She struggled.
“I’m sorry.”
I looked at her pale-gold gown.
At the face that had appeared beside my husband’s in my bed.
“You enjoyed hurting me.”
She looked down.
“Yes.”
The honesty surprised me.
“At first, I did.”
“Why?”
“Because he made me believe you were cruel to him.
That you controlled his life.
That you humiliated him.
That the marriage had been dead for years.”
“The standard story.”
“Yes.”
“And you believed him.”
“I wanted to.”
That answer was better than an excuse.
She continued.
“When I realized what he’d done with Northstar, I panicked.
I thought about going directly to the police, but I had no idea who I could trust.
He knew lawyers.
Board members.
Investigators.”
She looked toward the door Ryan had disappeared through.
“So I did the one thing I knew would force you to start looking.”
“You sent me photographs from my bedroom.”
“Yes.”
“You could have simply told me.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because Ryan was monitoring your communications.”
I froze.
“What?”
“He had access to your cloud backup.
Michael showed me.”
A cold sensation crawled through me.
“If I sent you a message saying Michael was stealing company money, he would have seen it.”
I thought of every screenshot I’d taken.
Every phone call.
Every step.
“But photographs?”
“She swallowed.
“Michael expected those.”
My heart accelerated.
“He expected you to send them?”
“He ordered me to.”
I understood.
The cruel messages had served two purposes.
Michael believed Brittany was baiting me.
Brittany was also using Michael’s own trap to warn me.
But something still bothered me.
“Why tell me my phone should be charged?”
She blinked.
“You told me that.”
“No.
Your last message.
‘Tonight will be the last time he pretends.’”
“That came from Michael.”
I stared at her.
“He sent it?”
“He took my phone before the ceremony.”
A chill moved through me.
Then who had been communicating with whom?
My mind raced backward.
Three photographs.
Cruel messages.
Ryan’s investigation.
Northstar.
The trust.
The staged meltdown.
Too many pieces had aligned perfectly.
Almost perfectly.
Then Brittany said:
“There’s one thing you still don’t know.”
Of course there was.
She reached into her bag.
Not the flash drive this time.
An envelope.
Old.
Cream-colored.
My name written across the front.
I recognized the handwriting instantly.
My knees nearly gave way.
My father.
James Whitmore had been dead for eleven years.
“Where did you get that?”
Brittany whispered:
“Michael’s safe.”
I took it.
My fingers trembled.
The envelope was sealed.
Across the back my father had written:
TO CLAIRE — IF MICHAEL EVER TRIES TO TAKE CONTROL OF THE TRUST
I forgot how to breathe.
I opened it alone in the bridal suite.
My ivory dress covered the sofa.
My bouquet lay abandoned near the mirror.
Music still drifted faintly upward from the ballroom because, somehow, the hotel had continued serving champagne after my marriage exploded.
Inside the envelope were four pages.
My father’s handwriting filled each one.
Claire,
If you are reading this, then I was right about Michael.
Tears blurred the page.
I kept reading.
My father explained that, months before his death, he had discovered irregular transfers from one of Carter Global’s early investment accounts.
