Killer Cocktail by Sheryl J. Anderson

like he hadn’t been sober in two marriages. Bill McCandless had a tennis player’s hard-baked tan but you could still see all the broken blood vessels in his nose and cheeks. His Armani suit and perfectly groomed and dyed hair were immaculate, his gold bracelet and signet ring were incandescent, but his smile was crooked and his blue eyes were pale and rheumy.
    “That bastard!” she exclaimed.
    “Which one, hon?” he asked blandly.
    Dana spun to include us all in her outrage. “A certain production designer, who will remain nameless until my lawyers can file the papers to sue his ass, the man I hired to design their West Coast engagement party, is not only claiming he’s pay or play, he says he doesn’t do funerals.”
    Bill held out his hand for her phone. “Let me get my
people on this right away.” He punched a number into the cell phone and turned his back on us.
    Mrs. Vincent, who had been visibly stiffening during this exchange until she was approaching some form of paralysis, managed to nod in our general direction. “This is David’s sister Tricia and some of her friends.”
    Tricia held out her hand and Dana grabbed it between both of her own, like a crocodile chomping down on a dove. “Thank you for understanding the enormity of our loss and being here today to support us,” Dana oozed.
    As Tricia managed to come up with a warm memorial anecdote to tell Lisbet’s parents, which I strongly suspected she was making up as she went along, I seized my moment. I leaned over and whispered to David, asking if I could talk to him for a moment. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Kyle trying to get my attention without getting anyone else’s.
    “What about?” David whispered back.
    “Guess.”
    David shot a look back over at Tricia, who glanced away from Dana long enough to implore him to go with me. Kyle edged away from Tricia in an effort to head me off at the pass, but Mrs. Vincent thought he was stepping in closer to her, put her arm through his, and returned her attention to Tricia’s touching story. Kyle weighed the ramifications of his next move just long enough for me to put my arm through David’s and hustle him away.
    Conscious of all the other little knots of people populating the lawn, I propelled us on a course that snaked around them like some demented slalom, moving fast enough that no one would invite us to stop, but slow enough that no one would think we were running away.
    I’d always enjoyed David. Of course, I’d never had to
clean up after him the way Tricia had. Still, I felt awkward about just diving in with all my questions. “I’m so sorry,” I said genuinely, wanting to start from a solid place.
    David’s eyes narrowed in confusion. “Oh. Thanks. Appreciate that. It’s just … not what I thought you were going to talk about.”
    “It’s not,” I admitted, “but I wanted to say that first.”
    David’s eyes narrowed further, this time in pain. “Crap, Molly. Don’t play with me.”
    “I’m not.”
    “I can’t handle it right now. If you’ve got something to say, say it.”
    I usually saw David in a social setting where he was infallibly charming and smooth. It was a bit of a shock to be up close and too personal when the effort to be anything approaching charming was obviously beyond him. How much of the David I knew—thought I knew—was an act? The only way to find out was to keep pressing. “Okay Why’d you break up with Lisbet?”
    “What’re you talking about?” David’s voice leapt up in volume and shrillness, but I squeezed his arm and he cleared his throat and dropped it back down. “We didn’t break up. Who’s saying we did? We had a fight, that’s all.”
    “Then where’s her engagement ring?”
    “Ask the police. They haven’t given back any of her personal effects yet. Believe me, my father’s ready to send a private guard down there to sit on the emeralds until they do.”
    “It wasn’t on her finger.”
    He stopped walking,