Chapter 1 - THE SPLASH THAT STOPPED THE MUSIC
My daughter-in-law pushed me into a swimming pool at her wedding, and while I was choking on water, she laughed.
I was sixty-two. My right shoulder had been injured for six weeks. Paige knew both facts.
I hit the water sideways, felt a bright, ripping pain, and reached for the edge with the only arm that worked. Someone screamed. My dusty-blue dress dragged at my knees. Above me, white roses shook in the breeze, as if nothing terrible had happened.
“Mom!” Ryan shouted.
My son dropped to the limestone deck. Two guests pulled me up while he supported my back. His tuxedo soaked through as he knelt beside me.
“Where does it hurt?”
“My shoulder. Don't lift it.”
He called for an ambulance. Paige stood nearby in a perfect ivory gown, one hand over her mouth. I might have believed her expression if I hadn't seen the smile behind it.
“Oh my God, Marissa,” she said. “Your face.”
She laughed. Ryan looked up so sharply she stopped.
“It was an accident,” Paige said. “She stepped right into me.”
“No,” I whispered. “You stepped into me.”
I remembered the hard strike of her shoulder against mine, the shift of her hip, and the empty air under my foot. I had moved aside to let her pass. She had followed me.
A woman draped a towel around me. Ryan told me not to move. For the first time since his father died, I saw my son look genuinely afraid.
As the staff cleared a path, Paige caught the arm of Brooke, her maid of honor.
“She'll be fine,” Paige muttered. “At least she won't ruin the announcement now.”
Brooke flinched. “You knew she was hurt.”
“That was the point.”
Ryan stopped walking.
He turned around slowly. “What did you just say?”
May you like
Paige's face went white. Brooke stared at the tiles.
And I understood that the shove hadn't been the beginning of whatever Paige had planned. It had been the backup plan.
