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“Right,” she said.
“Really. It’s family stuff. I just tracked him down.”
“And pigs fly.”
“So cynical.” He glanced innocently around. “I really had no idea I was coming to a three-ring circus.”
“Oh, it’s that, all right. And there’s a story here. I can smell it. I haven’t gotten much but a few rumors so far. One is that shots were fired. A lady who lives down the block swears to it.”
Kit didn’t like the sound of that. “Any idea who they carried off to the hospital?”
Sighing, she shook her head. “Your brother runs a tight ship. Either the uniforms don’t know anything, or they’re afraid for their jobs.”
Kit hid a smile. He was betting on the former. Nik had probably made sure that they had nothing useful to leak.
“Uh-oh,” Carla said. “That’s got to be the commissioner’s limo pulling up. What did I tell you? Something big is up.” She signaled to her cameraman and moved quickly toward the squad car and the limo that had pulled up to the corner. A few feet away, she turned back. “You find out anything from your brother that I can use, I’ll make it worth your while.”
And if he had continued dating Carla Mitchell, that would have been their relationship in a nutshell. Knowing that he’d have to work fast if he wanted a few private words with Nik, Kit strode toward his friend Jerry and seconds later, he was walking into the vestibule of St. Peter’s.
He found his brother at the side of circular iron stairs that led to a choir loft. Nik was staring down at the taped outline of a body that was no longer there. The initial expression on Nik’s face when he glanced up was fierce enough to have Kit nearly taking a step back. Shades of his childhood, he thought. Even as a kid, his oldest brother had been a formidable opponent. Though he was an inch or so shorter than Kit, Nik was built like a boxer. In a fight he was quick and mean—Aunt Cass claimed that he was the warrior of the family. Right now Nik definitely looked the part.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
Kit merely raised his eyebrows. “You left me a message about Roman, remember? What happened?”
“I can’t talk about an ongoing investigation,” Nik said. “Go away.”
Kit had learned at an early age that Nik’s bark was always worse than his bite. All it took was a little patience to wear him down. Through the open vestibule door, he could see a crime-scene cop at the altar taking pictures. “You already called me and gave me information. You said that Roman had taken a fall and he was unconscious. How badly is he hurt? What happened to him?”
Nik sighed and shook his head. “I wish to hell I knew. He was unconscious when I found him. Either he was fighting with someone and his opponent shoved him, or they fell together. Either way, Roman definitely got the worst of it. I figure he went over the railing at the top and landed here. If he was fighting with someone, the other guy walked away.”
Kit glanced up the stairs as Nik was talking. They were steep and circled up into the loft with nothing but an iron railing on one side. His stomach clenched as he pictured Roman standing at the top and being shoved backward over the railing. “What did the medics say?”
Nik met his eyes. “They were worried about a possible skull fracture or spinal injury. They won’t know more until they get him to the hospital and take X rays.”
The knot in his stomach tightened. “He’s at St. Jude’s Trauma Center, right?” It was the best place in the area, and the Oliver family had paid the full shot for it.
“Yeah, but you won’t be able to get any information if you’re not family.”
Kit shot his brother a look. “I’ll get the information.” He returned his gaze to the staircase, and that was when he spotted the purse. It was in an evidence bag, clearly visible on one of the iron steps. Could it be Drew’s?
His eyes returned to the taped outline. It took only that to have his mind flooding with memories—Theo playing tennis with Roman and losing; Roman and Nik racing sailboats at the fishing cabin; Roman swimming to shore with Philly holding on to his back on the day that he’d gone sailing with her and a sudden storm had come up. If Roman hadn’t gone with Philly that day, odds were that the sea would have snatched another member of his family away from them. “He’ll be all right,” he finally said.
Nik placed a hand on Kit’s shoulder.
Kit glanced back at the purse. “You mentioned an interrupted wedding in your message—and that the bride and groom are missing? Why was Roman here? I ran into Carla Mitchell outside. She has a neighbor who claims she heard shots.”
