The Final Vow Read online

  I looked back at him and met his gaze, and I knew that he spoke of much more than the church. I frowned and walked over to the door in the back right corner of the vast room. I opened the door and looked up the dark stairs leading to the balcony choir loft. The stairs were narrow, and I took care while walking up them. In the middle of the loft, a wooden ladder led up to the bell tower.

  We always left the ladder down, so that the tourists could see up into the tower through the opening in the plaster ceiling. I realized now that I’d have to remove the ladder in order to ensure that something like Vianna’s death didn’t happen again.

  Crime scene tape was wrapped around the ladder with the same enthusiasm as a teenager toilet-papering a house.

  Chase walked around me. “I’ll get it.” He unwrapped the yards of tape.

  After it was removed, I started to climb the ladder.

  “What are you doing?” Chase asked.

  I was about six feet off of the floor when I looked back at him. “What does it look like?”

  He put his hands on his hips. “Didn’t you say it was unsafe up there?”

  “Well, yeah.” I started to climb again. “But that won’t stop me from checking it out, and at the very least, I have to remove those twinkle lights. Krissie won’t want those as part of her wedding scenery now.” I was halfway up the ladder at this point.

  When I reached the top, I felt the ladder shift below me. I looked down to find Chase making his way up. I suppressed a smile and crawled through the hatch onto the bell tower’s floor.

  The floor of the tower was made of whitewashed pine boards. Sunlight crept through the three wooden-slatted windows and poured through the window with the broken slats. A folding step stool stood in one corner, and the middle of the tower was dominated by the one-ton church bell itself. The enormous brass beast was suspended in space by rope as thick as my leg and a network of pulleys.

  Chase’s head popped out through the hatch, reminding me of a groundhog making its first appearance in spring. With a grunt he climbed the rest of the way through the hatch. It was a tight fit for him, which only convinced me more that Armin, who was twice Chase’s size, couldn’t have pushed Vianna out of the window.

  I walked over to the broken window. The police had been thorough when removing the frame. I didn’t know if I should be happy about this or annoyed. After the wedding, I would have to get a carpenter up here to fix the window.

  I peered down at the Farm grounds. It was a long way down. I swallowed. This was the last image that Vianna saw before she died. I reminded myself that it had been dark out when she fell. It must have felt like plummeting into a black abyss. Was that where she was now? I shivered as the dark thoughts crossed my mind.

  The twinkle lights still hung from what was left of the window. Hanging on to the side of the tower, I leaned out and grabbed hold of them.

  Chase groaned right behind me. “Will you at least let me do that?”

  I scowled back at him.

  He held up his hands. “I’m not suggesting it because I’m a man, if that’s what you’re afraid of. I just have longer arms. I won’t have to hang halfway out of the tower to reach the lights.” To prove his point, his leaned across my body, pressing into me, and grabbed the string of lights with little effort.

  I wriggled out from under him and stepped back into the relative safety of the tower. “Okay, fine. Because you’re taller.”

  He laughed. “Boy, you are stubborn.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Just a little.”

  That got a genuine smile from him.

  Chase pulled the string of lights into the tower and wound them into a ball in his hands. “I wonder why Candy left these behind. I’d have thought she’d take them for evidence too. It looks like she took everything else.”

  “I was wondering the same thing,” I said as I moved around the bell tower looking for anything out of the ordinary—for something that would give me a clue as to who had been in the tower with Vianna that night.

  The enormous brass church bell dominated the space. I studied the rope and pulleys that held it in place. Because we weren’t sure of the stability of those ropes and pulleys, we never rang the bell. It had been silent for decades, ever since the church was moved to the village from its original spot miles away. Getting the bell and tower assessed had always been a plan of mine as a restoration project for the Farm. Like so many projects on the Farm’s land under my care.

  I removed the notebook from my back pocket and made another note about the bell, reminding myself to make it a priority. I sighed. My To Do list grew longer every day, no matter how many things I might cross off of it.

  As I wrote, I walked around the right side of the bell, opposite from the broken window.

  “Oh, and be careful,” Chase said, breaking into my thoughts. “Some of these boards look rotten.”

  As he said this, I tucked the notebook back into my jeans and took a step back, and my foot broke through the floor—taking the rest of me with it.

  twenty-six

  “Kelsey!” Chase’s voice called from what sounded like a long way away.

  I groaned and rolled onto my side.

  He peered through the opening above me. I blinked at him until his face came into focus. Worry creased his forehead. He was only four feet above where I lay.

  “Are you all right?” His voice was tense.

  “I’m okay.” I touched the back of my head, where I’d hit it on the wooden floor, and started to sit up.

  He held out his hand. “Don’t. Stay put. You may have a concussion.”

  “I’m sure I don’t. I didn’t fall that far.” I struggled to a sitting position and wobbled for a moment as the world tilted on its axis.

  Chase made a sound that came out like a frustrated growl. “I wish you would just listen for once. I’m the one with medical training here.”

  I squinted at him and was happy to see there was only one of him. That had to be a good sign.

  “Does anything hurt?” His voice softened.

