The Final Vow Page 23

  Standing there with Shepley holding the gun level with my chest, I thought of the many times I’d had grounds to fire him, the many times that I’d erred on the side of compassion and given him one more chance. Was my compassion for this tragic and angry man now my undoing? Had I been too nice? Had my mother’s advice led me astray?

  All I knew was I wasn’t going to die at the hand of the gardener. I couldn’t let that happen. Hayden needed me. I wasn’t going to let my son lose his mother so young, like I had. I knew what that was like. I knew the personal cost of it. I couldn’t leave him to be raised alone by Eddie and Krissie.

  “No,” I whispered. “They didn’t deserve it. Many terrible things happen that shouldn’t, but they do.”

  He held his hand steady. The gun didn’t waver. “And your death will be just another one.”

  I couldn’t wait any longer. I lunged for the rope, grabbed it, and fell on my back on the floor, pulling on it with all my weight.

  The bell rang, and the sound reverberated in the tower and inside my head. Below, the music stopped and we could hear shouts. Just like back during the Civil War, the bell had worked—it had called for attention, called for help.

  I let the rope slip from my hands, and the bell rang again on its back swing. The ringing. I would never get that sound out of my head.

  “What have you done?” Shepley screamed. “You shouldn’t have done that!”

  I crawled backward, scrambling to get away from him. The rough boards dug into the heels of my hands. Through the broken window, I could hear the wedding guests’ shouts. At least if I died up here, Shepley wouldn’t get away with murdering either Vianna or me. Everyone would know what he did.

  “Kelsey! Kelsey!” Chase’s voice floated up from the sanctuary floor.

  Shepley stared at the hatch and then back at me. I rose to my feet. My back throbbed from where I’d landed on it, but I ignored the pain. I had to get up. If I was to be shot, I wasn’t going to take the bullet lying down.

  The ladder groaned, and I knew that Chase was coming up.

  “Chase,” I shouted. “Shepley is up here, and he’s got a gun.”

  I heard Chase swear. “I have one too.”

  I knew he was lying. Chase was an EMT. He didn’t carry firearms, and his reenactor pistol wasn’t going to do much more than give a burst of smoke and a loud crack.

  Shepley glared at me. “You leave me no choice.”

  He was going to shoot me. I knew it. He was going to shoot me, and Chase would have to be the one to find my body.

  Instead of pointing the revolver at me, though, he held it to his temple. “It doesn’t matter anymore. I don’t have anything else to lose.”

  “Don’t!” I screamed.

  But I was too late. There was a burst of smoke and flame as he fired the kill shot.

  I covered my face with my hands. I couldn’t watch. I didn’t want to see Shepley dead on the floor at my feet.

  He screamed in pain, and I dropped my hands from my eyes to see him writhing on the floor. Dead men don’t scream.

  Chase leapt through the hatch and scooped up the revolver. “It misfired. This thing probably hasn’t been fired in a hundred years. The flint is brittle. It wouldn’t be my first choice of suicide weapon. There are much more reliable guns.”

  I stared at him. He must have literally flown up the ladder when he heard the gun blast.

  Before I could say anything, Detective Brandon’s head poked over the edge of the hatch. “What’s going on up here?”

  Shepley groaned on the floor. His cries of pain turned to whimpers. Chase handed the gun to Brandon, hilt first, as she climbed off the ladder. “He shot himself with this, but it misfired.”

  Brandon held the gun with two fingers, aware of fingerprints, I was certain. “The missing revolver, I assume.”

  I could only nod.

  Chase went over and knelt next to Shepley. The gardener wailed as he rocked from side to side.

  “Stop rolling around,” Chase ordered. “I can help you.”

  Finally, Shepley stopped moving. Brandon looked at me.

  “See, Piper didn’t kill Vianna,” I said, finding my voice again. “You need to call the jail and let Piper go.” I gave her a condensed version of what had happened.

  As I explained, Officer Sonders’ head appeared in the hatch. He didn’t come all the way up, just looked at the detective and awaited instructions.

