Free 'Til Death Do Us Part by Kate White Page A

alert them to our presence, but before we could do anything, the voices halted and David stuck his head around the screen. He looked extremely uncomfortable when he discovered us all there. But clearly whatever he and Trip had quarreled about that day had not gotten in the way of their business partnership.
    My Jeep was parked farther along the entrance drive to the house, near the garage, and as I approached it I saw that a man in a dark green parka with the hood up was wiping off the window.
    “Good morning,” he said in what I thought might be an Australian accent. “She’s all ready for you.”
    “Thanks,” I said, realizing he must be some kind of caretaker type.
    “I kept her warm. It’s brutal out today.”
    He was right. He’d kept the Jeep perfectly toasty. God, I thought, I could get used to the good life if only someone would give me half a chance.
    There were already about eight cars in the parking lot of Ivy Hill Farm when I arrived—mostly workers, I assumed. The silo rose forlornly in the background, and my stomach turned over just seeing it. I trudged toward the buildings along a hastily shoveled path. Through the window of the big barn I could see a cluster of workers by the counter, chopping and stirring away. Phillipa was among them, and so was Mary.
    I turned instead toward the smaller, gray barn where the shop was located. As I stepped inside, I found the same girl behind the register whom I’d spotted yesterday. There was one customer at the moment, paying for a set of Asian-inspired place mats and napkins. While the salesclerk folded the place mats into a bag, I waited by a table stacked with kitchenware, feigning a fascination with a set of ramekins.
    “May I help you?” the clerk asked as the door slammed. She was young, no more than twenty, with her blond hair pulled back prudishly in a tight bun. I wondered if Peyton made her wear it like that.
    “Actually I’m Peyton’s friend Bailey Weggins. I was here yesterday when this whole awful thing happened. I’m trying to help Peyton in any way I can.”
    At the mention of yesterday, her lower lip, glistening with pale pink lip gloss, began to tremble.
    “It’s just terrible, isn’t it?” she said. “And did you see what that awful New York paper wrote?”
    “No, I didn’t. Do you have it here?”
    After glancing toward the door, she reached below the counter and pulled out an already opened copy of the
New York Post
, pointing to a small item titled “Is There a Peyton Cross Curse?” The article recapped all three deaths, suggesting that there was a bizarre curse—like something out of
The Hound of the Baskervilles
—on everyone in Peyton’s wedding. Then it listed the names of the three remaining attendants, including mine. Peyton had said the press had started calling practically immediately yesterday, and I was curious how a New York paper had gotten word so quickly. Had someone at the farm tipped them off?
    “Do you think there
is
a curse?” the clerk asked mournfully.
    “We don’t really know
what’s
happening,” I said. “Did you happen to see anything odd yesterday?”
    “No, nothing. Like I told the police, I ate lunch in the big barn with some of the other girls at around twelve, and then I never went out of the shop again.”
    “Did you have any customers in the afternoon?”
    “It was sort of busy right after lunch—we had about ten or twelve people in here. But as soon as the snow started coming down, business totally fell off.”
    “You’d worked with Robin for a while, right? I mean, she oversaw the shop.”
    “That’s right. Ms. Cross is doing it now—until we replace Robin.”
    There was no joy in her voice as she said it. In fact, she sounded like someone who’d just learned all her wisdom teeth were impacted and had to be extracted.
    “In the weeks before she died, how did Robin seem to you? Was she different in any way?”
    “How do you mean?” she asked anxiously, as if she were afraid