Wedding Woes

by Patti Benning

  “All right,” Hannah said. “I’ll give Caroline a call so we can prepare. We might want to move some of these decorations over, though, I don’t think we’ll need the chairs or tables.”

  “Yeah, I’ll just have to accept that loss,” Jennifer said. “Thanks for being so accommodating, Hannah. I know that this hasn’t been fun for anyone.”

  “I’m sure it was a hard decision to make,” Hannah said. “But now that we know what’s going on, we can start preparing.”

  “I still wish I knew exactly what happened,” Jennifer said with a sigh. Suddenly, she turned toward Lorelle. “You took the camera home with you, didn’t you?”

  Lorelle blinked, looking surprised at being addressed so suddenly. “I did. Why?”

  “Did you manage to retrieve any of the pictures from the film or SD card or wherever they were saved?”

  “It was a digital camera, so yes, I used an SD card. I only loaded the images long enough to check that the card wasn’t damaged.”

  “Do you happen to have it with you?”

  “It’s in my camera bag,” Lorelle said.

  “We should go through the pictures,” Jennifer said excitedly. “Maybe Kiersten managed to take one before she fell through the window.”

  Lorelle hesitated, then nodded. “All right, we can do that, but I’ll need a laptop to load the images on.”

  Hannah volunteered to get her laptop from her home office. This time, she made sure to knock before going in, but the room was empty. She realized that she hadn’t seen Rudy or Sean this entire time – or her parents. Wondering where they were, she grabbed her laptop and returned to the living room.

  After she logged in, she passed the laptop over to Lorelle, who inserted the SD card. While she brought up the images, Hannah turned to Jennifer.

  “So, where is everyone? I saw my parents’ car in the driveway, and I thought they would be here.”

  “Your mom wanted to make some sort of casserole for dinner. Sean and Rudy took them into town for groceries. They should be back pretty soon.”

  “I planned on a roast for dinner,” Hannah said with a sigh. She shook her head. “I’ll just make it tomorrow. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Here are the photos,” Lorelle said. “I recognize all of them, except for the last one.”

  Immediately, Jennifer and Hannah hurried over to look at the laptop screen. Most of the photos were from the day they had all been setting up. Hannah even spotted one of herself smiling as she talked to the women outside while they were moving the table. The last photo, however, was blurry. It looked like it was someone’s arm, and in the background was the guest room Kiersten had been staying in.

  “Well, that doesn’t prove anything either way,” Jennifer said after a moment. “It could be an accidental picture of her own arm. What’s the timestamp? Did she take it right before going out the window?”

  “I don’t remember the exact time she fell, but I think so,” Hannah said, squinting at the timestamp in the corner.

  “Still, it could be her arm…” Jennifer hedged.

  “Didn’t she have bracelets on?” Hannah asked. “I remember seeing them on her wrists. Matching gold bracelets.”

  “Shoot, you’re right,” Jennifer said. Her eyes widened. “That means someone else was in the room with her right before she fell.”

  “It might not mean they pushed her, but it definitely means someone is lying,” Hannah surmised. “We just have to figure out who it is and exactly what happened.”

  Chapter Seven

  Lorelle left, promising to take the SD card straight to the police. Hannah and Jennifer started talking about the mysterious arm and the blurry photo, but cut the conversation short when Eliza and Jasmine came into the living room, both wearing matching grins on their faces. They hadn’t yet discussed it, but Hannah had the feeling neither of them wanted to share the discovery with who they considered to be the two main suspects. If whoever had been in the room with Kiersten when she fell out the window realized someone was on to them, there was no telling what they might do.

  “Hey, ladies,” Eliza said. “Are you ready?”

  “Ready for what?” Hannah asked.

  “You’ve got to try on your bridesmaid’s dress, Hannah,” Eliza said. “You gave us your measurements, but you haven’t made sure it fits yet.”

