Chapter 9 - THE STORY SHE SOLD
On Monday morning, a video appeared online. It showed me laughing beside the pool twenty minutes before Serena shoved me. The caption claimed I'd been drunk, careless, and hungry for attention.
I hadn't touched the champagne. I was pregnant. The glass in my hand held ginger ale.
By noon strangers were calling me a liar. Some accused me of staging the fall to steal the hotel. Others said I should be grateful anyone had helped a woman in a wheelchair.
Owen wanted to put out a furious statement. Leah stopped him.
"Facts," she said. "Not a fight in the comments."
We released a brief acknowledgment of the investigation and asked people not to harass witnesses. It didn't stop Serena from appearing on a local morning show. In a soft cream jacket, she talked about family loyalty and the pain of being misunderstood.
"My brother's wife has been struggling emotionally," she told the host. "I only want her to heal."
I shut the laptop hard enough to scare myself.
Tessa called from outside the catering agency. Her supervisor had turned her away. "They said I falsified my statement."
"Come over," I told her. "We'll call Leah together."
That afternoon, a text appeared in Owen's phone. It was supposedly from me: I'm sorry I blamed Serena. I was confused after the fall.
He brought it downstairs. "Did you send this?"
"No."
The timestamp was eight twenty-one the night of the gala. I had been strapped to a stretcher with an oxygen mask over my face.
The message had come from my old phone, the one I'd left in my handbag behind the ballroom doors.
Owen read it twice.
May you like
"Someone had your phone," he said.
"Someone who knew you would believe whatever they sent from it."
