“I like him already,” Rowan chuckled.
I pulled into the quiet church parking lot. There weren’t many cars for a Wednesday morning. A few scattered vehicles were parked in the staff spots, and one shiny red Sportscar was parked next to the front door. I took the spot next to it and turned off the engine.
“You didn’t have to come with me so early.” I turned to face Rowan. “Jesse asked me for an assist.”
“Wouldn’t dream of letting you both go through this alone. Who knows? Maybe I’ll be helpful too.” Rowan’s eyebrows danced once. Then he put on his game face. “Do we need a codeword? In case you want to leave but don’t want to be rude?”
I nodded. “Sure. Aluminum siding.”
“Aluminum siding?”
“Yes. It’s not something that comes up in regular conversations, so if either of us says it, you know it’s the code word and not someone talking about redoing the exterior of their house,” I said.
“You came up with that pretty quickly.”
“I get flashes of genius.” I shrugged.
We walked through the front doors, arm in arm, and it didn’t take me long to find Jesse, who paced the floor near the back of the sanctuary.
“Hey, Jesse,” I said. “You okay?”
He sighed. “I hope so. True had me run a weird errand for her yesterday. I’m creeped out by it.” He shuddered.
Curiosity piqued, I asked what the errand was.
“I had to pick up her grandmother’s burial dress from the house,” Jesse replied.
Alarm bells went off my head. “You delivered her wedding dress to the funeral home?”
“Yeah.” Jesse paused his pacing and looked at me. “How’d you know that?”
More alarm bells. “Is it an open casket?”
He nodded, pointing to the front of the church where the casket containing True’s grandmother sat, ready for mourners and celebrants to pay their respects. I shoved my purse into Rowan’s arms and ran down the aisle. As I got closer to the casket, my stomach dropped. “No. No. No. No. No. Jesse! What did you do?”
There, in the casket, was True’s grandmother peacefully in repose, wearing her granddaughter’s $50,000 wedding dress.
“Jesse!” I yelled again as he joined me at the front.
“What?” He held up his hands and shook his head. “Why are you yelling at me?”
“Yeah, Goldilocks. He does plenty of other stuff for you to yell at him about,” Rowan added. “Can’t you pick on the wanker for one of those?”
“Hey!” Jesse shouted at Rowan. “What the fuck, my guy?”
“Stop!” I grabbed each man's arm. “Jesse, where did you get this dress?”
“I told you. It was at True’s grandmother’s house. True told me to go to the house and get the wedding dress in the closet,” Jesse explained. “I went to the house. I found the closet. The wedding dress was inside a garment bag, and I brought the garment bag to the funeral home.”
“Did you, by chance, look at the dress before you handed it over?”
“Why would I do that?”
“To make sure you gave the funeral director the right dress!” I clenched my hands into fists, my fingernails biting into my palms.
Jesse sighed. “Ken, you’re not making any sense. This is the wedding dress in her grandmother’s closet. How could it be the wrong dress?”
Rowan covered his mouth with his hand to hide the laugh that was no doubt bubbling up. The me of a week ago would probably let this stand and wash my hands of it. Maybe. But there was no way I was putting another woman through something like this, even if it meant keeping the wedding on track.