  “And I need to make sure I haven’t gained too much weight myself,” Jennifer said. “Since I thought we were having the wedding on Thursday, I haven’t been watching what I’ve been eating as much these past couple of days because I figured it wouldn’t matter. But Sunday is so much further away. What if all the food I’ve been eating catches up with me by then?”

  “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” Jasmine said. “Let’s just go try everything on and make sure it all fits. If you have to, you can just eat salads until Sunday.”

  “I can make a pretty mean salad,” Hannah said. “I make my own dressing and everything. Or we can pick up some food from the restaurant; one of our specials this month is maple glazed salmon, and it’s to die for.”

  Jennifer gave a light laugh. “Okay, let’s go. I guess I’d better figure it out sooner rather than later.”

  They all went into the downstairs bedroom, where Eliza had stored the dresses. They handed Hannah a garment bag first and shooed her into the bathroom so she could change. She hung the dress on the shower curtain rod while she took off her own clothes, and carefully unzipped the bag. What she saw made her gasp. The gown was a shimmering pale lavender and was absolutely gorgeous. She’d never been one to appreciate expensive clothing, and rarely wore dresses, so she hadn’t paid much attention while Jennifer was letting everyone know exactly what they would be wearing, but this dress was a thing of beauty.

  She pulled it on, gazing at herself in the mirror for a long moment before going out to see if one of the other women would help her zip the back. She could already tell she was going to love it, and when Jasmine zipped it up, it ended up fitting perfectly.

  “This is lovely,” she said, admiring herself. It was a sleeveless gown, perfect for a summer wedding, that hugged her form without being immodest.

  “Is it comfortable?” Eliza asked, eyeing her. “Remember, you have to dance in it, too. Move around, make sure nothing is pinching or slipping. I’m okay with a needle and thread, so if we can find someone with a sewing machine, I can touch it up if you need me to.”

  It’s great,” Hannah said as she walked around the room, doing a halfhearted spin like she might on the dance floor. “It fits like a glove.”

  “Perfect. Jen, you can get dressed in here. Just call out when one of us needs to help you.”

  Hannah joined the others in the hallway, still wearing the bridesmaid’s dress. She sighed as she looked down at herself. They would be able to keep the dresses, but she couldn’t think of where she would possibly wear something like this again. Still, it would look nice just hanging in her closet.

  A couple minutes later, they heard Jennifer say, “Come on in,” and opened the door to the bedroom. Jen was wearing her wedding gown, the back undone. Eliza took a step forward to help her zip it up. Jen smoothed her hands over the train and looked at herself in the tall mirror on the wall. “It still fits,” she said, feeling relieved. “I’m still going to stick with healthier foods for the next couple of days, though.”

  “It’s lovely,” Hannah said, admiring the pure white gown. It was sleek, and the train hung down in graceful folds of silk. Her shoulders were bare, with half sleeves covering her upper arms, and there was silver and pearl embroidery on the bodice.

  “I have a veil, too, but I don’t want to risk tearing it before the wedding. It is lovely, though, isn’t it? I’m so excited for Sean to see it. He’s been bugging me about it for months.”

  “His jaw is going to drop,” Hannah said, grinning. She felt a pang, wishing desperately that they could have just gone ahead with the wedding as planned, that Kiersten had never fallen or been pushed out the windo
w. Jennifer deserved a perfect day, and while she might be able to make do and enjoy her wedding, anyway, there was no chance of getting that back for her.

  Hannah heard the sound of a door opening from across the house and then Sean’s voice calling out, “We’re home! Where is everyone?”

  Jen gasped. “Hurry, help me out of this. I don’t want him to see it.”

  “I’ll go distract them,” Hannah said. “I haven’t said hi to my parents yet, so that should give you a few minutes. You look great, Jen. I promise, Sean is going to love it when he sees it.”

  She hurried out of the room and into the living room, where she spotted her parents taking off their shoes. Her mother spotted her first and squealed her name. Hannah hurried forward to hug her tightly, though, she pulled back when she remembered she was still wearing her own dress. She didn’t want to wrinkle it.

