attacked her in the restaurant’s bathroom. He certainly had the opportunity for the bathroom attack. He was at Madame’s tapas luncheon, but he left before Breanne went into the bathroom! We all thought he ran after Matt, but he could have doubled back to attack Breanne. Koa Waipuna said they all split up to find Matt, and he didn’t see Javier again for almost an hour!”
Mike nodded again, pulled out his notebook. “We need more on this man. Write down his name for me, Clare. I want his description and anything else that can ID him. Do you know where he’s staying?”
“No, but I can find out.”
I rang Matt to warn him about Javier. Matt had trouble believing it, but not after I told him about the poison.
“Is Javier there now?” I asked. “At the rehearsal dinner?”
“No,” Matt said. “He’s not a member of the wedding party. I haven’t seen much of the man all week. I don’t even know where he’s staying!”
“Take it easy, okay? Mike Quinn’s on the phone with his precinct now. He’s going to have a BOLO issued. We’ll find him.”
We spoke a few more minutes, and then I had to ask. “Matt, did Breanne have a talk with you? Did she tell you about her past?”
After a pause, Matt lowered his voice. “She told me everything, Clare. Where she was born, how she grew up, her real name, everything.”
“The wedding’s still on, isn’t it?”
“Of course! I don’t give a crap about her past. It’s nobody’s business but her own. All that matters to me now is our future.”
I couldn’t stop the smile. For the first time in a long while, I was actually proud of my ex-husband. “Now that’s the Matt I married.”
“What?”
“Forget it. I just hope you’ll both be very happy.”
A minute later, Mike finished his own call. “If we can’t pick up Javier before tomorrow’s wedding, we’re going to the wedding in plain clothes.”
“It’s a big crowd, Mike. How many cops are coming?”
“Soles and Bass, some of the guys in my building. The detectives on the Machu Picchu attack.”
I shook my head. It was hard to believe, but Breanne’s white wedding was about to become an NYPD stakeout.
THIRTY-FIVE
“ EVERYTHING looks perfect, Clare! Just perfect!”
Janelle Babcock folded her arms and stepped back from our coffee and dessert station. Her delicate confections were arranged on serving trees, surrounded by hand-blown Venetian glass, each jewel-toned piece filled with samples of my rare, roasted coffee beans.
“Perfect isn’t my favorite word,” I said. “But it does look spectacular.”
Esther Best strolled up to us, her wild dark hair tied neatly back, her blue Village Blend apron covering a plain white blouse and black slacks. “Nice bling,” she said, pointing to Nunzio’s fountain at the center of the display.
“Priceless bling,” I said. “Go ahead and take a closer look.”
The tabletop fountain consisted of three golden catch basins. Around the rim of each bowl, finely detailed reliefs depicted scenes from the stories of history’s most famous lovers. The entire sculpture was capped by the stylized nudes of a man and woman. Prosecco champagne—kissed with the sweetness of peach nectar—poured out of the apple in the woman’s hand and flowed like golden rain from one bowl to the next, through hundreds of holes in each basin’s bottom.
“Okay, let’s see what we’ve got here,” Esther said. “Adam and Eve at the top, and I can see the snake, too, with real ruby eyes. Nice. And what’s on the middle tier?”
“That’s Antony and Cleopatra,” I said. “You can follow the story in pictures around the bowl. See the poison asp biting the queen of the Nile? The snake has real emeralds for eyes.”
“The base is Romeo and Juliet,” Janelle noted.
Esther studied the entire piece for a moment then scratched her head. “Ah, kids? Weren’t these lovers sort of screwed by the end of their stories? I mean, I don’t see any happily-ever-after here.”
I froze for a second then glanced at Janelle. We’d been working with photos and dimensions and metric volumes. We’d never considered the sculpture’s overall meaning.
“I think she’s right,” Janelle said, stifling a laugh.
I folded my arms and sighed, recalling my evening with Nunzio. The man was sexy as hell, but he’d displayed all the sentiment of a soccer ball. “You know what? I think the artist knew exactly what he was doing, and the joke’s on us.”
I checked my watch. At this very moment, beneath a rose bower on the Met’s Roof Garden, Matt and Breanne were exchanging vows, surrounded by