Chapter 8 - The Price of Silence
By morning, the story had spread across every news site in the city. The interrupted wedding. The million-dollar gown. The hidden capsule. The old fire. Reporters crowded outside Mercer Holdings, shouting questions at anyone who passed.
Claire stayed at a small hotel under police protection. Her wedding makeup had been washed away, but the faint red mark where her veil had rubbed her cheek remained. She looked at it in the mirror and thought of how carefully she'd planned the day.
A knock came.
Lena entered carrying two coffees and a paper bag. “You haven't eaten.”
“I don't think I can.”
“Try.”
Claire accepted the bag. Inside was a plain bagel, still warm.
They sat by the window. For a while, neither spoke.
“Why did you really come to the wedding?” Claire asked.
“To stop you from marrying into the same family that ruined ours.”
“That's not the whole reason.”
Lena stared at her coffee. “I wanted you to look at me and recognize me. Not as a problem. Not as the girl who showed up with bad news. As the person who used to sleep on your bedroom floor because we were afraid of thunderstorms.”
Claire's throat tightened. “I remember.”
“I missed you.”
“I missed you too. But I don't know how to trust you.”
“You don't have to today.”
Claire looked out at the city. “My whole life feels like somebody else's story.”
“Then write the next part yourself.”
A phone buzzed on the table. It was a message from an unknown number.
Ask Daniel what happened to the original fire report.
Claire called Ruiz.
The detective arrived twenty minutes later and examined the message. “We found a report in the city archive. It was altered six days after the fire. The original pages are missing.”
“Who altered it?”
“We're checking.”
Lena leaned forward. “Margaret.”
“Maybe,” Ruiz said. “But we need proof.”
Claire remembered the display screen in the ballroom, the wedding slideshow, the way Margaret had stood beside Daniel as if she owned every inch of the room.
“Where would she keep something she couldn't destroy?” Claire asked.
Daniel, who had been silent by the door, answered.
“My father's yacht.”
He looked at Claire. “There's a locked cabinet in the captain's quarters. My mother kept his private files there.”
Ruiz stood. “Then that's where we're going.”
Daniel's phone rang.
He checked the screen and went pale.
It was Margaret.
He answered on speaker.
“Come alone,” she said. “Or the next person who gets hurt will be Claire.”
May you like
The rain followed them into the city, streaking the car windows. Claire watched the lights smear across the glass. She wanted to hate Daniel cleanly, without remembering his laugh or the nights he had stayed awake beside her. But real life did not arrange pain into neat piles. It left the good moments where they were and asked her to carry them beside the bad ones.
THE DRESS FULL OF SECRETS |