  “It’s so lovely to see you, darling,” her mother said. “Sean told us all about what happened. We’re so sorry you had to go through that. I wish we had been here earlier, maybe we could have helped. I want to make up for it. We got the ingredients for dinner tonight, and I plan to put together a lovely breakfast spread in the morning.”

  “I told her you’d probably have the meals planned, seeing as you’re a professional chef and all, but she wouldn’t listen to me,” her father said.

  Hannah moved over to hug him, too. “That’s all right. I can’t say I ever grew out of my taste for Mom’s cooking.”

  “Where is Jennifer?” Sean asked. “Her parents’ flight was delayed, so we’ll have to pick them up later than we had planned.”

  “She’s busy doing wedding stuff with Eliza and Jasmine,” Hannah said. “She’ll be out soon.”

  “Sean, why don’t you take these ingredients into the kitchen?” Hannah’s mother asked. “We’ll get everything organized and then Hannah can tell us a bit about what’s been going on in her life. We’re ever so excited for the wedding, of course, but I don’t want to forget your sister, either.”

  “Speaking of siblings,” Hannah said. “What’s Amy doing? I know she was only planning to visit for one day.”

  “She’s just going to come Sunday, instead. I think it works better for her, since Matt won’t have to take time off work.”

  “You know, if she and Matt want to bring the baby, your father and I would be happy to watch him, if they want to enjoy the reception without having to worry about an infant.”

  “I think it’s more that they don’t want to travel with her,” Hannah said. “It’s a long drive for them, and from what I heard, she doesn’t like being in the car seat too much.”

  “We’ll just have to go visit them some other time,” her mother said with a sigh. “I’ve so been looking forward to having grandchildren. Unfortunately, the only child who’s gotten around to it lives far away from me. I’ll just have to make do with photos in the meantime.”

  “Thankfully, there aren’t any shortage of those,” Hannah said as they walked into the kitchen. Amy had been sending her photos of the baby almost every day. They were welcome; Hannah was excited to be an aunt.

  They helped Sean put away the groceries, then her mother shooed them all out of the kitchen and started on the casserole. By then, Jennifer had changed back out of her dress and Sean had pulled her away to update her on her parents’ flight. Hannah wished that both sets of parents could stay at her house, but there simply wasn’t room. True, Kiersten’s guest room was sitting empty now, but none of them wanted to use it, and it didn’t feel right to give it to her parents, either. She didn’t know anything about Kiersten’s family, and she wasn’t sure what the next step should be. Either the hospital or the police would have contacted her closest relative, but beyond that, Hannah had no clue what would happen.

  It was times like these that she wished she was married. It would be nice to have a partner to make these decisions with her. What if one of Kiersten’s relatives never contacted her? What would happen to all of her belongings? With a sigh, she decided to take a look at the room and figure out what had been left there.

  Leaving the sounds of conversation and the smell of the dinner her mom was cooking in the kitchen behind her, she made her way up the stairs and to the empty guest room. She opened the door, only to once again be faced with Rudy, unexpectedly. Thankfully, this time, he wasn’t shirtless. He was just sitting on the bed, gazing down at a laptop. When she came in, he looked up.

  “Sorry,” she said softly, making to close the door again. “I’ll give you some time.”

  “No, it’s okay,” he said. “I was just thinking that I should start packing her stuff. But then, I found this.”

  He gestured to the laptop. She looked at it, but had no idea why it was significant. “Is something wrong with it?” she asked, wondering if it had been broken during whatever happened when Kiersten fell out the window.

  “No,” he said. “It’s not hers.”

  “Oh.” She blinked, then realized… “Oh… Did she steal it, do you think?”

  “I’m pretty sure it’s Sean’s. She must’ve figured we would all be so busy with preparations for the wedding that we wouldn’t have the time to devote to looking for missing items. I think I should go through this room to make sure she didn’t take anything else.”

  “Maybe he just let her borrow it,” Hannah said, reluctant to pin the blame on a dead woman.

