"You're Michael's sister," a woman said, and Kathryn jerked her head up. A tall, slim woman with medium brown skin and smooth black hair was watching her with a narrow-eyed intensity that made Kathy wonder if she was being interrogated.
She realized she was being rude, staring at the woman, and stood up, holding out a hand. "Kathryn Sevenson. Uh, call me Kathy."
"It's nice to meet you," the other woman said, and shook Kathy's hand quite firmly before sliding into the seat beside her.
"Which of the grooms do you know?" Kathy asked, because Fisk and Michael weren't exactly known for their large social circles.
"I'm Callista's plus one," said the woman.
Callista was known to Kathy as one of Fisk's few links to his past, a morally questionable but alluring defence lawyer responsible for introducing Rosamund, Kathy's cousin, to her husband Rudy. Kathy looked around and found Callista dancing with the justice of the peace not far from Fisk and Michael.
The stranger followed her gaze. "Fisk's marrying out of his league," she commented.
"Um, excuse you?" Kathy said.
"He's kind of an asshole, isn't he? And Michael's a nice guy."
Kathy bristled. "Anyone who actually knows Fisk knows he's one of the kindest people you will ever meet, provided you're not rude to him or Michael."
She felt stupid a moment later when her companion smirked at her and said, "Well, if he gets along with the in-laws… So they're happy together," she added curiously.
"Of course they are," said Kathy, watching Michael try to coax Fisk back out onto the dance floor during some ridiculously sappy song. "Like something out of a fairytale."
"Don't say that. Fairytales are hardly examples of healthy romantic relationships."
Kathy grinned. "Michael's always loved fairytales. Hence the fantasy novels."
"What about you?" she said. "What does the only Sevenson girl do with her life?"
"I'm in college," Kathy said. She was bursting to tell this total stranger all about the work she'd been doing, the body farm internship she'd just gotten the acceptance letter to, the hypothesis that had led her to go into forensic sciences in the first place. But her mother was very good about reminding her not to start babbling about dead bodies to strangers or in public.
But the stranger had apparently noticed the pause. "Studying what?"
"Uh, forensic pathology," said Kathy.
"I've just passed my bar exam," said the woman. "Criminal law. I'm going into prosecution. Maybe I'll see you in the courtroom sometime."
Kathy hesitated, and then plunged into an explanation of her hypothesis, while the other woman listened with barely disguised interest. When she finished outlining the experiments she was going to start running, the other woman leaned forward and said, "But how can you control for the variables involved in your typical body dump?"
"That's the thing, it's focusing on the effects of the nutrients on the plant life, so it matters less than, say, the use of something to deter cadaver dogs in body dumps, or things to shield it from the elements, because those will break and allow seepage."
And oh, gods, she'd just used the word seepage in a conversation with a hot girl.
"Kathy!" Michael called, and Kathryn turned to wave at him. By the time she noticed the movement, the woman was already walking away. Kathy gaped as she vanished into the crowd. "Kathy?" Michael said, quieter and breathless.
"You look spooked," Fisk said.
Kathy tore her eyes away from where the woman had disappeared and shrugged. "I just had a really weird conversation with Callista's plus one. Don't suppose you know her name?"
"Callista didn't bring a plus one," said Fisk. "What'd she look like? I know everyone here."
(Fisk, for being an editor, had taken to event planning with remarkable ease. He claimed it was because of all the book tours he had to deal with, being a famous author's plus-one. Kathy told him he'd just missed his true calling as a wedding planner, which had gotten her a handful of colour swatches dropped on her head.)
"Tall," said Kathy. "Uh, she was wearing a yellow coat? I'm not a forensic artist, I don't do living people."
"That is weird," said Michael. He sounded supremely unperturbed. Kathy had to laugh, meeting her new brother-in-law's eyes with a grin.
Fisk rolled his eyes. "Someone crashed our reception, and you're not the least bit concerned? Just how much champagne have you had? Wait, what am I saying, this is normal for you."
Michael beamed sunnily at him. "And yet you married me anyway," he said.
"Sap," Fisk grumbled, and kissed him.
-.-.-.-
Once outside, away from her brother's prying eyes, Judith shrugged out of her yellow coat and tucked it into her purse despite the chill and waited for her brother and his new husband. It was getting late, and the husband's—Michael's—cousin Rosamund had told her that they were leaving for their honeymoon tonight.
She didn't have to wait long.
"I can't hail a cab if you're distracting me," Fisk told Michael, who was wrapped around Fisk like an overzealous octopus.
Judith watched surreptitiously as Michael stepped away and gazed adoringly at Fisk. He wasn't bad looking, with strong features and light brown hair, although she knew for a fact he'd had to have the suit he was wearing altered, because he was too tall and too thin for clothing to fit him off the rack. Fisk probably did the alteration himself to save money, even though the wool blend her brother was wearing (and the success of his husband's books) told her he wasn't going to want for money anytime soon.
They looked happy, shoving at each other as they loaded their suitcases into the taxi and slid inside. Maybe Kathryn had been right.
Even as she thought it, she spotted the Sevenson girl leave the reception, waving at her brother as the cab pulled away.
Judith watched her curiously as she spoke to Callista, though they were too far for her to hear what she was saying. She slipped away, though, before she could be spotted. The last thing she needed was Fisk to know she was there.