“So you give her mine?”

“I’ll talk to her.”

He talked to her often.

Nothing changed.

At bridal fittings, Evelyn criticized my body.

At family dinners, she mocked my career.

When she learned I was a forensic accountant, she tilted her head across a candlelit table and said, “How masculine.”

She constantly mentioned Vanessa Hartwell.

Beautiful Vanessa.

Harvard-educated Vanessa.

Hartwell-family Vanessa.

Vanessa whose father owned hotels in three countries.

Vanessa who had grown up summering with Daniel in Nantucket.

“Daniel and Vanessa always looked wonderful together,” Evelyn once told me while I was literally wearing my engagement ring.

I smiled.

“Then it’s lucky he’s marrying me instead.”

For just a second, her expression hardened.

I should have understood then that Evelyn Mercer did not consider decisions final simply because someone else had made them.

But standing over the remains of my wedding gown, I understood something else.

She had become careless.

“Don’t touch anything,” I told Daniel.

He stared at me.

“What?”

“Don’t touch the scissors.

Don’t touch the glass.

Don’t even move the fabric.”

“Claire, it’s a dress.”

“No.

It’s evidence.”

I started taking photographs.

The cut patterns.

The scissors.

A muddy heel print near the window.

The disabled alarm panel.

A faint red lipstick mark along the garment bag.

Daniel watched me move around the room.

Then I crossed to a decorative bookshelf and removed a small framed photograph.

Behind it was a motion-activated camera.

Daniel’s eyes widened.

“You installed cameras?”

“Three weeks ago.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

I looked at him.

“Because three weeks ago, someone entered this townhouse while I was gone.”

Daniel frowned.

“What?”

“Nothing was stolen.

But my jewelry had been moved.

A desk drawer was open.

And the envelope containing our wedding contracts wasn’t where I’d left it.”

“You thought it was my mother?”

“I thought it was someone.”

I opened the security application.

The footage began at 10:56 p.m.

There she was.

Evelyn Mercer.

Cream Chanel coat.

Pearl earrings.

Perfect blowout.

She entered the dressing room carrying champagne.

She walked directly toward my gown.

Then she reached into her handbag and removed the crystal-handled scissors.

Daniel sat heavily on the edge of the bed.

“No.”

On the screen, Evelyn lifted the silk between two manicured fingers.

And smiled.

Then she began cutting.

Not angrily.

Not impulsively.

Methodically.

She sliced through the bodice.

Removed one sleeve.

Then the other.

She poured champagne over part of the train.

At one point she actually laughed.

Then her phone rang.

Evelyn answered.

The camera microphone caught her voice clearly.

“She’s too stubborn to walk away on her own.”

A pause.

Then:

“She’ll either cancel tomorrow, or she’ll walk into that ballroom looking like trash.”

Another pause.

Evelyn smiled at the ruined gown.

“Either way, she’ll understand who controls this family.”

Daniel covered his mouth.

I stopped looking at the screen.

I looked at him instead.

His eyes were wet.

Suddenly, the dress seemed almost secondary.

“Daniel.”

He didn’t answer.

“What does she mean by that?”

“Claire—”

“What does she control?”

He stood abruptly and walked toward the window.

Below us, black sedans glided between wet streets.

In less than twelve hours, those cars were supposed to carry us to Royal Crest Estate, a historic mansion overlooking the Atlantic.