Chapter 4 - The Bride's Sister
Firefighters reached the elevator in nine minutes. Claire counted every one. Adrian tried to persuade the dispatcher that the call was a misunderstanding, but Nina had already recorded the pounding on her phone.
When the doors finally opened, Lucy was sitting against a crate of table linens. There were angry red marks around one wrist. She had a bruised cheek, a split lip, and enough strength to point directly at Grant.
"He shoved me in," she said.
Grant laughed. "She's confused."
"Tell that to the police," Claire answered.
A uniformed officer led Grant aside. Eleanor appeared at the corridor entrance and performed a perfect expression of concern.
"Lucy, darling. How dreadful."
Lucy recoiled.
"Please," she said to Claire. "Not here."
Paramedics checked Lucy while Claire called her younger sister, Sophie, who had been absent from the wedding because of a stomach illness.
Sophie answered on the first ring. "Are you safe?"
The question stopped Claire cold. "Why would you ask that?"
"Because Lucy sent me a file an hour ago, and then she stopped answering."
"You know Lucy?"
"I hired her to look into Adrian."
Claire closed her eyes. "You investigated my fiancé?"
"I tried to tell you. You said I was jealous."
Claire remembered that argument, and the silence afterward. It tasted worse than the humiliation she'd just suffered.
"What did she find?" Claire asked.
Sophie's voice shook. "A woman named Hannah Price. She married into the Vales six years ago. Three months later, she died in a boating accident. Only there was no accident report where there should have been one."
Claire stared toward Eleanor, who was whispering fiercely to Adrian.
May you like
"What does Hannah have to do with me?"
"Claire," Sophie said, "Hannah was Adrian's first wife."