  “He’s badly burned on his forehead,” Chase said. “I need my medical kit. It’s under the cake table in the reception tent, and you need to call for an ambulance. He needs to go to the hospital.”

  Brandon nodded to her officer, who disappeared back down the ladder.

  “I was going to see them. I need to see them,” Shepley moaned.

  “See who?” Brandon asked. Her voice was as sharp as a razor.

  Shepley glared at her but refused to answer. I knew that answer and said, “His wife and daughter.” I didn’t even mask the tears in my own voice.

  Chase looked up at me. There was something in his expression I couldn’t read, but I knew for sure that I wanted to. Maybe that was the most important realization I made that day.

  epilogue

  The police and EMTs who were called in to deal with Shepley graciously worked around the wedding. Even so, I winced every time Krissie glanced in the direction of the church. Happily, she appeared to have hit the Civil War-era ale a little too hard at her reception and was a tad too tipsy to care about anything much. The last time I saw her, she was dancing the “YMCA” with Abraham Lincoln and having the time of her life. As it turned out, Honest Abe had some moves.

  I stood just outside the reception tent, keeping an eye on both the police moving in and out of the church and on the wedding festivities. Eddie joined me.

  “Thank you,” he said in a quiet voice, barely above a whisper. “Thank you again for what you did for Krissie. For all of this. I know it was hard, and that you didn’t want to help her, but I’m so grateful you did.” He swallowed. “I know we don’t always agree on things and most of the time it’s my fault. I know that I treated you badly. I just wanted to say I’m sorry. I’m starting over with Krissie, and I pray I don’t make the same mistakes with her that I did with you.”

  I glanced at him out of the corner of my eye. Maybe Eddie had been hitting the ale pretty hard too. I wasn’t going to argue with him—he had in fact ruined our marriage. If it hadn’t been for his affair, I was certain I would still be married to him and as in love with him as I was on the day of our wedding. But there was no going back in time to ask for a do-over. In my experience, do-overs were never granted because I certainly would have asked for more than one.

  “Eddie!” Justin popped his head out of the tent. “It’s time to collect your bride and leave. Your chariot awaits.”

  I patted his arm. “Go on. Your bride is waiting.”

  He smiled. I realized in that moment, as Eddie walked away from me and toward Krissie, that he really loved her. Despite all her irritating flaws, he still loved her.

  That was the funny thing about love, I decided. No one else outside that unique relationship could understand it. No one knew what it was like to be that couple together or how they felt about each other. At best, outsiders could guess, they could recommend, they could even warn, but it was really up to the two people in the middle of it to decide if it was worth it, just like I’d told Benji at the police station. Eddie and Krissie had decided it was worth it, and for their faith in what they had together, I wished them all the luck I could spare.

  I walked around the side of the tent so I could watch them go. They walked arm in arm to the Farm’s carriage, which was being pulled by Scarlett the mare. One of the Confederate reenactors sat in the driver’s seat. I knew he would drive them to the end of the Farm property, to where a limo waited that would
drive them on to their honeymoon.

  The wedding revelers threw birdseed at the couple as they headed down the pebbled path to the carriage. Abraham Lincoln blew Krissie kisses. Krissie squealed with delight, and the high-pitched sound made me smile.

  An hour later, after the police and wedding guests were gone, the caterer and rental company staff swooped in and began to clean up. My Farm staff and I also pitched in. I think everyone was ready to go back to a normal life around Barton Farm. The sooner the evidence of the wedding was gone, the sooner that would happen.

  I went around the tables, collecting linens and dropping them into a basket. My father sidled up to me. He was still wearing his cape, of course. “Hayden is tucked into bed. The little guy was plum tuckered out. I left Jason with him to babysit.”

  I smiled. “Thanks, Dad. He’s had quite a day.”

  “You’ve had quite a day too.” He folded up chairs and leaned them on the table for the rental company to collect.

