Chương 2
Normal life attempting to rearrange itself around disaster.
Ethan lowered his voice.
“She's right. Not here.”
Claire laughed once.
It sounded ugly.
“My husband knows a woman who was present when my father died, and somehow my mother may or may not recognize her, and both of you are worried about the venue?”
“I'm worried about you,” Ellen said.
“No. You're worried about everybody seeing me find out.”
Ellen flinched.
Claire instantly hated herself for the satisfaction it gave her.
Ethan removed his suit jacket and handed it to no one in particular before realizing there was nobody waiting for it. He folded it over his arm instead.
The ordinary awkwardness of the movement nearly broke Claire.
They had been married for forty-three minutes.
She had spent eighteen months choosing flowers.
She had argued with a stationery company about the shade of cream used on the invitations.
She had cried three nights ago because a seamstress had adjusted the waist of her dress incorrectly.
Now she could not remember why any of that had mattered.
“Where did the picture come from?” Ethan asked.
Claire looked toward the small cream envelope lying near the edge of the dance floor.
He followed her gaze.
“I found the envelope under my plate,” she said. “Right before our dance.”
“Did you see who put it there?”
“No.”
“Was there anything else inside?”
“Just that.”
His jaw tightened.
Claire noticed it and suddenly became furious again.
“You don't get to investigate this like it's happening to somebody else.”
“I'm trying to understand what she wants.”
“Who?”
Ethan did not answer.
Claire turned toward the staircase.
He caught her wrist.
Not hard.
She looked down at his hand until he released her.
“Don't follow her.”
“Why?”
“Because I don't know whether she came here to talk.”
Claire stared at him.
“What else would she come here to do?”
Ethan glanced toward the guests before answering.
“I don't know.”
That was the moment Claire understood that the wedding was over.
Not necessarily the marriage.
She was nowhere near being able to think about the marriage.
But the wedding—the flowers, music, speeches, cake, photographs, all of it—was finished.
She pulled the microphone from the stand beside the quartet.
Her mother whispered, “Claire, don't.”
Claire raised it.
The speakers squealed briefly.
Every face turned toward her.
She had spent months imagining addressing these people at the end of the evening, thanking them for coming from Chicago, Dallas, Seattle, Boston. She had written part of that speech in the Notes app on her phone while sitting on the floor outside a fitting room.
None of it seemed useful now.
“I'm sorry,” she said. “Something private has happened. The reception is over.”
A murmur moved through the room.
Claire continued before anyone could decide they had the right to object.
“The staff will box the food. Please take flowers if you want them. I don't know. Take cake. Take whatever. I just need everyone to leave.”
Her voice finally cracked on the last word.
Rachel came forward immediately.
“Claire—”
“Please.”
Her cousin stopped.
Claire looked at the phones.
“And if anybody posts a video of what just happened before I've figured out what happened, I will never speak to you again.”
A few people lowered their hands.
Not everyone.
That was reality.
Tessa took the microphone from Claire gently and began directing guests toward the lobby in the calm, firm voice of a woman whose professional skill set apparently included evacuating a luxury wedding after the bride assaulted the groom.
Claire stood beside Ethan and watched strangers who had been family ten minutes earlier collect handbags, jackets, favors, and unanswered questions.
Her father should have been there.
That thought came with such simple force that she almost sat down.
Daniel Bennett had died eight years earlier in what the police had described as a single-vehicle accident on a county road outside Richmond, Virginia. His truck had gone through a guardrail shortly after midnight. Rain had been falling. He had been exhausted after working late. His blood alcohol level had been zero.
There had been no reason to call the death suspicious.
Claire had believed that for eight years.
Her father had been a commercial building inspector. He had complained constantly about contractors, permit offices, his knees, and people who bought pickup trucks they did not know how to reverse. He drank instant coffee from the same stained blue thermos for most of Claire's childhood because he claimed good coffee was “a racket.”
He had not seemed like a man with secrets large enough to reach into his daughter's wedding.
Ethan touched her elbow.
“We need to find the security office.”
Claire pulled away.
“You're going to tell me first.”
“I will.”
“Now.”
He looked at Ellen.
Claire saw something pass between them.
That was enough.
“You too,” she said to her mother.
Ellen's lips parted.
“Claire—”
“You're both coming.”
They moved into a bridal lounge off the main ballroom while Tessa handled the departing guests.
The room smelled faintly of hairspray and roses. Half-empty water bottles stood on the counter beside makeup brushes and hairpins. Claire's slippers were under a chair. Her phone lay beside a curling iron where she'd abandoned it before the ceremony.
For some reason, seeing the slippers made her angry.
She picked them up and threw them into a corner.
Ethan closed the door.
Claire turned on him.
“Start.”
He remained standing.
Ellen sat down.
That irritated Claire too.
“Mom, why are you sitting?”
“Because I'm seventy-one years old and my daughter just ended her wedding reception by announcing a possible murder mystery.”
“Dad's death is not a murder mystery.”
Ellen looked at Ethan.
Claire saw it.
“Is it?”
Ethan rubbed his hand over his mouth.
“I don't know.”
“That's a lie.”
“No. That's the part I've been trying to live with.”
Claire almost laughed again.
“The part you've been trying to live with?”
May you like
Ethan looked exhausted suddenly. Older than he had an hour earlier.
“I met your father eleven years ago.”