  “Maybe,” he said, sounding doubtful. “We can ask him. But I know Kiersten. I know she had a problem with taking what wasn’t hers. It was one of the reasons that I left her to begin with. I think stealing was almost like a game to her. She wanted to see how much she could get away with before people called her out on it. It was a problem of hers, and I wish I’d pushed her more to get help. If I had, well, maybe this wouldn’t have happened.”

  “So, you think someone pushed her, too?”

  He blinked and looked up, almost as if he had been talking to himself and had forgotten she was still in the room. “Possibly. A lot of people have gotten very mad at her when they realized she had stolen from them. This wouldn’t be the first time that it evolved into violence.”

  “And, if she had been taking our stuff while she was here, then anyone could be a suspect.”

  He nodded. “I don’t want anything to wreck the wedding, but maybe afterward there will be some answers. For now, I think we should just wait. Whoever did this, they probably aren’t a bad person. They probably just made a mistake, and I don’t think that they are a danger to anyone else.”

  Hannah shook her head. “That might be true, but they still shouldn’t get away with it. Kiersten might have been a thief, but that doesn’t mean she deserved to die. If we find solid evidence that points toward her killer, I’m not sure we should keep it quiet. I want Jennifer and Sean to have a lovely wedding just as much as anyone else does, but not at the expense of letting a killer walk free.”

  Chapter Eight

  They returned the laptop to Sean. When he said that he had been wondering where it went, Rudy just said that he had found it in Kiersten’s room, and that seemed to be enough explanation for Sean, who pressed his lips together but said nothing else. Afterward, Hannah poked her head into the kitchen to see if her mother wanted any help. It felt strange leaving someone else to cook alone in her kitchen. Her mother shooed her away before she could get close.

  “I am making you dinner tonight,” she said. “You get to sit down and relax.”

  “I want to help,” Hannah said. “I like cooking. It’s relaxing.”

  Her mother sighed. “All right, I suppose you can help. I bought a brownie mix and some ice cream, if you want to go ahead and start on dessert.”

  Even though it wasn’t quite what she had in mind, she would take what she could get, and pulled the mix out of the cupboard, along with a large bowl. It only took a moment to gather the oil and eggs the mix required. She grabbed a bag of chocolate chips at the last second to spice things up.

  It didn’t take her long to
mix the batter and put the pan into the oven, which her mother had preheated for the casserole. She set the timer, then cleaned up the few drops of brownie batter that had made it onto the counter.

  “Do you need help with anything else?” she asked once she was done.

  Her mother looked like she was about to shoo her away again, but then she glanced toward the fridge. “I bought some wine and put it in the fridge to chill. You could go see if anyone wants a glass.”

  “All right, I’ll get them started on drinks, then I’ll come back and set the table.”

  “Perfect,” her mother said. “The casserole should be done in about an hour, so that will give everyone time to relax and socialize before we eat.”

  It ended up being a lovely evening. Hannah and Rudy didn’t have time to go back into Kiersten’s room and look through everything – they wanted to keep it quiet, since they didn’t want to give the culprit any advanced warning, and neither of them wanted to tell Jennifer, since it would just put more stress on her. Instead, Hannah pushed all thoughts of Kiersten’s death and whatever they might find in her room out of her mind and simply enjoyed dinner with her family. It was lovely to see her parents again, and was very nice to just sit and talk with the people that she loved.

  After dinner, Jasmine and Eliza volunteered to do the dishes while Sean and Jennifer got ready to pick up Jennifer’s parents from the airport. Hannah hugged her parents goodbye before they left to retire to the motel they were staying at for the night. “I’m really sorry that you guys can’t stay here. I just don’t have the room, and even if I did, it wouldn’t be fair to Jennifer’s parents to have the two of you stay here while they stay at the motel.”

  “Don’t worry about it, sweetie,” her mother said. “We’ve been talking with her parents and managed to get the room next to theirs. We’ll have plenty of time to get to know them while all of you young folk prepare for the wedding. I’m sure you’ll have more fun without us, anyway.”