  I began to shake as I realized how close I’d come to losing my son. Had Shepley made another choice, Hayden could have been killed.

  My father noticed, as fathers do. “Oh, my girl.” He wrapped his arms around me. “You’re safe. Hayden is safe.”

  I took a deep breath and straightened up. “Thanks, Dad.”

  He smiled. “I think your mom was looking out for you and Hayden.”

  My heart ached at his comment, but I thought he just might be right. Then I felt my father studying me. “What?” I asked.

  “I don’t mean to be nosy, but I am your father. Is everything okay with you and Chase?”

  I sighed and dropped another cloth napkin into a basket to be laundered. “I don’t know.” After the police took Shepley away, Chase had left without a word to me. I thought I might have ruined whatever chance I’d had at a happily ever after.

  “You know,” my father mused, “Tennyson once said, ‘The vow that binds too strictly snaps itself.’ He wasn’t just talking about wedding vows. Look at Shepley. He vowed that he would never lose everything again, and now he’s on his way to prison.”

  I studied my father. I should have known that he would recognize the root of my problem with Chase, and that it was my vow not to be hurt again. The vow I’d secretly made to myself was the culprit that had torn us apart.

  “Kelsey! Kelsey!” Benji called from outside the tent.

  I dropped the basket on the table and ran out, wondering what it could possibly be now. Wasn’t my ex-husband’s wedding and being held at gunpoint enough for one day?

  “Look!” Benji pointed into the dark.

  I could just make out the shape of Piper and Chase walking down the pebbled path.

  “She’s here,” Benji whispered.

  I wrapped my arm around her waist. “What are you going to do about it? Have you decided?”

  She looked down at me with tears in her large brown eyes. “She’s worth it.”

  I smiled. “Go.”

  Benji started toward Piper, but stopped. “But what about you and Chase?”

  “He’s worth it too,” I said.

  She grinned, then turned and ran toward Piper. She crashed into the other girl and threw her arms around her. Their laughter and shouts of joy could be heard all over the Farm.

  Chase walked toward me at a much slower pace. I met him on the path. “Thanks for bringing Piper here,” I said. “As you can see, Benji is thrilled.”

  He grinned. “It was the least I could do. I was at the police station doing some paperwork and offered her a ride. This is where she wanted to be.” He gazed down at me. “This is where we both wanted to be.”

  I looked at the ground and then back up at him. His features were half cloaked in darkness. The only light came from the work lamps the caterer had set up and the moonlight, which peeked out from behind a cloud. Even in the semidarkness, I could see there was a smile on his face.

  “I’m sorry,” I began. “I was afraid, and I—”

  He put a finger to my lips. “I’m sorry too.” And then he kissed me.

  Acknowledgments

  Special thanks to everyone at Midnight Ink for supporting this series, especially acquisitions editor Terri Bischoff and production editor Sandy Sullivan. You gave me the opportunity to combine my favorite things, mystery and history. I will always be grateful to you for that.

  As always, love and gratitude to my super agent Nicole Resciniti. I could not have this career that I love without you. You are the best cheerleader an author can have and the best friend a girl can have.

  Thanks also to my beta reader and assistant Molly Carroll for her insightful and humorous comments on the novel when it was a work in progress. Special thanks to Suzy Schroeder and Derrick Ranostaj for assisting in the historical research of this novel.

  Love to my family, Andy, Nicole, Isabella, and Andrew, for always supporting my life as an author.

  Finally, to my Heavenly Father: this year you surprised and stretched me again. Thank you.

  © Sara E. Smith

  About the Author

  Amanda Flower, an Agatha Award–winning mystery author, started her writing career in elementary school when she read a story she’d written to her sixth grade class and had the class in stitches with her description of being stuck on the top of a Ferris wheel. She knew at that moment she’d found her calling: making people laugh with her words. She also writes mysteries as USA Today bestselling author Isabella Alan. In addition to being a writer, Amanda is a public librarian in Northeast Ohio.

  www.amandaflower.com