Chapter 3 - The Part I Hadn’t Heard
Nathan’s face collapsed.
“That’s not me.”
Nobody believed him.
Not even his mother.
Victoria turned slowly toward him. “Nathan.”
He raised both hands. “I said that earlier. It must have recorded something from inside. Emma had her phone all night.”
I stared at him.
He was right about one thing. My phone had been recording longer than I realized.
I had started a voice memo in the powder room because I wanted to rehearse a speech for our engagement video. I never stopped it. When I slipped the phone into the hidden pocket of my gown, it kept recording.
That accident might have saved my life.
Detective Ortiz asked, “Where were you twenty-seven minutes ago?”
Nathan swallowed. “Inside.”
“With whom?”
“Everyone.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Richard cut in. “He was at his own engagement party. There are two hundred witnesses.”
I looked around.
Nobody spoke.
Ortiz noticed.
“Mr. Vale, I’m asking your son.”
Nathan rubbed his jaw. “I was in the library for maybe five minutes.”
“With whom?”
“My mother came in.”
Victoria snapped, “I did not.”
The silence after that was ugly.
Nathan looked at her like she had slapped him.
“You did.”
“No.”
“You asked me where Emma was.”
Victoria’s polished face hardened. “You’re mistaken.”
For the first time, I understood something that should have been obvious years ago.
The Vales did not love each other.
They covered for each other until the cover became dangerous. Then they picked the person easiest to sacrifice.
Tonight, they were already choosing.
Ortiz asked me to walk her through what happened outside.
I told her I had received a text from Nathan’s number: Meet me by the lake. Need five quiet minutes.
Nathan frowned. “I never sent that.”
I showed him the message.
His number. His contact photo. His usual punctuation.
He looked genuinely confused.
That scared me more than if he had admitted it.
“I went outside,” I continued. “The SUV was parked by the service path. Victoria was near it.”
Victoria laughed once. “That’s a lie.”
“Your dress is stained.”
“It’s wine.”
“Then why is there mud under the hem?”
Everyone looked down.
Victoria did too.
A dark stripe of wet dirt marked the underside of her gown.
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
I told Ortiz about the hand on my back. The sudden shove. My heel breaking. My body rolling through wet grass and stone. I remembered grabbing a branch. I remembered someone above me saying, “Don’t go down there.”
Then another voice saying, “Leave her.”
Ortiz stopped writing.
“Did you recognize the voices?”
“One was Victoria.”
“And the other?”
I looked at Nathan.
“I thought it was him.”
His eyes filled with something that looked like pain.
Then Detective Ortiz’s partner approached and whispered in her ear.
She looked toward the driveway.
“The SUV is registered to Vale Security Holdings,” she said.
Richard’s company.
Nathan closed his eyes.
May you like
Ortiz wasn’t finished.
“And there’s blood in the back seat.”
