of admiration. Maybe that wasn’t a surprise given what she’d been through with her ex, although it did make him wonder, not for the first time, why she would have let anyone hurt her.
“Let’s go,” she said. “I need to make sure everyone else is all right.”
* * *
WHEN THEY REACHED the bottom of the main staircase, they heard voices coming from the living room. The doors were open. Meredith recognized Alex’s and Greg’s voices, and figured the others must be in there with them.
Sure enough, the remaining members of the wedding party were clustered together on the couches in the center of the room.
“We thought we’d find you in the dining room,” Meredith said.
“Like I said, no one was really in the mood to eat,” Greg said. In his right hand, he clutched his flask.
“But you were in the mood to drink?” Rachel sniped.
Greg raised the flask and tipped it toward her. “I’m amazed the rest of you aren’t.”
“That won’t help us get to the bottom of this,” Alex said flatly.
“Where are Rick and Ellen?” Meredith asked.
“I think they said they were going back to the kitchen,” Rachel said.
Probably not wanting to spend any more time with this group, Meredith thought. Considering everything that had happened, she couldn’t blame them.
“I’m still trying to figure out how the killer got to her,” Scott said. “We all know how scared Jess was. There’s no way she would have left her door unlocked. So how did the killer get to her?”
“She could have opened the door to him, or her, if it was someone she trusted,” Alex suggested. As he trailed off, he turned and looked rather pointedly at Rachel.
If she noticed the implication, she didn’t show it. “There’s another explanation,” Rachel said. “Aren’t there secret passages in this place? Jess mentioned something about that to me yesterday, something she read about the previous murder here.”
She aimed the question directly at Meredith, and there was no missing the accusation in it. Meredith felt every eye in the room turn toward her.
Meredith studied her closely. “Is that what the two of you were talking about so intently this morning after breakfast when I saw you in the hall?”
Rachel slammed her mouth shut. “No,” she said tightly. “She was still mad at me for bringing us here.”
“Are there secret passages, Meredith?” Greg asked.
“Yes,” Meredith admitted. “But they’ve all been sealed,” she quickly added, to stave off the instantaneous panic and outrage she could see rising on their faces. “After what happened before, every single entrance to the passages was closed off. There’s no way to access any of them.”
“You’re sure about that?” Scott said.
“Yes. I oversaw the work myself and checked all of them before you arrived.”
“So it’s most likely she let the killer in,” Alex said.
No one seemed to have an obvious comeback to refute that, the implications lying heavily over the room.
“I don’t understand why anybody could be doing this,” Scott murmured.
“I’m just going to say it,” Alex said sharply. “We should be asking Rachel.”
Rachel’s eyes flared in alarm. “What are you talking about?”
His face flush with anger, he jabbed a finger in her direction. “You have to know why this is happening. They were your friends. You brought them here. They wouldn’t be dead if it wasn’t for you!”
“We don’t know that,” Rachel insisted, a note of desperate hope in her voice.
“What about Kim? Is it just a coincidence she’s dead, too?”
Rachel blinked in shock. “Kim overdosed and drowned in her bathtub at home.”
“Yes,” Greg said, jumping in. “So now your three closest friends from college are all dead. He’s right—it’s hard to believe that’s a coincidence.”
“Kim and I weren’t close anymore. We haven’t spoken in years.”
“So she’s the one friend you wouldn’t have been able to lure here to be a bridesmaid,” Alex noted.
“I did not lure anyone here!”
“Didn’t you? You’re the reason all of us are here. Why did you bring us here?”
“For a wedding! That’s all!”
“Why here? Why this of all places? Why somewhere that was already connected with murder and death?”
“Because it was so beautiful! A real-life castle, like something out of a fairy tale. That’s what I wanted, the fairy-tale wedding! I had no idea any of this would happen!”
“Didn’t you?” Alex immediately shot back. “Tell us the truth! Why is this happening?”
Rachel gave her head a desperate shake. “I really don’t know!”
For what it was worth, Meredith believed her. The woman’s denials rang true, her paleness and anguish in the face of the accusations stark