Chapter 3
Marjorie remained beside the table, looking at the blank screen.
"Who paid for room 614?" she asked.
Avery glanced at Grant.
It was quick enough that I might have missed it if I had still been looking at Reed.
Upstairs, Wendy met us outside the bridal suite. She carried my purse, which I had left beneath my chair, and the ivory shawl my aunt had brought.
"There's something you should know," she said quietly.
I waited.
"Grant emailed me before Avery's toast. He said there might be an announcement and asked me to prepare the cancellation paperwork."
"Before?"
"Twenty-six minutes before."
Joan's hand tightened around mine.
The man who had offered to rescue me had known I would need rescuing before the rest of the room knew anything was wrong.
PART 2 — THE SECRET I ALREADY KNEW
Joan closed the curtains even though the lake outside was dark.
"Do you want me to stay?"
I nodded. At thirty-seven, I could prepare a financial presentation for a skeptical board without trembling, but I could not seem to operate the clasp on my bracelet.
She opened it for me.
My wedding dress hung inside its white garment bag beside the window. Avery had helped me choose it, standing behind me in the bridal shop while I cried because my mother should have been there.
"She would be so proud," Avery had told me.
Now I wondered how many of her kindnesses had been rehearsal.
When Reed knocked, Joan let him in and stayed near the sitting-room door.
He set his phone on the table without being asked.
"You can look at anything," he said.
"First, tell me where you were that night. From the beginning."
The bachelor weekend had been organized early because two of his friends worked overseas. Grant had arranged dinner at the hotel and transportation to a brewery.
Before the group left, Marjorie called Reed. Her heart was racing, she felt light-headed, and her physician wanted her evaluated at the regional medical center near her sister's house, where she was staying.
Reed drove there. He remained until she was discharged after midnight, then took her home.
"I called you from the parking lot," he said.
I remembered. I had offered to come, but he had told me his mother was stable and he would update me.
"And Avery?"
"I saw her in the lobby before I left. She said she was dropping something off for you."