Chapter 1 - The Fall

"GET YOUR HANDS OFF MY MOTHER!"

Ethan Mercer shouted too late.

His mother was already falling.

Margaret Mercer, sixty-eight, stumbled backward beside the wedding microphone. Her powder-blue dress caught the sunlight. Her cane slid across the grass, and for one terrible second she reached for the man who had pushed her.

He didn't reach back.

Richard Vale stood straight in his charcoal suit, his expression cold enough to make the warm California afternoon feel like winter.

Margaret hit the ground hard.

The string quartet stopped in the middle of a song.

"Mom!" Ethan sprinted from the flower-covered arch. He dropped to his knees, tuxedo trousers soaking up water from the lawn. "Don't move. Look at me."

Margaret's eyes fluttered. "The envelope," she whispered.

"What?"

"Don't let him take it."

Richard stepped toward them. "She's confused. She has episodes. Give her some air."

"You grabbed her," Ethan said.

"I kept her from falling."

"I watched you push her."

Ethan's bride, Claire, stood behind him in white lace. Her hands trembled against her skirt. But she was looking at her father, not Margaret.

Richard stared back at his daughter. A silent warning passed between them.

"Call an ambulance," Ethan told the guests.

No one moved until his best friend, Jonah, pulled out his phone.

Margaret grasped Ethan's wrist with surprising strength. Her fingernails dug into his skin.

"Your father didn't die the way they told you."

Ethan leaned closer. "Mom, what are you saying?"

Richard's composure broke for half a second. He lunged for her purse.

Claire caught his sleeve. "Dad. Stop."

He shook her off and opened the purse anyway. A lipstick, tissues, and an old photograph spilled onto the grass. There was no envelope.

"Where is it?" Richard asked Margaret.

Ethan stood and shoved himself between them. "Back away."

Across the lawn, a woman in a catering uniform lowered her phone. She had filmed everything, but she wasn't looking at the fallen woman anymore.

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She was looking at the photograph.

Then she turned and ran.