Chapter 3 - THE PHOTO FROM OUR DRIVEWAY
The photograph had been taken less than ten minutes earlier.
Our front porch. Our mailbox. Our dark living-room windows.
Under it, Diane had written one sentence:
YOU SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT ABOUT WHAT I KNOW BEFORE YOU HUMILIATED ME.
My stomach tightened.
"How could she have taken this?" I asked. "She's standing outside the ballroom."
Mark zoomed in.
"She didn't. Someone else did."
Rachel's new husband, Ben, came over. "What's going on?"
Mark showed him the phone.
Ben stopped smiling. "Call the police."
I already was.
Then another message appeared.
CHECK THE BLUE FOLDER IN YOUR OFFICE.
Mark and I looked at each other.
"What blue folder?" I asked.
"I don't know."
Rachel took Lily from me and crouched to her level. "You and Uncle Ben are going to stay right here with me, okay?"
Lily nodded, still clutching the replacement cupcake in both hands.
"I'm coming with you," Rachel said.
"No," I told her. "This is your wedding."
She gave me a look I had known since childhood. The one that meant the discussion was over.
"Someone threatened my sister at my reception. The wedding can survive without me for twenty minutes."
The police reached our street before we did.
Nothing appeared broken.
No forced door. No shattered window.
But the alarm had been disabled with a valid family code.
Only four people had that code.
Mark. Me. My father.
And Diane.
Inside, nothing looked disturbed until we reached Mark's office.
A blue folder sat in the center of his desk.
It had not been there when we left.
Mark opened it.
The first page was a photocopy of our mortgage.
The second was a bank statement.
The third was a document carrying Mark's signature.
He stared at it for several seconds.
"I never signed this."
I read the title.
May you like
PERSONAL GUARANTY AGREEMENT — $480,000.
And the borrower listed underneath was Diane.
