The Final Vow

by Amanda Flower

  Tiffin barked a greeting, and both my father and son looked up to see Chase and me at the gate. My father jumped out of his seat. “Kelsey, what on earth happened to you?” He gaped at my leg. “You’re hurt!”

  “It’s just a scratch,” I said, downplaying the injury.

  “It’s more than a scratch,” Chase said.

  I gave him a look.

  He shrugged, as if to ask what I was going to do about it.

  “What happened?” Dad asked.

  I gave my father the short version about my accident, and then Dad looked at Chase. “What’s in the box, and why does it look like it got ran over by a train?”

  “Kelsey landed on it,” Chase deadpanned.

  “Thanks,” I muttered. I would have pushed him for that comment if my leg didn’t hurt so much.

  Chase grinned as if he knew I wanted to push him. “Let’s go inside and take a look at that leg.”

  Hayden’s face creased in concern. “Mom, you have blood on your pants.”

  I held my hand out to Hayden. “Don’t worry, buddy. It looks a lot worse than it feels.”

  We all went into the house, and Chase set me on a kitchen chair. He then put a second chair in front me and put my leg on that. Dad handed him a pair of scissors, and Chase carefully cut into my jeans from the cuff up. He was right—the jeans were goners. When the fabric was cut away, he cleaned the wound with rubbing alcohol that Dad had found in the medicine cabinet. I winced as the alcohol stung something fierce.

  Hayden folded his hand into mine. “Maybe you should go to the doctor. Wouldn’t you make me to go to the doctor if I was hurt like that?”

  Chase raised his eyebrows at me while he continued to tend the wound. “The kid has a point.”

  I patted Hayden’s cheek. “You’re right. I would make sure that you were all checked out and okay, and that’s what Chase is doing here. Chase is as good as a doctor. He saves people’s lives every day.” I pleaded with Chase with my eyes. “Right, Chase?”

  “That’s right,” Chase said, jumping in. “Your mom will be fine. She might walk funny for a couple of days, but that’s no big thing.”

  Hayden looked from Chase to me and back again, and the worry in his small face cleared. “Okay.” He turned to me. “Mom, since you’re okay, can I watch a show in your room?”

  I sighed. “Sure, you can watch a show.”

  My son gave me a fist pump in the air and ran up the stairs with Tiffin on his heels. Frankie followed at a much more sedate pace.

  After Chase wrapped gauze around my wound, he said, “You’re lucky. The cut isn’t that deep. You probably don’t need stitches.”

  I grinned. “Told you. I was right.”

  He shook his head. “One of these days, Kelsey Cambridge, you aren’t going to be right. I hope you’ll be able to handle that.”

  “But not today,” I said, struggling to my feet. “I’ll just go change my clothes and then call the detective.”

  “Need any help with that?” He wiggled his eyebrows.

  I swatted at him. “No.”

  What seemed like a long time later, I hopped back downstairs in a clean T-shirt and running shorts. With my injured leg, it had taken me much longer to change than normal. I saw my father and Chase sitting side by side on the couch. The moment I stumbled down the last step, they were both up and out of their seats. I held up a hand. “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

  Dad smiled and sat back down, but an expression I couldn’t read crossed Chase’s face. I didn’t take the time to stop and try to figure out what it was. “I need to call Detective Brandon and tell her what we found in the bell tower.”

  “I already did that,” Chase said.

  “What do you—”

  My questions were cut off by a knock at the door, and without waiting for anyone to answer, Detective Brandon stomped inside. “Are you withholding information from me, Kelsey Cambridge? I could have you thrown in jail for tampering with evidence.”

  “Tampering with evidence?” I yelped. “You wouldn’t have this evidence if Chase and I hadn’t found the box—it would still be missing. Your officers have been in and out of the church a dozen times today, and you didn’t find it.”

  “You took it from the crime scene!” Her face was bright red. “You should have called me from the church. Now you’ve moved it, and any clues to how it got there have been ruined.”

  “I think those were ruined when Kelsey landed on the box,” Chase said dryly.

  I scowled at Chase and gave him a you-are-not-helping look. He smiled in return.

  “And you!” Brandon glared at Chase. “You know better. What do you think your uncle will say when he hears about this?”

  Chase’s cheeks flushed. “He’ll say I did the right thing because I was more worried about Kelsey’s injury than a stupid box.”

  The detective glanced down at my bandaged leg. “She looks fine now.”

  Chase glared at her in return. “Because I took care of her.”

  “You’re so good at taking care of things, aren’t you, Chase?” she asked as her pretty lips curled back into a sneer.

  My father whistled. “Okay, stop it, all of you.”

  The three of us stared at my father. His cape, draped over his shoulders, gave him a regal air, or at least it would have if he hadn’t been wearing a T-shirt and jeans underneath.

  “What’s done is done. There’s no going back to before,” he said.

  “Is that Shakespeare?” Chase asked.

  Dad grinned. “No, but it should be. I just made it up.”

  Detective Brandon threw up her arms. “I don’t have time for this. You all have seemed to forget that I’m in the middle of a murder investigation. I have to get out of here. Where’s the box? I’ll take it back to the station to examine it and look for fingerprints.”

