Chương 3
His mother said his name.
He turned away.
Emily watched him speak to emergency dispatch in a controlled, almost painfully courteous voice.
There had been no physical attack, he explained. No injuries requiring an ambulance. His fiancée had been intentionally locked in an enclosed garden area and her phone was missing. There was a possible suspect present and physical evidence.
Fiancée.
Emily stared at the ruined lace over her knees.
Not wife.
They had been twelve minutes from becoming husband and wife when Victoria had walked into the bridal suite with a concerned expression and said Arthur needed five minutes.
The ceremony had not happened.
The fact had been obvious all along.
It still arrived like news.
The first police officers reached the hotel nineteen minutes later.
By then the wedding had become something nobody knew how to name.
Not canceled.
Not continuing.
Paused sounded obscene.
Guests wandered between tables speaking in whispers. The quartet packed their instruments without being asked. The catering staff kept the hot food warm because they had no instructions not to. Claire moved through the room with the expression of a woman managing a ship fire while refusing to acknowledge the existence of flames.
Emily changed in the bridal suite.
Maya Chen, her maid of honor, helped cut the mud-heavy hem away from Emily’s ankles because the dress had become too stiff to pull off easily.
Neither woman spoke for several minutes.
Maya had been Emily’s closest friend since sophomore year at Northwestern, when they had ended up in the same economics lecture and discovered a mutual hatred of the professor’s habit of saying “obviously” before things that were not obvious.
Now Maya knelt on the bathroom floor with manicure scissors and sawed through French lace that had cost more than Emily’s first car.
“This is upsetting me more than it should,” Maya said.
Emily looked down.
“The dress?”
“The scissors. Claire gave them to me for ribbon.”
Emily made a sound that surprised her.
A laugh.
It lasted half a second and turned into a breath.
Maya stopped cutting.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good. That would’ve been a weird answer.”
Emily sat on the edge of the vanity bench wearing Arthur’s tuxedo jacket over a strapless slip, her muddy gown pooled around her.
Her hands had started shaking after the adrenaline wore off.
She pressed them between her knees.
Maya resumed cutting.
“I should’ve been there.”
“No.”
“I left you alone.”
“To check flowers.”
“Stupid flowers.”
“They were pretty.”
“Don’t defend them.”
Emily looked at herself in the mirror.
There was mud along her jaw and a shallow scratch near her temple.
She remembered Victoria’s hand touching her elbow in the bridal suite.
Arthur wants a private word.
Nothing alarming in her voice.
Nothing hurried.
Just enough concern.
Emily had asked whether it could wait.
Victoria had said, “He was quite specific.”
Maya cut through the last section of lace.
The heavy skirt fell away.
“Okay,” she said. “You now own the world’s most expensive crop top.”
Emily covered her face.
Her laugh came back wrong.
Maya stood quickly.
“I’m sorry.”
“No. Keep doing that.”
“What?”
“Saying stupid things.”
“I have a reserve.”
“I know.”
Maya sat beside her.
For a while they listened to the muffled sounds beyond the door: radios, footsteps, someone rolling a banquet cart, a distant burst of laughter followed by immediate silence.
Normal sounds continuing inside an abnormal day.
Emily lowered her hands.
“Did people think I left him?”
Maya did not answer quickly enough.
Emily looked at her.
“For how long?”
“Not everybody.”
“Maya.”
“Victoria came out about ten minutes before the ceremony and said you needed a moment.”
Emily stared at her.
“She told me you were in the bathroom. Then she told Claire you were with Arthur. Then when Arthur came into the ballroom alone…” Maya stopped.
“What?”
“She said maybe the pressure got to you.”
Emily felt something cold move through her chest.
“Did Daniel believe her?”
“No.”
The answer was immediate.
Emily searched Maya’s face.
“No?”
“He looked like he was about to throw up, but he kept saying there had to be an explanation. He wanted people checking every floor.”
“That’s not the same as not believing her.”
Maya looked away.
There it was.
Emily nodded once.
“How bad?”
“He asked me if you’d said anything this week.”
“About leaving?”
Maya said nothing.
Emily stood too quickly.
Her legs failed for half a second.
Maya caught her.
“Easy.”
“Don’t.”
“I’m literally keeping you from eating tile.”
Emily pulled away, then regretted that too.
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Emily.”
“I’m angry at him.”
“You’re allowed.”
“He didn’t lock me outside.”
“No.”
“But he thought I might leave.”
Maya folded the severed section of muddy dress because she needed something to do with her hands.
“Most people in that ballroom thought something. Nobody knew anything.”
Emily looked at the floor.
“That’s exactly what she wanted.”
A knock came.
Daniel’s voice followed.
“Em?”
Maya looked at Emily.
Emily did not answer immediately.
That hurt too.
Daniel had called her Em since their second date, when he discovered she hated being called Emmy.
Usually one syllable from him could change her breathing.
Now it sounded like a question she did not know how to answer.
“Come in.”
Daniel entered and stopped.
He had removed his bow tie. The top button of his shirt was open. He looked as if the entire day had been happening directly to his face.
His eyes moved from Emily to the destroyed dress.
“What happened?”
Maya held up the manicure scissors.
“Fashion.”
Daniel almost smiled.
Emily did not.
The almost-smile disappeared.
“The officers want to speak with you,” he said.
“Okay.”
“They found your phone.”
Emily straightened.
“Where?”
“Not in the garden.”
Maya stood.
Daniel looked at Emily.
“It was in my mother’s suite.”
Nobody moved.
“Where?”
“In a bathroom trash can. Wrapped in a hand towel.”
Emily stared at him.
May you like
He looked down.
“The hotel security manager went with the officers. My mother consented to them checking the room.”
