Amelia would have stood beside her in perfect shoes, purse organized like a miniature command center, and said,Bree, emotional preparedness is not the same thing as pessimism, while producing tissues, lip balm, blister patches, painkillers, three safety pins, a portable charger, and probably a granola bar from a bag no larger than a paperback.
Bree had once accused her cousin of being part human, part emergency kit.
Now she stood in a thirteenth-century chapel with rain streaking down the narrow windows, a handful of tissuesdissolving in her fist, and wished for one more practical scolding so fiercely it hurt.
“She would’ve hated these stairs,” Bree said, her voice wobbling.
Beside her, Linda Quinn looked down at the worn stone floor and let out a small, breathy laugh. “My darling daughter would’ve made a note in the online review.”
“Three stars. Historically significant, but railings inadequate.”
“Two stars,” Linda said. “No accessible restroom.”
“And the gift shop shortbread is dry.”
Linda turned to her. “You bought two boxes.”
“I was grieving and under-caffeinated. Those are mitigating circumstances.”
Linda’s mouth tilted up.
For half a second, Bree almost smiled back. Then grief, that absolute drama queen, flung itself across the furniture again.
The chapel was small and cold, tucked behind the ruins of Ashcombe Castle like a secret the centuries had forgotten. It smelled of damp stone, old wood, beeswax polish, and rain carried in on tourists’ coats. A single electric heater hummed near the entrance, losing its battle against seven hundred years of English chill.
Beyond the chapel door, a guide in a navy raincoat was explaining medieval land tenure to a couple who clearly regretted not booking the distillery tour.
Ashcombe was smaller than Bree remembered from her wedding weekend and somehow larger too, as if absence had made the stones lean closer.
The marquee lawn was empty now. Wet grass. A low rope. A sign asking visitors not to climb on the walls. The tower still stood roofless against the grey sky, moss furred along its edges,rain turning the stone dark. A rope blocked the doorway, along with a polite sign stating that visitors entered at their own risk.
Gaz had entered anyway. Her husband’s best friend, who had been drunk and awful and apparently the last person to annoy Amelia before she disappeared, had decided guilt made him useful.
Unfortunately, guilt had not made him quieter. He’d arrived that morning wearing a cream cashmere jumper, sunglasses despite the rain, and the haunted expression of a man who had been recognized by three pensioners and one ten-year-old boy in the parking lot.
“I just want to help,” he’d told Bree for the seventh time, while peering behind a gift shop display of local honey. “Could be something everyone missed.”
“It’s been a year, Gaz.”
“Police miss things.”
“You once lost your car in your own driveway.”
“It was a very large driveway.”
Deck had put one steady hand on Gaz’s shoulder and steered him toward the tower before Bree could answer with something Amelia would have described as unproductive, legally risky, and possibly satisfying.
A year ago, Bree had married Deck beneath fairy lights, and sometime between champagne and dinner, Amelia had vanished.
People still saidvanishedas if the word were tidy. Nothing about it had been tidy. Searchlights had cut across the wet grass. Police had taped off the tower. Her passport had still been in her room at the inn. Her overnight bag sat neatly on the luggage rack, because Amelia would have rather faked her own death than leave clothes strewn about.
Her tiny satin purse and phone had been found inside the ruined tower, tucked beside the old window ledge where the ancient sword had rested.
Except the sword wasn’t there anymore either.
That was one of those details people mentioned once and then quietly stopped mentioning, because it made the whole thing feel too much like a ghost story told after two glasses of sherry.
The old Ashcombe sword, the antique treasure the guides loved to point out and the wedding photographer had wanted to use as moody medieval atmosphere, had vanished along with Amelia.