  Chase pointed to the mangled cardboard object on the table.

  “Are you sure Kelsey and not a refrigerator landed on it?” Brandon asked.

  I rolled my eyes. This crushing-the-box thing was never going to go away, I could already tell.

  The detective removed gloves from her jacket pocket and slipped them on. She opened the box and peered inside. “Is everything here? Everything you reported missing? I assume that you looked through it?”

  “I did look inside, yes,” I said.

  She raised her eyebrow. “So, is everything there?”

  I swallowed. “You have the spreadsheet of contents that Benji made, but I did notice one thing missing right away.”

  She looked up at me.

  I removed the museum tag from my shorts pocket and held it out to her. “Jebidiah Barton’s gun is missing.”

  twenty-eight

  After Brandon left with the box of artifacts, Dad went upstairs to check on Hayden, leaving Chase and I standing in my living room together. I started picking up the toys that Hayden had scattered around the house and tossing them into my son’s toy basket in the corner of the room.

  “Brandon is right,” I said. “We should have called her from the church so that she could properly catalog the evidence.”

  “Kelsey,” Chase said with a sigh. “You were bleeding.”

  “The evidence was more important.” I picked up a yellow truck.

  He shook his head. “Than you bleeding to death? I don’t think so.”

  I tossed a truck into the basket. “I have to find that gun. I don’t know if it works anymore, but someone could get hurt.”

  Chase came over to me and held me by my upper arms. “Would you just be still for one moment?”

  I looked him in the eye. “I have to fix this.”

  “I can help,” he said.

  I shook my head. “I don’t know how you can. I’ve messed everything up, and I have to fix it.”

  “I can help,�
�� he repeated.

  I met his gaze. “You can’t. Benji—this Farm—it’s all my responsibility. I need to take care of it myself.”

  He dropped his hands from my arms. “You don’t want my help. You want to do everything on your own. Is that it?”

  My brow wrinkled. “It’s my job. Everyone at the Farm trusts me to handle this. They rely on me to take care of things. I’m ultimately responsible for everything that happens here, so I have to fix this.”

  “You don’t get it, do you?” He ran his hand through his blond hair. “I want to be there for you, and you just push me away over and over again. I don’t deserve that, Kelsey. I really don’t.”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.” I frowned.

  He folded his arms. “What are you saying?”

  I opened and closed my mouth a few times, but I didn’t have an answer for him.

  “Your silence is answer enough.” He leaned forward and kissed me on the cheek. “Goodbye, Kelsey.”

  “Goodbye?” I asked, but by that point Chase was already walking out my front door.

  I went to the door and watched him walk down the path. Half of me wanted to run after him; the other half was relieved. I knew that I’d taken it too far this time. I’d put my wall up too high, and he was tired of trying to climb it. I knew he was walking away from me and might never come back. If he didn’t come back, I had no one to blame but myself, but at the same time, I wouldn’t or couldn’t take back what I’d said. The Farm was my responsibility, and I was the one who had to make things right again. I needed to do it on my own. If Chase couldn’t accept that, then our relationship was doomed. I sighed. I would handle all that after Krissie’s wedding. I could handle anything after the wedding.

  I closed the cottage door. Benji and Piper would be arriving soon to discuss whatever Piper’s past crime was. I was looking forward to seeing Benji in particular. I knew that even with everything that had happened, my assistant would face the discovery of the missing artifacts with a logical mind.

  My phone rang. I hobbled over to the kitchen counter and picked it up. My leg hurt, but the only person I’d admit it to was myself. I checked the phone’s screen, and Benji’s image smiled back at me.

  Dad came down the stairs. I noticed he’d finally removed the cape. Now he fit the image of small town grandpa a little better.

  Before I could utter a greeting into the phone, Benji said, “Kelsey, we can’t meet you at the cottage tonight.”

  “Why not?” I couldn’t keep the disappointment from my voice. There was so much that I needed to talk to her about.

  She took a deep breath. “Because Piper has been arrested.” There was a pause. “For Vianna’s murder.”

  “Piper’s been arrested?” My eyes went wide as I looked at my father.

  Dad mouthed, “Go.”

  That was all the encouragement that I needed. “Benji, I’m on my way. Tell Piper not to talk to the police.”

  “It’s too late. She already has. She’s already told them everything.” She sounded as if she was about to cry.

  Before I could ask Benji what “everything” was, she hung up.

  The entire drive to the police station, I had my hands on the steering wheel at ten and two in a death grip. I worried over what Benji meant with her last comment. What could Piper be confessing to the police? Was she confessing to the murder? Had she killed Vianna? The very idea made my stomach turn, and the reason for that was Benji. My assistant and friend was my primary concern. I cared what happened to Piper, but only as far as it had an impact on Benji. I’d always viewed Benji as a little sister, and I couldn’t, I wouldn’t, let her be hurt.

  The New Hartford police department was located in a large municipal building near the center of town, not that far from Armin’s flower shop. It seemed like I’d gone to see Armin so long ago—I could hardly believe it was just that morning.

