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“Free as a bird,” John said. “Alexia, we may need you to testify at the trial. Is that okay?”
I just laughed. “As long as it doesn’t interfere with my wedding or honeymoon. Let’s get out of here,” I said as I grabbed Pearce’s arm.
As we left the station, a memory of how sick I felt that following morning hit. I told Pearce and he said, “No doubt with all that crap in your system.”
“At the time, I couldn’t figure it out.”
“So now you know.”
There was only one place I wanted to go, and I told him so. “No detours, stops, nothing. Straight there and I don’t care if we stay there till next week.”
He just grinned. “I’m glad my girl’s back.”
“Me too.”
* * *
John Remington called us five days later and asked to meet him at the police station again. Pearce and I immediately went and sat down with John and the three detectives. What they told us made every single hair on my body stand on end. Daniel Simpson confessed in exchange for a life sentence versus the possibility of the death penalty, which South Carolina had. Melanie Gordon was the fourth woman he had killed. One of his schemes consisted of abducting the women, drugging and then filming them while they were being gang-raped. Apparently, Melanie and three others had fought so hard after the drugs wore off, he decided they deserved to die. He had intended to do that to me, only he’d told too many people and one of the men had brought in several of their buddies to break up the party. Daniel’s big mouth ended up saving my life. None of the men knew he had killed any of those women. They just thought it was a night of drunkenness followed by a gang rape. Like that made it okay or something. Anyway, the men who broke up the little party the night I was there, saved my life. I couldn’t believe how close I had come to becoming a murder statistic. The other thing that was so sick was there was actually a market for videos of women getting gang-raped. Some of the women in those videos were so drugged they didn’t know what was happening to them. Such a tragedy. The other part of Daniel’s scheme was to pick up women at bars and bring them home to video them. Sometimes they would be out of it, nearly unconscious, they weren’t aware of what was happening, but other times they were willing participants. This had been going on for several years, the officers said, by the numbers of videos they had found.
When Pearce and I left the station, we were both terribly shaken about what they’d told us. During the past few months, we’d suspected Simpson might have been harassing me, but this was beyond anything either of us ever could’ve imagined. We clung to each other for the longest time, thanking God that nothing had come of it.
Twenty-Eight
At six in the evening on October twenty-ninth, I stood at the entrance of St. Phillip’s Church. The doors were closed, so I couldn’t see inside, but the place was crammed with guests. We couldn’t invite everyone to the ceremony that had been invited to the reception, because the church simply wasn’t big enough.
Charlestonians’ tongues would be wagging in about two minutes. My escort would arrive any minute and I would soon be breaking tradition. Big-time. But I didn’t care. My dad would not get this honor. They didn’t even get an invitation to the wedding. Two weeks ago, I finally got a call from them. They gushed all over me and told me how excited they were about my upcoming marriage. They must’ve read about it somewhere, because they certainly didn’t hear it from me.
Phil and I had discussed this, and he was on my side. They hadn’t supported me in my most urgent time of need but had kicked me to the curb instead. The truth of it was, or at least we sort of figured it anyway, was they wanted me to have a place in society because they wanted one too. When I told them I didn’t want to marry Peter, they became angry with me. After his death, well, I was nothing to them because I had removed any chance for them to move up the societal ladder.
Imagine what they thought when they heard I was marrying a Middleton! Suddenly, the daughter they’d disowned could offer them a chance at everything they’d always wanted. I don’t think so. Nope, it was not happening. They weren’t using me anymore.
Consequently, no dad to walk me down the aisle, but I had something much better, I noted as my escort arrived.
“Well, didn’t I tell you that you’d be something gorgeous swathed in that gown on your wedding day?” Lisbeth asked.
I laughed. “And look at you!” She also wore a gown designed by the same designer who had done my wedding gown, and she looked stunning in gunmetal gray.
“Come on, honey. Let’s get you down the aisle and give Charleston something new to talk about. You nervous?”
“Not at all.”
“Good, ’cause this old lady couldn’t hold you up if you started to fall or something.”
“Lisbeth, you’re lots of things, but old will never be one of them!”
The wedding director nodded, the music played, and the huge wooden door swung open. I took a few steps and found myself in the narthex of the church. The second set of doors were already opened, and I watched Terri walk down the aisle. You wouldn’t have known she could barely stand five months ago.
Then it was my turn. I lifted my head and there he stood, dressed in a black tux, looking positively gorgeous and waiting for me. I felt Lisbeth grab my arm and whisper, “Don’t you dare run up that aisle, Alexia. I know you can’t wait to get your hands on him and quite frankly he is one fine man, but this is your only chance to show yourself off. This means you’re going to take this walk nice and slow. Understand?”
“Yes, ma’am,” I said with a giggle.
That was the longest walk I ever took in my life, but it was worth every step because by the time I made it to his side, he was dazed. I almost had to click my fingers in front of his face to get a response from him. Lisbeth cleared her throat twice before he took my hand from hers and escorted me up to the altar.
Then he bent his head and whispered in my ear, “I’ve never been speechless in my life until today. You are beyond exquisite, Alexia. I will never forget the way you look today walking towards me to take me as your husband.”
I melted on the spot, turned into jelly right there. I wanted to throw myself at him and I didn’t care that we were in the middle of a ton of people, and it was our wedding. I wanted to turn around and throw my bouquet in the air and shout out how much I loved him. But I did none of that. I waited until later.
We had a traditional ceremony but at the end we each whispered something to the other that we wanted to say.