  I wiggled my toes inside of my sneakers. “Yes,” I groaned. “In fact, everything hurts.” As I said this, pain shot up from my right calf. I blinked a couple of times and looked down at my leg, which was bent at the knee. On the left side of my calf, blood oozed through my jeans. I swallowed and looked away. I didn’t know if I was upset by the injury or by the fact that I would have to tell Chase about it, proving that he was right and I did in fact hurt myself. “Umm,” I said.

  “What is it?” His voice was sharp.

  There was no way that I could hide this from him. “I think I hurt my leg. It’s not that bad.”

  “I’m coming down there.”

  I waved my hands. “No, let me get out and then you can look at it.”

  “Please don’t argue with me, just this once.” With that, he carefully wriggled into the hole beside me. I covered my head, hoping that he wouldn’t kick me in the temple. That certainly wouldn’t help the dizzy spell that seemed to have come over me.

  Gingerly, Chase knelt beside me. The space was tight and his chest was pressed up against my shoulder.

  “I think this was a very bad idea,” I said.

  “Shhh,” he said as he shifted his weight.

  “Did you just shush me?”

  He sighed. “From the amount of sass you’re giving me, I predict you’re going to live.”

  “Sass?” Now I was really annoyed.

  He touched my leg above the blood stain, and I yelped.

  He leaned away from me. “You’re going to have to take off your jeans for me to see the extent of your injury.”

  “Are you crazy? I’m not taking off my jeans. There’s not enough room to maneuver in here even if I wanted to.”

  “I wish I’d thought to bring my medical bag with me,” he groused. “I could ha
ve cut your pant leg open and taken a look.”

  “These are my favorite jeans,” I said. “I’m not going to let you cut them into pieces.”

  This made Chase laugh. “They’re goners. You’ll never get all the blood out of them. Just make peace with that.”

  He had a point. Unfortunately.

  “We have to get you to a hospital.” His tone turned serious. “You’ll need a tetanus shot and probably stitches.”

  “I don’t need a tetanus shot. I got one last year. Everyone who works on the Farm has to be up to date on their shots because of the work we do.”

  “Well, that’s good to hear.” He sounded a little relieved. “But you still need stitches.”

  I groaned. “I don’t have time for this. The wedding is Friday. That’s two days from now. Can’t you just stitch me up and call it a day?”

  “Kelsey, you could be seriously hurt. The wound could get infected.”

  “It won’t under your care. I mean, you’re an EMT. Patching up people is what you do.”

  He heaved a deep sigh. “I don’t even know what to do with you anymore. You’re impossible.”

  “No matter the intention, I’ll take that as a compliment.” I smiled at him.

  “It wasn’t meant to be,” he grumbled.

  “Too bad. Now will you help me out of this hole?” I shifted my seat and something poked me in my back end. “I think I landed on something.”

  “The hard wooden floor?” he asked.

  “No, there’s something else. Something pointy.”

  “Can you stand?”

  “If you help me.” I grimaced as I moved my injured leg. “I think I can.”

  “Hallelujah, you finally asked for my help. I should have turned on the video app on my phone to capture the moment.” He grinned.

  “It’s an opportunity that won’t happen again if you don’t help me now.”

  Chase crouched beside me and put his hands under my arms. He started to lift me up.

  “Ahh,” I cried.

  He froze. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No,” I lied. “You didn’t.” I bit down hard on my lip.

  “I really don’t think moving you is a great idea. We should call for help.” His body tensed.

  “What good is that going to do?” I asked. “I’ll still have to climb down the ladder.” I leaned heavily against him to avoid putting weight on my injured leg.

  “I can carry you down the ladder.” He didn’t move.

  “What are you, a caveman?” I snorted. “I know I’m small, but you can’t just fling me over your shoulder and carry me down the ladder. I won’t allow it.”

  “The climb might make your injury worse,” he said. “And cavemen aren’t so bad, are they?”

  I ignored his cavemen comment. “I’ll be fine.”

  He groaned.

  “Now help me out of here. I want to see what I landed on.”

  Chase picked me up and placed me on my seat outside of the hole, then looked down. Now we were in opposite places from where we’d started. I was above Chase, peering down, and he was inside the hole in the floor, although he was standing so he was eye-level with me.

  “What did I land on?” I asked.

  Chase shook his head but dutifully crouched on the floor inside the hole again. “It looks like a cardboard box, and you pulverized it.”

  “Gee, thanks.” It was just what every girl wanted to hear—that she crushed a box by sitting on it.

  He lifted the box out of the hole, set it next to me on the bell tower floor, and climbed out. He sat on the floor next to me. I could feel his eyes on my leg. “Now can we go?” he asked.

  “Not quite yet.” I pulled the crumpled box a little bit closer to me.

  “Did you know there was space under the bell tower floor like that?” he asked.

  I shook my head and gritted my teeth against the pain in my leg. I didn’t want him to know how much it hurt me. I knew he would insist that we go to the hospital right away, and I wanted to see what was in the box first. “If I knew, I would have looked in it a long time ago. Many of the buildings have surprises in them that we’ve discovered.”

