Nate moved between them.
“Somebody tell me what is happening.”
Margaret looked at her son.
“Simon wasn’t Olivia’s husband.”
Silence.
Nate stared.
“But the certificate—”
“Legal.”
Margaret nodded.
“The marriage was legal.”
“Then what are you saying?”
Margaret looked at Evelyn.
“It was arranged.”
Evelyn’s stomach dropped.
“Arranged by whom?”
Margaret answered.
“Your father.”
Nobody moved.
Nate whispered, “Dad?”
“Simon had discovered Charles’s financial crimes. Your father needed leverage over him.”
Margaret swallowed.
“Olivia worked for Charles.”
Nate turned toward his bride.
Olivia didn’t deny it.
“She was twenty-three,” Margaret continued. “Smart. Ambitious. Deep in debt after her mother became ill. Charles offered to pay everything if she helped him.”
“Helped him how?”
“By marrying Simon.”
Nate looked sick.
“Why?”
“So she could access his records. His communications. His evidence.”
Olivia whispered, “I didn’t know what Charles intended.”
Margaret looked at her.
“Not at first.”
Nate backed away.
“Simon died.”
Nobody answered.
He looked from his mother to Olivia.
“Simon died.”
Olivia’s voice broke.
“Yes.”
“Did my father kill him?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
Olivia stared at him.
“No.”
“Then who did?”
Margaret whispered:
“Simon wasn’t murdered.”
Evelyn frowned.
“But the toxicology—”
“Simon was sick.”
Margaret’s eyes filled with tears.
“Terminally ill.”
The room went utterly still.
“Pancreatic cancer. He had months.”
Evelyn looked at the screen.
“But the chemicals in his blood?”
“Medication.”
“Then why hide everything?”
Margaret looked toward Olivia.
“Because Simon discovered something before he died.”
Olivia lowered her head.
“What?” Nate asked.
Margaret took a breath.
“He discovered that Charles wasn’t the only person stealing money.”
Evelyn’s throat tightened.
“Who else?”
Margaret looked at her daughter.
Not Nate.
Evelyn.
For one terrible second, Evelyn couldn’t understand why.
Then Margaret whispered:
“Your husband.”
Evelyn stopped breathing.
Her husband, David Cross, had died four years earlier.
A boating accident.
She still wore his wedding ring on a chain beneath her dress.
“No.”
Margaret nodded.
“David was working with your father.”
“No.”
“Evelyn—”
“No.”
“Simon found the transfers.”
Evelyn’s hands began trembling.
“David hated Dad.”
“That was part of the cover.”
Evelyn stepped backward.
“No.”
Margaret continued softly.
“After Charles died, David kept moving money.”
Evelyn stared at her mother.
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
The ballroom disappeared around her.
She remembered David laughing in their kitchen.
David bringing her coffee.
David kissing her forehead before leaving for the marina.
David’s funeral.
The closed coffin.
The closed coffin.
Evelyn froze.
A strange thought entered her mind.
Small.
Impossible.
Terrifying.
“Mom.”
Margaret looked at her.
“Why was David’s coffin closed?”
Margaret said nothing.
Evelyn felt something inside her crack.
“Why?”
Olivia suddenly whispered:
“Because there was no body.”
Evelyn turned.
The world tilted.
“What?”
Nate stared at Olivia.
Margaret’s face crumpled.
