I took one more turn around the lot. When I reached the other side, I craned my neck, peering down the side of the Barn itself to the back, where a catering van stood with its rear doors open, and three guys with long hair and neatly cropped beards carried guitar cases and a snare drum. Behind them, and at a slight distance from the Barn, I saw a familiar figure.

Amanda.

She was talking in an animated fashion to a woman in a light blue dress who wore her hair piled on top of her head. Something about the woman’s body and the way she tilted her neck looked familiar, and I would have sworn it was Sam, except Sam would have been wearing a wedding gown and not the simple dress this woman wore.

I stopped the car, jamming it into park.

My heart thumped fast enough that the guys in the band would have struggled to keep up if they tried to play along. Why was she here when we had turned down the invitation?

Amanda and the woman who I then recognized as Sam’s younger sister, Wendy, spoke with more intensity, and the sister threw her arms up in the air as if she’d reached the brink of exasperation. I started walking toward them, moving slowly, even though Amanda was so focused on whatever she was saying that she never would have seen me coming.

Until the other woman threw up her hands again and made a quick pivot on her heels and disappeared through a door that led into the back of the Barn. When she was gone, Amanda turned away and faced off into the distance, where a handful of dark cows lazed near a small pond, looking like the living embodiment of ease and leisure.

When I came close enough for Amanda to hear me, I said her name.

She spun as quickly as Wendy had, her lips parted. She looked slightly surprised to see me but not unhappy. She let out a little breath, an acknowledgment that my sleuthing skills had impressed her.

I looked behind me at the Barn, expecting Wendy to come back out at any moment, but the door remained closed. The band and the caterers had disappeared inside as well, leaving us the only two people in the vicinity of the back of the building. I checked my watch. Ten minutes until noon. Almost time to start.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I could ask you the same thing.”

“I’m looking for you. And here you are at a wedding we said we wouldn’t go to.”

“I’m not here for the wedding,” she said. “You should know that.”

“Then what are you here for? Because it sure as hell looks like they’re going ahead and having a wedding today.”

“I listened to your messages,” Amanda said. “I know the police are looking for me.”