Silver Fox (Silver Shifters 2)

ONE

DORIS

“This wedding would be the perfect setting for a murder!” exclaimed Godiva.

Hallelujah, thought Doris. Sadly, she was the only one who rejoiced.

Jen’s fork clattered to her plate.

“What?” Bird sat bolt upright, as if she’d been goosed by a cactus. She sent a furtive glance around the garden where her son’s wedding had been held, then clearly remembered that he and his bride were now safely on their way to their honeymoon.

No one else had heard Godiva’s remark. The tables on the terrace were empty except for a few last holdouts, well-lubricated by the excellent champagne that Bird and her husband Mikhail had provided for her son’s wedding.

Godiva, a white-haired, walnut-brown woman in her eighties, eyed her three friends in surprise. “What? C’mon, who doesn’t love a murder at a wedding?”

“Me?” Bird said faintly.

Godiva grinned. “That’s because you’ve got the softest heart west of the Mississippi, and you’ve never read any mysteries but mine. Hey. I’m not thinking Red Wedding. Just one victim, and a murderer no one would expect. Don’t make me say it!”

“Godiva, not here,” Jen warned in an undertone.

Godiva folded her thin arms, uttered a thundering snort, and said it anyway. “You’re turning into a bunch of old women!”

“Ya think?” Jen crossed her arms, too. She was a foot taller than Godiva, and probably twice her size. She looked like what she was, a descendant of Vikings. Her rare smile flickered. Doris was glad to see it. There had been few smiles from Jen since she had been widowed.

In fact, all four of them were what society delicately termed as ‘women of a certain age,’ meaning over fifty. They were all writers and in a writing group together. Godiva called them the Gang of Four.

Doris was happy to move on to a murder. The wedding had been lovely. The day had been beautiful. The cake had been delicious, proven by the fact that there was nothing left of it but crumbs. It was altogether the perfect wedding to be the last one she would ever attend.

But she hadn’t told anyone that. And she wouldn’t. Doris had learned long ago that some things were better left unsaid. Like when she turned sixty, two years ago. She’d stood in front of her bathroom mirror looking hard at her graying hair cut sensibly short, her saggy everything, and decided that some people were never meant for a first chance at romance.

And that was okay! She’d decided on that birthday to embrace spinsterhood. Who needed a man? She had a great life teaching high school, volunteering at the synagogue, and cooking. She’d published three successful cookbooks aimed at single people.

As far as Doris was concerned, romance was about as real as the mirages that sometimes appeared on the freeway during summer. She didn’t need that kind of illusion in her life. Nope nope nope.

As the last guests got up to leave, Mikhail Long, Bird’s new husband, rose along with them. Tall, austere, and silver-haired, he sent Bird a quick glance, his face softening into a tender, intimate smile.

Bird got up, her cheeks pinking to the same rose color of her mother-of-the-groom gown. “Excuse me, I need to play host.”

Doris caught that glance between husband and wife, a silent communication as if they had been married for decades instead of a mere month. She was glad—truly glad—that Bird had found love at an age when most of the world thinks a woman’s love life is nothing but memory. She just didn’t take it as proof that the same thing would happen to her.

Bird returned. “The guests are safely gone. We’ve got the whole place to ourselves. Godiva, Mikhail is willing to be the victim if you want someone covered in fake blood.” She put a protective hand over her beautiful silk dress.

“No blood,” Godiva said, her black eyes narrowing. “This isn’t going to be a forensic details sort of story. This is a family drama . . . seething passions and secret resentments . . . with truckloads of cash at stake, of course. Murder always goes better with obnoxious rich people, right?”

Godiva got to her feet, peering westward as the sun sank toward the Pacific Ocean beyond the garden. She swept her gaze over the empty terrace, the tables with dirty dishes, the wedding cake stand, and the flowers that still perfumed the air. “Jen! Use my cell. Start filming. Hot damn, I can finally feel the new book coming, after a solid month of crossword puzzles and cursing.”

This was how Godiva always began her famous mysteries, with the other three recording or acting out the murder scenario, as she talked out the story. Godiva used these videos to write the opening scenes of her mysteries.

She began to pace. “Mikhail, thank you for offering to be the corpse. Maybe next story. I had a male vic last time. Remember Bird in that traffic cone orange tie? That was the first time we met you, flyin’ outta nowhere and taking down poor Jen in the world’s best tackle.”

Doris caught another of those swift, secret smiles between husband and wife.