Chapter 4 - The Girl With the Video
Before she arrived at the laundromat, Tessa had tried calling her manager at the catering company. He told her to erase the footage because the Vale family could ruin his business. She asked whether he had watched a woman fall. He hung up.
Tessa replayed the clip six times. At first she looked only at Richard's hand. Then she noticed Margaret's expression just before he reached for her. The older woman was not surprised to see him angry. She seemed to be bracing for something she already knew was coming.
In the corner of the footage, Claire took one step forward and stopped. Her lips moved. Tessa turned up the sound until she could hear three words beneath the guests' chatter: "Dad, not here."
Tessa saved another copy to her late aunt's email account. Rosa had taught her that evidence disappeared most easily when only one frightened person had it. Her aunt had never explained why she was so careful. Tonight, Tessa finally understood.
The caterer called again at midnight. Her name was Tessa Brooks. She sounded twenty-five, exhausted, and terrified.
"I'm at a laundromat on Harbor Street," she said. "Don't bring the bride."
Ethan found her at the back, wearing a hoodie over her catering uniform. A cut marked her cheek.
"Someone followed me from the venue," she said. "I lost him on the bus."
She showed him her phone. The video caught Richard grabbing Margaret's arm, then driving his shoulder into her as she tried to reach the microphone. There was no possible confusion. He had shoved her.
"Send it to me," Ethan said.
"Already backed up. Three places."
Tessa unfolded a creased envelope. "Your mom said if anything happened, I should give this to you. She knew my aunt."
Inside was a storage receipt under Daniel Mercer's name, dated three days before his death, and a photograph of a young Richard beside a warehouse door.
A second man stood in the shadow. His face was partly hidden, but Ethan recognized the watch on his wrist: a thick gold watch with a black face.
Richard still wore that watch.
"Who took this picture?" Ethan asked.
"My aunt. She was a bookkeeper there. She died last month. She left me files."
"What files?"
"Enough to scare somebody."
A black SUV rolled slowly past the window.
Tessa stiffened. "That's him."
Ethan led her through the back exit. They crossed an alley, jumped a low fence, and reached his car as the SUV rounded the block. He drove without headlights for fifty yards, then joined traffic.
His phone rang. Claire.
"Where are you?" she asked.
"Why?"
"Because Dad told me he knows you're with a girl named Tessa."
May you like
Ethan looked in the mirror. The black SUV followed two cars back.
Then Claire said, "He says if you don't bring him what she has, he's going to visit your mother alone."
