“I see.”

“So if the man I saw in the obituary wasn’t her husband—”

“Your communication might be unwanted,” she finished for me.

“Exactly.”

She thought about that. “And if it was her husband?”

I shrugged. She scratched her cheek some more. I tried to look nonthreatening, even demure, which really doesn’t play on a guy my size. I almost batted my eyelashes.

“I wasn’t here six years ago,” she said.

“Oh.”

“But we can check the schedule books. They’ve always kept immaculate records—every wedding, baptism, communion, bris, whatever.”

Bris? “That would be great.”

She led me down the steps. “Do you remember the date of the wedding?”

I did, of course. I gave her the exact date.

We reached a small office. Lucy Cutting opened a file cabinet, thumbed through it, and pulled out one of those accounting books. As she flipped through it, I could see that she was right. The records were immaculate. There was a column for the date, type of event, participants, start and end times—all written in handwriting that could double as calligraphy.

“Let’s see what we can find here . . .”

She made a production of putting on her reading glasses. She licked her index finger schoolmarm-like, flipped a few more pages, and found the one she wanted. The same finger started tracing down the page. When she frowned, I thought to myself, Uh-oh . . .

“Are you sure about the date?” she asked me.

“Positive.”

“I don’t see any wedding that day. There was one two days earlier. Larry Rosen married Heidi Fleisher.”

“That’s not it,” I said.

“Can I help you?”

The voice startled us both.

Lucy Cutting said, “Oh, hello, Reverend. I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

I turned, saw the man, and nearly hugged him with joy. Pay dirt. It was the same minister with the shaved head who’d presided over Natalie’s wedding. He reached out his hand to shake mine, a practiced smile at the ready, but when he saw my face, I saw the smile flicker.

“Hello,” he said to me. “I’m Reverend Kelly.”

“Jake Fisher. We’ve met before.”

He made a skeptical face and turned back to Lucy Cutting. “What’s going on, Lucy?”

“I was looking up a record for this gentleman,” she began to explain. He listened patiently. I studied his face, but I wasn’t sure what I was seeing, just that he was trying to control his emotions somehow. When she was done, he turned to me and raised both palms to the sky. “If it isn’t in the records . . .”

“You were there,” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“You presided over the wedding. That’s where we met.”

“I don’t recall that. So many events. You understand.”

“After the wedding, you were in front of the chapel with the bride’s sister. A woman named Julie Pottham. When I walked by, you said it was a lovely day for a wedding.”

He arched an eyebrow. “How could I have possibly forgotten that?”

Sarcasm does not normally wear well on men of the cloth, but it fit Reverend Kelly as though hand tailored. I pressed on. “The bride was named Natalie Avery. She was a painter at the Creative Recharge retreat.”

“The what?”

“Creative Recharge. They own this land, right?”

“What are you talking about? The town owns this land.”

I didn’t want to argue deeds and boundaries right now. I tried another avenue. “The wedding. It was last-minute. Maybe that’s why it isn’t in the records.”

“I’m sorry. Mr. . . . ?”

“Fisher. Jake Fisher.”

“Mr. Fisher, first off, even if it was a last-minute wedding, it would certainly be recorded. Second, well, I’m confused what exactly you’re looking for.”

Lucy Cutting answered for me. “The groom’s last name.”

He gave her a quick glare. “We aren’t in the information business, Miss Cutting.”

She looked down, properly chastised.

“You have to remember the wedding,” I said.

“I’m sorry I don’t.”

I stepped closer, looking down on him. “You do. I know you do.”

I heard the desperation in my own voice, and didn’t like it. Reverend Kelly tried to meet my eye, but he couldn’t quite do it. “Are you calling me a liar?”

“You remember,” I said. “Why won’t you help me?”

“I don’t remember,” he said. “But why are you so anxious to find the wife of another man or, if your story is true, a recent widow?”

“To pay my respects,” I said.

My hollow words hung in the air like thick humidity. No one moved. No one spoke. Finally Reverend Kelly broke the silence.

“Whatever your motive for finding this woman, we have no interest in being party to it.” He stepped away and showed me the door. “I think it’d be best if you left immediately.”

* * *

Once again, dazed by betrayal and heartbreak, I stumbled back down the path toward the village center. I could almost get the reverend’s behavior. If he did remember the wedding—and I suspect he did—he wouldn’t want to give Natalie’s dumped boyfriend any information said boyfriend didn’t already have. It seemed an extreme hypothesis on my part, but at least it kind of made sense. What I couldn’t make sense of, what I couldn’t figure out in any way, shape, or form, was why Lucy Cutting had found nothing in the neat-to-the-point-of-anal records on Natalie and Todd’s nuptials. And why the hell had no one heard of the Creative Recharge retreat?

I couldn’t get that to mesh.

So now what? I had come here in hopes of . . . of what? Of learning Todd’s last name for one thing. That could end this pretty quickly. If not, perhaps someone here still kept in touch with Natalie. That could end this all pretty quickly too.

“Promise me, Jake. Promise me you’ll leave us alone.”

Those were the last words the love of my life said to me. The very last. And here I was, six years later, going back to where it all began, to break my word. I waited to find irony in that, but irony would not come.

As I hit the town center, the gentle aroma of fresh pastries made me pull up. The Kraftboro Bookstore Café. Natalie’s favorite scones. I thought about it and decided that it was worth a try.

When I opened the door, a little bell rang, but that sound was quickly forgotten. Elton John was singing that the child’s name was Levon, and he’d be a good man. I felt a rush and a shiver. Both tables were taken, including, of course, our old favorite. I stared at it, just standing there like a big goof, and for a moment I swore I could hear Natalie’s laugh. A man with a maroon baseball cap came in behind me. I was still blocking the door.

“Uh, excuse me,” he said.

I moved to the side to let him pass. My eyes found the coffee bar. A woman with wildly curly hair wearing, yep, a purple tie-dyed shirt had her back to me. No doubt about it. It was Cookie. My heart picked up a step. She turned, saw me, and smiled. “Can I get you something?”

“Hi, Cookie.”

“Hey.”

Silence.

“Do you remember me?” I asked.

She was wiping frosting off her hands with a hand towel. “I’m bad with faces, but even worse with names. What can I get you?”

“I used to come in here,” I said. “Six years ago. My girlfriend’s name was Natalie Avery. We used to sit at the corner table.”

She nodded but not like she remembered. She nodded like she wanted to appease the lunatic. “Lots of customers in and out. Coffee? Doughnut?”

“Natalie loved your scones.”

“A scone it is. Blueberry?”

“I’m Jake Fisher. I was writing my dissertation on the rule of law. You used to ask me about it. Natalie was an artist from the retreat. She’d break out her sketchpad right in that corner.” I gestured toward it, as though that mattered. “Six years ago. Over the summer. Heck, you were the one to point her out to me.”

“Uh-huh,” she said, her fingers toying with her necklace as though they were prayer beads. “See, that’s the good part of being called Cookie. You don’t forget a name like Cookie. It sticks in the mind. But the bad part is, since everyone remembers your name, they think you should do the same. You know what I mean?”