Free The Bride's Curse by Glenys O'Connell Page A

dress?”
    “Just a hunch. But even if she didn’t, she must know who did, and why. It was her wedding dress, after all.”
    “All right,” Kelly said, playing along. “But then why would
we
need to know that information? The dress has been sold. Daria Welcome is wearing it to her wedding. It’s not our problem anymore.”
    “It is our problem, because it still remains to be seen if Daria’s wedding will actually happen. Business has already dropped because of the rumors surrounding that dress, regardless of the fact that it’s been sold. Imagine if it were returned a fourth time. We’d be doomed. We have to find out more about the dress from Mary Atwell, and find a way to end the curse for good.”
    Now that Kelly knew there was a ghost in town, and said ghost was asking about the cursed dress, she had to admit she was starting to see Noelia’s point. “But I can’t question Brett about his aunt
or
the dress. Not without raising all sorts of questions. I haven’t even said for sure that we have the dress he’s looking for. He wants the gown back for her and I don’t see Daria Welcome giving it back. I really don’t know what to do.”
    The other reason she didn’t want to ask Brett about Mary was that she’d have to explain to him why she was interested in his aunt. And that meant not only explaining the theory of the curse, which would be bad enough, but what about the ghost angle? What on earth could the connection be between a fifty-year-old wedding dress with a bad reputation and an incredibly irritating ghost who was asking questions about that same dress? Somehow the idea of telling Brett about the recent appearance of a ghost in her life, and how she suspected a connection between the ghost and all the troubles the gown had brought, both amused and embarrassed her. She didn’t think their relationship was ready for a trip into the spirit world yet. And what if she was wrong? She doubted if a man like Brett Atwell was given to flights of fancy—or tolerant of those who were. She didn’t want to look like a fool in front of him.
    “Or we could just forget the whole thing. I’ll tell Brett I don’t have the dress and I can’t give out the name of the client who bought it. End of story.” She looked hopefully at Noelia.
    The older woman scowled. “You know you can’t shirk your responsibilities like that. What about Daria? What if that dreadful Cursed Wedding Gown wrecks her happily ever after plans, too?”
    Kelly sighed. Trust Noelia to take the moral high ground. “Are you sure we couldn’t … ?”
    “Absolutely not! However, there are other ways to get information that might help answer the questions about the dress’s history,” Noelia said. “Now, we—or rather you—must go to the newspaper files and see if you can find out anything about Mary Atwell. She must have been a pretty well off lady or from a rich family, to be getting a gown like this for her wedding, even in the seventies. She would have had the kind of wedding that would be in the society pages if you go back to l972. If there are pictures you’ll be able to tell if the dress we sold Daria really is the dress Brett’s aunt wants. If it’s not, then you can just tell him that and everything will be fine. ”
    “Except that the dress is still rumored to be cursed because of what happened with the other three brides.” Kelly sighed. She couldn’t think of anything she fancied less than a day in the basement newspaper “morgue” going through musty old editions of the
Telegraph
. Or worse, driving into Derry and searching through the local paper there.
    Actually, there was something worse—going out and sitting on that bench with her invisible ghost friend and finding out what he needed to make him go away. But it had to be done. She sighed again.
    “I can tell you’re not inspired by the task I’ve set you, so I’m going to sweeten the deal with a nice cup of coffee and a couple of chocolate digestive