Chapter 7 - The Camera That Didn't Blink
By midnight our guests had gone. Rosa found a stylist who promised not to cut anything without my permission. I agreed.
Nick sat beside me while the stylist gathered the broken ends into a soft twist. “I'm sorry,” he said.
“Don't apologize for what she did.”
“I kept asking you to be patient with her.”
“Yes,” I said. “You did.”
He let the silence stand. It was the first apology he'd given me without adding an excuse for Martha.
Tessa returned with an external drive. “The restaurant said its cameras were down for fifteen minutes,” she said. “But I backed up my own shots, and the band streamed part of the dance.”
She played the recording. In the crowd, Martha leaned toward Vivian. Vivian whispered something, then angled her phone. Martha reached into her purse and opened the scissors she'd brought herself. This hadn't been a quick temper or a stupid joke. She had waited for the crowd to watch.
“Pause,” I said.
A man in a black server's jacket passed behind Martha. He took a folded bill from Vivian and stepped in front of the restaurant's security camera. The camera feed vanished seconds later.
“I know him,” Rosa said. “He's not with the restaurant. He was carrying chairs at the rehearsal dinner.”
Tessa magnified a photograph. On the man's lapel was a round pin: MHC, the company named on Elliot's fraudulent deed.
Nick took out his phone. “I'm calling a lawyer.”
“No more private deals,” I said. “And no sending your mother a warning first.”
“I won't.”
He called attorney Mara Bennett, who agreed to meet us at dawn. Tessa made three copies of the recordings before she left.
As I gathered the wedding flowers, a message appeared on my phone from an unknown number.
May you like
YOUR MOTHER TRIED TO RUIN MARTHA. DON'T MAKE HER MISTAKE.
Attached was a picture of our front porch, taken only minutes earlier.
