Hitched

63

After Joyce stopped crying, she refused to go to the hospital. She insisted on going back to Club Zee to be with everyone who had searched for her.

“And I left there last night without saying good-bye,” she said. “It’s only right that I explain what happened.”

“Allow me to carry you back,” Tom said gently.

Joyce smiled up at him and nodded. He was so attentive and kind, she could barely speak. And good-looking, too! He scooped her up once again, and with his dog accompanying them, they sauntered back to Club Zee.

The television cameras were rolling.

At the club, Wally broke out the champagne. “Joyce, I don’t want you to ever again leave my place unhappy.”

They all raised their glasses to toast Joyce’s safe return.

“Thank you, everyone,” she said. “I never thought I’d make it out of there alive. I owe a debt of gratitude to each and every one of you.”

Tom hovered over her protectively.

On the television behind the bar, a live shot of Victoria Beardsley coming out of her apartment building filled the screen.

“The missing April Bride!” Regan said, surprise in her voice. “No one’s heard from her today.”

A reporter called out to Victoria. “We’d like to ask you a few questions.”

Victoria looked at the camera with a deer-caught-in-the-head-lights expression. She started gesturing nervously.

The man who had followed her out of the building scurried out of camera range.

“That’s Jeffrey!” Tracy screamed as something in Jack’s eyes registered recognition and then disbelief.

“It couldn’t be,” Jack muttered as he stared at Victoria.

“Is he with her? Where does she live, Regan?” Tracy screamed. “Where? I’ve got to go find them!”

“I’ll pull the car around,” Catherine, her ever-faithful friend, cried.

“And, Regan,” Jack said quickly as he continued to stare at the screen. “Do you know where she works?”

Regan looked from one to the other. “She lives on the Upper West Side and she works at the Queen’s Court Hotel in Midtown.” She knew why Tracy was reacting the way she was. But why was Jack so interested? He pulled out his cell phone and dialed his office.

“Where on the Upper West Side?” Tracy asked Regan. “I want her address.”

Kit blurted it out.

Tracy turned to go.

“Wait just a minute!” Jack said to her. “I think I’m going to ride up there as well. You can come with me.”

“What about my friends?”

“I can fit five people. The others will have to follow us.”

“Jack, what’s going on?” Regan asked as Jack finished his call.

Jack leaned over and whispered in Regan’s ear. “That little lady up there,” Jack said, pointing up at the frozen picture of Victoria on the screen, her index finger pointing upward as it rested on her cheek, “works at a hotel where the guy who owns the stolen credit card stayed. A receipt used by the thief of that stolen credit card was found on the floor of the bank that was robbed yesterday.”

Regan’s eyes widened. “You don’t think…?”

“I don’t know, Regan.”

“Kit and I are going with you.”

Tracy, Kit, and Catherine jumped in the back of Jack’s car. Regan and Jack were in the front. Claire and Linda were in a car right behind them.

“That idiot!” Tracy cried. “He must have met her at Alfred and Charisse’s salon!”

Wait till Alfred hears this, Regan thought. And wait till he hears that he might have vouched for the integrity of someone who’s been robbing banks for the past three months.

Two of his April Brides are criminals. And the third is in hysterics in the backseat.

Jack had ordered a police car to keep watch on Victoria ’s block. She had rushed back inside her apartment building after blowing off the reporter. Armed with her description, they were to contact Jack immediately if she came back out.

Now as they sped up the West Side Highway, Jack’s mind was racing. If Victoria was the bank robber, she did a great job of passing herself off as a man. And if indeed she had stolen Tracy ’s fiancé, she knew how to make good use of her feminine wiles. But I can’t prove anything, he thought. Not yet. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do.

Of course, he hadn’t revealed his suspicions to Tracy and her friends.

The car exited the highway at Seventy-second Street, headed over to Broadway, and turned left. When they got to Victoria ’s block, they turned right. A patrol car was parked on the corner. Jack stopped the car and called out to the patrolman in the driver’s seat.

“All’s quiet, Jack,” the cop reported. “A woman came out with a couple of kids. That’s about it.”

“Okay.”

“Someone’s coming out of her building,” Kit exclaimed as a car passed them on the left, pulled up to Victoria ’s building, and stopped.

“That’s Jeffrey’s car!” Tracy screeched.

“Oh my God!” Jack breathed.

“What?” Regan asked as they all watched a bearded, mustached man wearing a dark raincoat scurry over and open the door to Jeffrey’s car.

“Is Jeffrey with a man?” Tracy cried.

“No, Tracy!” Jack said swiftly. “That’s a woman behind that beard.” He gave the signal to his patrolman, and they both turned on their sirens. At the end of the block, Jeffrey had no choice but to pull over. When Tracy got out of Jack’s car, Jeffrey turned white as a ghost. Television cameras seemed to appear out of nowhere.

But when Jack announced that he wanted Victoria to answer a few questions about their investigation into a string of bank robberies, Jeffrey almost passed out, the first of many times in the coming days when he’d be in need of smelling salts: When the television stations repeatedly ran the videos of Jeffrey and a bearded Victoria getting out of the car. When Victoria was officially accused of robbing the banks. And the clincher: when Jeffrey found out that she didn’t dump her fiancé to be with him.

Frederick never existed. Victoria had visualized a husband. That’s why she bought the dress. She figured if she really felt like a bride, she’d end up one. And it had almost worked. She’d nabbed Jeffrey in the elevator at Alfred and Charisse’s salon. Only problem was that she not only visualized herself as a bride, she visualized herself as a bank robber so she could afford Alfred and Charisse’s prices. And she was a credit card thief to boot.

All in all, Victoria Beardsley was not the answer to Jeffrey’s dreams.

She was the beginning of his downfall.

And Tracy Timber loved every minute of it.