Victoria looked ready to kill her.
Lila continued.
“She said once you were married, the trust issue would become complicated unless she had proof you had transferred your interest beforehand.”
“So you encouraged her.”
Lila nodded.
“I told her you’d never sign anything voluntarily.”
“That part was true,” Mom snapped.
Lila ignored her.
“I told her the only way was to make it look like you already had.”
My skin prickled.
“And the dress?”
“That was her idea.”
Lila almost smiled through her tears.
“She said nobody searches a bride.”
The ballroom reacted with a wave of horrified murmuring.
I looked at the enormous gown.
All those crystals.
All those layers.
Not fashion.
Camouflage.
Lila continued.
“When she decided to replace your gown, I realized she might hide the documents in it. So I played along.”
My anger toward her twisted into something much more painful.
“You let me think you betrayed me.”
“I had to.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Her eyes closed.
“You’re right.”
That surprised me.
She didn’t defend herself.
“I could have warned you. But I was scared. If Mom suspected anything, she would destroy the originals and blame everything on accountants or attorneys.”
She looked down.
“So I became what she expected me to be.”
The obedient daughter.
The shallow little sister.
The one filming everything.
The accomplice.
I remembered all the years I resented Lila for seeming to enjoy Mom’s approval.
I had escaped first.
College.
Career.
Another city.
Lila had stayed.
Maybe what looked like privilege from a distance had actually been proximity to the cage.
Mom laughed suddenly.
A sharp, ugly sound.
“This is unbelievable. You two are standing there acting abused because you were given everything.”
Lila turned.
“Everything except choices.”
Victoria stared at her.
Then Lila delivered the blow I think hurt her most.
“I’d rather be poor than become you.”
Mom slapped her.
The crack echoed beneath the chandeliers.
I moved before I thought.
So did Daniel.
But the woman in the navy suit reached Mom first.
She caught her wrist.
“That’s enough, Mrs. Monroe.”
Victoria jerked free.
“Who are you?”
The woman removed a badge.
“Special Agent Dana Reeves, South Carolina Law Enforcement Division, Financial Crimes Unit.”
The ballroom exploded.
Camera phones rose higher.
Victoria looked at Marcus.
“You said you didn’t call them.”
“I didn’t.”
Slowly, everyone turned toward Lila.
She shook her head.
“Neither did I.”
Then the ballroom doors opened.
And a woman entered.
For one impossible second, my mind refused to recognize her.
She walked slowly with a cane.
Silver hair swept into a neat twist.
Black dress.
Pearls.
Straight shoulders despite her age.
The room blurred.
Someone screamed softly.
Maybe me.
Because I knew that face.
I had kissed it goodbye in a hospital room three years earlier.
I had stood beside a coffin.
I had watched that coffin lowered into the earth.
“Grandmother?”
Eleanor Monroe stopped inside the ballroom.
My mother made a sound I had never heard from another human being.
“No.”
Grandmother looked directly at her.
“Hello, Victoria.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Daniel caught me.
I could not breathe.
This was impossible.
I had seen her body.
Hadn’t I?
I remembered the hospice room.
The dim lights.
Mom insisting I not touch Grandmother because “she looks different.”
The closed casket at the funeral.
Wait.
Closed casket.
I stared at the woman walking toward me.
Older.
Thinner.
But unmistakably Eleanor.
The same blue-gray eyes.
The same slight tilt of her mouth.
The same cane with the silver fox handle she had carried since I was a child.
