Chapter 6 - ST. CATHERINE’S
Alexander was not allowed inside at first.
Margaret had told officers she feared him.
So he waited in a patrol car across the street.
Margaret asked for a woman she had seen on the hotel footage: me.
I entered the church basement slowly.
Margaret looked thinner than the woman in Alexander’s old wedding photos.
Her hair was cut short.
She kept one hand over her belly.
“I’m Maria,” I said.
“I know.”
Her voice was weak.
“Is Alexander here?”
“Yes.”
She tensed.
“He can’t come in.”
“He won’t unless you ask.”
That mattered.
She looked at me.
“Is Vanessa really his wife?”
“Yes.”
Margaret flinched.
“They told me he married her six weeks after I died.”
“No. It was much later.”
“They said he celebrated.”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
Then she asked:
She breathed slowly.
Then told me what she remembered.
Three years earlier, her flight to Boston diverted after a mechanical warning. She woke in a private clinic with Rowan and Cynthia, who told her the plane later crashed, Alexander was suspected of causing it, and he wanted her presumed dead.
“Why didn’t you call anyone?”
“I tried.”
She looked ashamed.
“They showed me recordings.”
“What recordings?”
“Alexander saying he wished I would disappear.”
My stomach tightened.
A sentence like that could come from anywhere.
An argument.
A bad night.
A lie built from fragments.
Margaret reached into her coat pocket.
“I escaped because Lily said the belly was fake.”
I stared.
“How did you know?”
“Cynthia showed me the ballroom stream.”
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She wanted Margaret to watch Vanessa become the public mother of her child.
Instead, Lily shattered the lie in one sentence.