  I parked in one of the diagonal spaces in front of the building. This late in the evening, with no events going on downtown, there were plenty of parking spots from which to choose. I jumped out of the car and ran up the wide cement steps to the front door as fast as my injured leg would allow. The soles of my shoes slipped on the red, polished stone floor. An ornate receptionist desk stood empty in the middle of the room with a giant brass chandelier floating above it.

  In front of me, behind the receptionist’s desk, were glass doors that led into the mayoral and city administrative offices. To my right was another set of doors that led into the state park offices, and to my left were the doors I was looking for—the police station.

  Detective Brandon smiled at me as I stepped through those doors into the hallway of the station. There was a small wooden folding table in the middle of the hallway, covered with brochures reminding people of the consequences of DUIs and not remembering to buckle your seat belt. To my left, I spotted Benji in my peripheral vision. She was in some kind of a waiting room.

  “Kelsey, I wish I could say that I’m surprised to find you here,” the detective said. “But that would be a lie. What are you doing in my station?”

  I walked up to Brandon, refusing to allow her to intimidate me. “Your station? I imagine that Chief Duffy wouldn’t want you to call it that.”

  The detective’s perpetual frown deepened, as did the lines around her mouth.

  “I’m here because I heard Piper was arrested.” I folded my arms. “This must be some kind of mistake. I know she didn’t do anything wrong.”

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Benji stand up and move to the waiting room’s doorway. She held onto the door frame as if her life depended on it.

  Detective Brandon chuckled. “She didn’t do anything wrong? You’re so trusting at times, Cambridge, it’s quite amusing.”

  “What do you mean by that?” I asked.

  “Your innocent Piper isn’t as innocent as you believe. The girl has a record. When I arrested her today, it wasn’t her first arrest. She’s an old hat at this.”

  “And what’s her past arrest for?” I asked.

  Brandon glanced over her shoulder at Benji, who had a gray cast to her face. “I have to return to Piper now. I’m sure Benji will fill you in on all the particulars.”

  “I have only one more question,” I said.

  The detective snorted. “I seriously doubt that you have only one more question, Kelsey Cambridge.”

  She was right. I always had more than only one more question, but I wasn’t going to tell her that. “The twinkle lights in the steeple,” I said.

  “What about them?” she asked.

  “Why did you leave them there? It seems they would be important evidence for the murder.” I studied her face as I spoke.

  She knit her brow together. “They are in fact evidence, which is why I didn’t leave them there. They’re in the evidence room. What kind of incompetent police officer do you think I am?”

  I’d never thought of Brandon as incompetent, which was why I’d been so surprised when Chase and I found the lights still hanging from the window in the bell tower. I thought back to the times I’d looked up at the church that day, and I realized that I actually didn’t remember seeing any twinkle lights there after the police had removed the window frame. I certainly would have noticed them, as would all of the officers who’d been crawling around the grounds since last night.

  “Cambridge, is that all?” the detective wanted to know.

  I nodded. I wasn’t sure why, but I didn’t want to tell her about the mystery lights.

  She started down the hallway, but then stopped and turned. “Despite screwing up the chain of evidence, you provided us with a very helpful tip by finding that box in the bell tower, Kelsey. Thank you for that. I suppose you can say that you solved yet another murder. Let’s all hope it’s your last.” She continued down the hall.

  I watched her go, feeling l
ike Judas collecting his thirty pieces of silver.

  Benji emerged into the hallway and ran to me. She threw her arms around me. “Kelsey! I’m so glad you’re here. I was losing my mind sitting in there all alone.” She stared down at my leg. “What happened to you?”

  “A minor accident. It looks worse than it is. I’m more worried about you.” I hugged her back. “You need to tell me what’s going on. Do you finally know what sent Piper to jail before?”

  Benji let go of me with a sigh. “We’d better sit down.”

  I followed her back into the waiting room. The seating options were slim. We had our choice of some uncomfortable-looking wooden folding chairs that looked like they harkened back to the 1950s and a long, flowered couch. Benji chose the couch, so I sat next to her. I fell so deeply into the couch that my feet no long hit the floor.

  “Let me help you,” Benji said, and she pulled on my arm until I sat on the edge of the sofa and my feet were firmly on the ground.

  “Thanks.” I adjusted my seat, careful not to fall back into the sofa a second time. “Now tell me what’s going on.”

  “Piper stole those artifacts that went missing from the storage room. She admitted it to the police. Detective Brandon made her crack.”

  “The detective can be very persuasive,” I said.

  Benji folded her hands on her lap. “She’s done this before.”

  “What do you mean?” My pulse quickened.

  She stared at her hands. “When Piper was a freshman in college, she was an intern for an interior decorator and she got caught stealing jewelry from one of the houses the decorator was working on. The police discovered that she did it several times, from several homes, and she even sold some of the jewelry before she was caught.”

  “And that’s what she wanted to do with the artifacts?” I asked.

  Benji nodded miserably. “Since they were found in the bell tower, the police—or at least Detective Brandon—believe she killed Vianna to keep her crime hidden. The detective’s theory is that Vianna caught Piper in the act of hiding the artifacts, and Piper killed her to protect her secret.”