Nik ran his hand through his hair. “I’m still trying to piece it together. I came in through the open door of the sacristy and found a dead body. Big bruiser of a guy with a Glock still in his hand. The priest—Father Mike—is on the altar, shot once in the shoulder. Bled quite a bit and he passed out. It’s going to be a while before I’ll be able to talk with him or Roman. My only witness who’s conscious and able to talk is a caterer who claims there was a wedding going on. And she’s a real pip. Says she was in the rectory dining room setting up the reception when she heard a quarrel—two male voices and one of them calls the other ‘Roman.’ Says, ‘Roman, no!’ Then shots are fired. Another male voice says, ‘Get out of here. Now.’ When the caterer hears hear the shots, she calls 9-1-1 and races into the sacristy to investigate.”
He scowled. “She’s lucky to be alive. She finds the body in the sacristy. Then she sees one of the shooters at the altar aiming a gun at Father Mike and she throws her cell phone at him. If she hadn’t distracted him and spoiled his aim, the priest would probably be dead. She runs, manages to hide in a closet until I get here. At least she had enough brains to put a call in to 9-1-1.”
“She saw one of the shooters? How many were there?”
Nik counted on his fingers. “The dead guy with the Glock is one. Caterer saw him arrive with the groom, figured him for a bodyguard. Roman’s number two. His gun was fired. And there was the man at the altar who shot Father Mike.”
A man, thought Kit. So it couldn’t have been Drew. His stomach eased a bit. But his gaze once more shifted to the purse on the fifth step.
“There could have been more. I’ve got a man digging bullets out of the wall in the sacristy right now. And the caterer heard more shots after she ducked into the closet.” Nik gestured up the staircase. “They were fired upstairs. There’s a bullet hole in the wall and blood in this little room in the choir loft. There’s also a bouquet of flowers. I figure the bride was up there. And she had a companion. The caterer says she saw the bride and another woman, a blonde, go in the back door of the church while she was unloading her van. But there’s no sign of the mystery woman.”
“What about the bride and the groom?”
“They’re gone. I got a hell of a lot of people fleeing the scene of a crime.”
“Sounds like the only ones who didn’t were either shot, unconscious or hiding in a closet.” Kit rubbed the back of his neck. He needed to get to the hospital to find out about Roman, but first, he had to see the upstairs room.
He said nothing. There was something that Nik hadn’t told him yet. For a few minutes, he merely stood side by side with his brother looking down at the tape. He knew from experience that silences encouraged people to fill them. But the commissioner could finish with the press and walk through the door at any minute.
“You said in your message that Roman was involved in all of this. How? What aren’t you telling me?”
Nik ran frustrated hands through his hair. “Off the record. You got that? The press is going to have a field day once they get hold of this.”
“Off the record.”
“The missing bride and groom—they’re none other than Juliana Oliver and Paulo Carlucci.”
Kit was so stunned that he wasn’t able to speak for a minute. Juliana was Roman’s and Sadie’s baby sister, and Paulo was the only son of Angelo Carlucci, the head of the Carlucci family and business. His mind began to race. “They’re just kids. Paulo can’t be more than twenty. He just finished his second year of college. And Juliana’s even younger—maybe eighteen or nineteen. It had to have been a secret wedding. Their parents couldn’t have known….”
“Or they would have stopped it,” Nik finished. “At least they would have tried to.”
Kit agreed. “You think that’s what happened here? Someone tried to stop the wedding and the plan went wrong?”
“Or the plan went right. The wedding sure as hell didn’t take place.”
The scene certainly fit that theory. The feud between the Olivers and the Carluccis hadn’t lessened a whit just because their businesses had become legitimate. In fact, in the past few years, the rivalry had intensified. The families had no contact whatsoever. If the Olivers and the Carluccis happened to attend the same charity or political function, they kept their distances. A marriage between the two families would be viewed as a plot to infiltrate and uncover business secrets.
