and everything they need there.”

      “They’re not the first couple to do that. You said Chloe was impulsive. Sounds like they both are. Are you worried she’ll have regrets?”

      “She asked me to feed her cat.”

      And that was a problem because...? “Do you have a key to her apartment? Will the landlord let you in?” Then he remembered something she’d mentioned on the dance floor. “Are you worried about your allergies?”

      “She doesn’t have a cat!” She shrugged off his touch and opened the car door.

      Conor palmed the window and closed it again. Either that remark about the cat had been a coded plea for help, or they were the words of someone who wasn’t in her right mind enough to make a big decision like elopement. Laura knew that, too.

      Now he understood her panic, her need to act.

      There was little Conor could explain about the ups and downs of all that had happened this evening. But he knew how to answer a call for help.

      “I’ll drive.” He captured Laura by the elbow and walked her to his car, bundling her into the passenger seat before starting the engine and cranking up the heat. “Keep calling your friend. And tell me everything you know about Chloe and Vincent Orlando.”