Chương 3
Ethan looked at Mara.
“Did you listen to anything else?”
“Only long enough to know you needed to hear it.”
“How long?”
“Maybe thirty seconds. I was in the side room with the bouquets. The screen came on when the tape pulled loose. There was already an audio file open.” She pressed her fingertips against her wrist corsage as if checking whether it was still there. “I should have found you privately. I know that. But the coordinator said the processional had started, and then I saw you at the entrance.”
“You did the right thing,” Ben said.
Mara did not look relieved.
Malcolm gave a short, humorless laugh. “None of you knows what she did.”
“I know exactly what I did,” Mara said. “I interrupted a wedding.”
“You compromised private communications and potentially destroyed evidence.”
Ethan watched his father.
“Evidence of what?”
Malcolm did not answer.
Ethan took the portfolio under one arm. “Ben, find the venue manager. Ask him to preserve security footage from every hallway and service room. No one touches the flowers, the bridal suite, or the document table.”
Malcolm’s expression finally shifted.
It was slight—a narrowing at the corners of his eyes—but Ethan had spent thirty-one years learning the weather of that face.
“You’re overreacting,” Malcolm said.
“Conrad, are you my attorney tonight or my father’s?”
Conrad rubbed a thumb along the edge of his glasses. “The firm represents Cole Harbor and, in certain matters, members of the Cole family.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“I cannot advise you while there is a potential conflict.”
“Good. Don’t.”
Ethan turned toward Mara. “Come with me.”
Claire stepped into his path.
Her veil trailed over the fallen bouquet ribbon. Up close, Ethan could see where foundation had gathered beside her nose. He had watched her apply it that morning through the open bathroom door of their suite before they separated for the ceremony. She had complained that the hotel lighting made everyone look recently deceased.
“Please,” she said. “Not with everyone watching.”
“They’re leaving.”
“I can explain.”
“You’ve had eleven recordings to practice.”
Her face tightened. “Not all of them are mine.”
Malcolm said her name in warning.
Claire ignored him.
“Take the phone somewhere he can’t reach it.”
Ethan studied her.
“Is that concern for me?”
“I don’t know what it is anymore.”
“That’s honest, at least.”
He stepped around her.
She caught his sleeve, then released it before he could pull away.
“Your mother’s trust,” she said. “That’s what he wants.”
Malcolm crossed the distance between them.
“Claire.”
She looked at him and seemed to shrink, though she remained upright.
“You told me no one would be hurt.”
Ethan felt something colder than anger settle behind his ribs.
“What did he tell you to do?”
Claire’s mouth opened.
Elaine moved between them. “My daughter is not speaking without counsel.”
Malcolm’s gaze stayed on Claire. “That is the first sensible thing anyone has said.”
Ethan walked away before he did something useless, like demand a truth from people who had spent months arranging their lies.
The venue manager gave him access to a small conference room off the administrative corridor. Ben locked the door after Mara entered. Through the wall came the muffled work of dismantling the wedding: carts rolling, dishes stacking, staff receiving rapid instructions through headsets.
Ethan placed the portfolio on the table.
His hands had begun to shake.
He sat down so neither of them would notice. Mara noticed anyway. She took a bottle of water from a sideboard and set it near him without comment.
Ben remained by the door.
“What do you need?” he asked.
“A lawyer who has never accepted a Christmas gift from my father.”
“I know one.”
“Of course you do.”
“She got me out of that licensing dispute in Baltimore.”
“You built a restaurant patio six feet onto city property.”
“The survey was misleading.”
“The river was not.”
Ben took out his phone. The familiar argument landed between them like a chair placed in an empty room. For a moment, Ethan could breathe around it.
Mara sat across the table. The dusty-rose skirt pooled around her shoes. She pressed her palms together until the knuckles whitened.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Ethan looked at her.
“Don’t apologize.”
“I know what this looks like.”
“What does it look like?”
“Like I wanted an audience.”
“You had an audience.”
“I panicked.”
“You still did the right thing.”
Her eyes dropped to the phone. “Those can both be true.”
Ben returned from the hallway after calling the attorney. “Lena Ortiz is on her way. Twenty minutes. She says don’t open files, don’t forward anything, don’t connect the phone to Wi-Fi, and don’t let anyone charge it with a cable we didn’t bring.”
Ethan looked at the battery icon. Thirty-eight percent.
“Anything else?”
“She said not to get murdered, which I assume was humor.”
Mara glanced at the locked door.
Ben noticed. “No one is getting in here.”
Ethan leaned back. “My father doesn’t murder people.”
The sentence came out too quickly.
Ben did not challenge it.
The phone vibrated against the table. Not a call. An alarm had been set for 8:45 p.m., ten minutes after the scheduled ceremony. The label read CHECK ACCOUNT.
They all stared at it.
Ethan silenced the alarm without opening anything.
Mara inhaled unevenly. “I saw tape around the stems. Black electrical tape. It didn’t belong with the florist’s work. When I pulled it, the screen lit up. There was an earbud tucked beside it.”
“Where is the earbud?”
“Still in the prep room. I dropped it when I heard the first line.”
“Did anyone see you?”
“The florist’s assistant came in as I was leaving. A young man with glasses. He asked whether Claire needed another bouquet.”
“Did you tell him?”
“No. I think I said, ‘Get the coordinator.’ I don’t remember exactly.”
Ben wrote it down in the notes app on his phone.
May you like
Ethan watched him. “Since when are you organized?”
“Since your wedding became a crime scene.”
