Terror in Taffeta by Marla Cooper

friends in college. Actually, Claire and Dana were friends first, and Dana introduced us. We all shared a house together one summer.”
    â€œHouse?” snorted Mrs. Abernathy. “That dump?”
    â€œAnd did they get along?” I asked, ignoring Mrs. Abernathy’s commentary.
    â€œSure, we did everything together. Until Dana started dating Trevor.”
    My ears perked up. “Trevor? As in Trevor”—I scanned the seating chart to find the usher’s last name—“Reckholtz?”
    â€œYes, Dana and Trevor hooked up our senior year. Claire was a little jealous, I guess, because she’d had a crush on him, but they got past it eventually.”
    I put a check mark next to Claire’s name. I didn’t really think she had it in her to kill someone, but “love triangle” way beats “wouldn’t flirt back with uncle” in the rock-paper-scissors of murder motives.
    â€œTell me more about Dana’s relationship with Trevor,” I prodded.
    â€œOh, well, you know,” Nicole said, stalling. “It ended.”
    â€œHa!” chortled Mrs. Abernathy. “I’ll say it did.”
    â€œIt ended badly, ” Vince amended.
    â€œThat’s putting it mildly,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “Now that I think about it, with all she put him through, I wouldn’t blame him one bit!”
    â€œWhat do you mean?”
    Nicole looked hesitantly at Vince, who sighed and nodded at Nicole’s unasked question. “Go ahead and tell her,” he said. “It’s not like we have to protect her reputation. At least not anymore.”
    Protect Dana’s reputation? This was going to be good.
    â€œI don’t know,” Nicole said. “I don’t want to get Trevor in trouble.”
    â€œOh, for heaven’s sake,” said Mrs. Abernathy. “You might as well tell her! I think he looks good for it, myself.”
    â€œLooks good for it?” I had to bite my tongue to keep myself from reacting to Mrs. Abernathy talking like a TV homicide detective. Next she’d start referring to him as the “perp” and Dana as the “vic.”
    Nicole sighed. “They’d been dating for about a year, and things were going really well, but then Dana got pregnant.”
    â€œ Pretended to get pregnant,” Vince interjected.
    â€œWe don’t know that,” said Nicole. “She said she was pregnant, and I believed her. Anyway, she wanted to get married. He kind of freaked, but eventually he agreed to do it.”
    â€œKey word being ‘agreed’ to,” said Vince. “He never would have even considered it if it weren’t for the baby.”
    â€œAnyway, we were all busy trying to throw a wedding together in a month, because she wanted to do it before she started to show. But then Trevor started acting really weird. He said she didn’t seem all that pregnant, but what would he know?”
    â€œShe never had morning sickness, and she didn’t even have one of those, what do you call it? Baby lumps?” said Vince.
    â€œBump,” continued Nicole. “But every woman carries her pregnancy different.”
    â€œThat’s right,” said Mrs. Abernathy, “and Dana was carrying hers in her head.”
    â€œAnyway,” continued Nicole, “we were going shopping for bridesmaids’ dresses, and Dana had a doctor’s appointment later that afternoon. Trevor texted her, ‘I’m coming with you.’ And she was all, ‘You want to shop for bridesmaids’ dresses?’ and he was all, ‘No, I’m coming with you to the doctor.’
    â€œShe said she didn’t want him to come, but he made a big deal about it. At some point, she stopped texting back and turned off her phone. By then, we were at the bridal shop anyway. But then Trevor showed up and they had a big fight. He said if there was a baby in there, he wanted proof. They were