  “Like the root cellar in the Barton House,” Chase teased.

  I couldn’t help but crack a smile. It was his way of reminding me that he’d rescued me from another hole in the floor, once upon a time.

  I lifted the right flap of the crushed box. Chase was right, I had all but pulverized it. I hoped that whatever was inside was still intact. There was a cotton cloth over the top of the contents. I pushed the cloth aside and my mouth fell open.

  Chase leaned close to me. “What is it?”

  “It’s the missing artifacts from the Farm’s storage.”

  “Missing artifacts?” he asked.

  I nodded as I lifted an aged copy of David Copperfield from the box. “We discovered them missing the morning before Vianna died. After she died, I sort of put it out of my mind.”

  “Does this mean it could be related to her death?” Chase asked.

  The book felt heavy in my hand. I didn’t open it, since I didn’t want the oils from my hands to harm the antique pages. I needed to have cotton gloves on in order to really take a good look at all the items.

  “I don’t know,” I said honestly. “It seems kind of coincidental, finding them in the same place she was killed.”

  “Could Vianna have stolen these things?” he asked. “To do what with? Sell?”

  “Vianna didn’t need the money,” I said.

  Chase ran his fingers through his hair. “What do you mean?”

  “That’s right—you don’t know the latest development.” I went on to tell him about Vianna being the heir to the Cherry fortune and the Foundation.

  He whistled. “That would have changed everything.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “For the Foundation, for the Farm, and for me.”

  He peeked inside the box again. “Is everything there? Does it have everything you suspected went missing?”

  “I hope so.” I told him about the museum tag I’d found in the pasture earlier.

  Chase frowned. “You’re right. If that gun is missing, you’ve got to report it.”

  I riffled through the box’s contents, taking a quick inventory with as much care as I could. Having gone over the spreadsheets when we’d reported the theft to the police, I knew everything that had once been inside that trunk. Benji, who’d cataloged the collection, would know even better than I what the artifacts looked like in detail.

  I swallowed. One item was glaringly missing. “I can account for all but one thing.”

  “What’s that?” Chase asked with trepidation.

  I looked him directly in the eye. “Jebidiah Barton’s revolver.”

  twenty-seven

  “Be careful,” Chase called up to me as I gingerly swung my good leg over the side of the ladder and made the long, slow climb downward. Chase and the box of artifacts were already safely in the choir loft below. After much debate, we’d decided that it would be best if Chase went down the ladder first with the box, and I would follow. In case I fell off the ladder, Chase claimed he’d catch me or at least break my fall. I preferred not to put him to the test on that, so I took every step with caution, one painful rung at a time, but as I descended, I realized that my injury must not be as bad as Chase feared. I found I could put some of my weight on my hurt leg.

  When I was four rungs from the bottom, I felt his hands around my waist, and he lifted me off the ladder and carefully set me on the floor.

  He held on to my hand as I hopped in place.

  I looked up at him “What’s that smile for?”

  He shook his head. “You look cute when you hop.”

  I narrowed my eyes.

  “Now we need to get you to the ho
spital,” he said in a serious tone.

  “We can’t do that now. I need to call Detective Brandon and tell her what we found. Like you said, this might be related to Vianna’s murder, and it can’t wait.”

  He groaned. “At least let’s go to the cottage and take a look at your leg first. If it doesn’t require stitches, I’ll agree to your plan.” He made a move to pick me up.

  I hopped away from him. “I can walk. Thank you very much.”

  He arched his brow at me. “You’re going to hop all the way across the Farm just to prove you can? You’ll tire yourself out, and you’ll need all your wits when dealing with Candy.”

  I had to admit he had a point. “Okay, fine,” I said. “Lend me your arm just to get down the stairs.”

  Chase bent over and picked up the box, which really did look as if it had been run over by a semi. He tucked it under his left arm and held out his right elbow for me to grab.

  I slipped my arm through his and he helped me step-by-step back to the sanctuary floor and then out the church door, only pausing long enough for me to lock up the building.

  On his arm, I hopped down the church’s stone steps and began the long walk to the cottage. I would never admit it to Chase, but by the time we reached Maple Grove Lane, I did sort of wish I’d let him carry me.

  When we hobbled by the visitor center, Chase said, “Maybe we should take care of your leg in there.”

  “No,” I said a little too quickly. “Let’s go to my cottage. Judy has had enough excitement for one day. I’m afraid her seeing me like this would send her right over the edge.”

  He sighed, and we continued our way down the pebbled path into the sugar maple grove. When my cottage came into sight, I almost burst into tears at the joy of seeing it. I couldn’t wait for a hot shower, a change of clothes, and to collapse on my own bed, not necessarily in that order. There wouldn’t be time for any of that though. As soon as Chase said my leg was passable, I had to talk to Brandon and find out where this latest development in the case would lead me.

  Hayden and Tiffin were playing tag in the tiny white picket-fenced yard around the cottage. My father, still in his cape, looked on from the front steps while reading what looked like a script. I had a feeling Hayden and I were going to have to practice new lines with him in the very near future.