Chapter 2 - The Second DressLena stared at me.
“What did he say?”
“That Vanessa can’t leave.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“It’s the only one we have time for.”
My wedding coordinator knocked.
“Claire? We have fifty-eight minutes.”
I opened the garment closet.
Behind my ruined silk gown hung a second dress.
Simple.
White satin.
No lace.
No crystal embroidery.
No eighteen-thousand-dollar price tag.
Lena blinked.
“You bought a backup?”
“Three weeks ago.”
“You knew Vanessa would do something?”
“No.”
I looked at the stained dress.
“I knew she might.”
That was the saddest part.
I had planned my wedding around the possibility that my own sister would try to hurt me.
Lena helped me change.
Downstairs, two hundred guests were drinking champagne beneath chandeliers.
Daniel was waiting in the ballroom.
Vanessa was somewhere among them.
And Andrew Hale was driving toward the venue with an investigator and a forensic accountant.
I opened my secure folder again.
Eight months earlier, I had noticed a seventy-five-thousand-dollar transfer from Collins Design Group, the company my mother founded and left equally to Vanessa and me.
The authorization carried my digital signature.
I had never approved it.
Vanessa called it a bookkeeping mistake.
Then another transfer appeared.
Then another.
Always small enough to explain.
Always large enough to matter.
When I asked questions, Vanessa cried.
When I kept asking, she got angry.
When I hired Andrew, she became charming.
That was when I knew.
Lena zipped my second dress.
“You look better in this one.”
I laughed.
“That’s a lie.”
“It’s a useful lie.”
My phone buzzed.
Daniel.
Are you okay?
I typed:
Yes. Don’t come upstairs. Trust me for one hour.
His reply came immediately.
Always.
I almost cried.
Then another message appeared.
Unknown number.
A photo.
Vanessa standing in the parking lot beside a black SUV.
Talking to Martin Cole.
Our company’s chief financial officer.
Under the image:
SHE’S TRYING TO LEAVE.
I grabbed Lena’s hand.
“Get security.”
Before she reached the door, someone knocked three times.
Not the coordinator.
Not Daniel.
A man’s voice said:
“Claire, open up. It’s Martin.”
Lena went pale.
I looked at the hidden phone in my hand.
May you like
Martin was supposed to be downstairs.
So who had sent the photograph?
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