Chapter 3: What Brenda Wrote Before the Wedding
Gerald didn't hand me the envelope right away.
He stood in the doorway holding it at his side, looking at me the way a man looks when he has been carrying something heavy for too long and doesn't know how to set it down.
"You should come away from the window," he said.
"I'm fine where I am." I didn't move.
"What's in the envelope, Gerald?"
He stepped inside and pulled the door almost closed behind him.
Not all the way.
I noticed that.
He left it open exactly enough that someone passing in the hall could push it wide in a second.
"Brenda wrote this four months ago," he said.
"Before the engagement was announced.
Before Derek had even told us he was planning to propose."
"Four months ago I had never met Brenda."
"I know."
"Then how does she know my name?"
He finally held the envelope out.
I took it.
The paper inside was cream-colored stationery, the kind bought to feel important.
Two pages.
Handwritten in the same careful cursive I had seen on the place cards at last night's rehearsal dinner.
I read the first paragraph and felt the floor shift under me.
It was a letter to Derek.
Written as instructions.
*Her family has money.
Real money, not the kind they talk about.
The kind they keep quiet.
If you handle this correctly, the prenuptial agreement becomes irrelevant within eighteen months.
Here is what you need to do first.*
I looked up at Gerald.
"She planned this," I said.
"Before the wedding.
Before the engagement."
"Before he proposed," Gerald said.
"Yes."
"Did Derek follow these instructions?"
Gerald's jaw moved.
He didn't answer immediately, and that was its own answer.
"Gerald." My voice came out steadier than I expected.
"Did my husband marry me because Brenda told him to?"
"It's more complicated than—"
"Did he?"
The silence lasted four full seconds.
"He was in debt," Gerald said finally.
"Significant debt.
Brenda found out about your family's assets eighteen months ago through someone at the county records office.
She brought Derek a plan.
He was — he was already in trouble, Chloe.
He wasn't thinking clearly."
"He was thinking clearly enough to propose.
Clearly enough to say vows.
Clearly enough to lock me in a bedroom this morning."
Gerald flinched.
I looked back at the letter.
The second page was worse.
It listed my family's properties by address.
Our business holdings.
The name of my father's attorney.
It noted that I was an only child and that my parents were in their late sixties.
Brenda had done research.
Careful, deliberate, months-long research.
On me.
On my family.
Before I had ever sat across a dinner table from her and let her tell me how lovely my hair looked.
"There's something else," Gerald said.
I looked up.
"The notification on your phone." He nodded toward my hand.
"The one that came while you were up here.
I think I know who sent it."
"You think?"
"His name is Paul Whitmore.
He's a private investigator.
I hired him six weeks ago."
The room went very quiet.
"You hired someone to investigate your own son," I said.
"I hired someone to find out what Brenda was doing.
I didn't know how deep it went until two days ago." He sat down on the edge of the chair near the window, suddenly looking every one of his seventy-one years.
"I should have come to you sooner.
I know that."
"Why didn't you?"
"Because I kept hoping I was wrong." He pressed both hands flat on his knees.
"I wasn't wrong."
I folded the letter carefully and put it back in the envelope.
"What exactly did Paul document?"
"Financial records.
Text messages between Derek and Brenda going back fourteen months.
A recorded phone call from three weeks before the wedding where Brenda tells Derek, and I'm quoting her directly, that once the marriage is six months old he should begin the process of having you declared financially incompetent."
The word landed like something physical.
"She wanted control of my family's money," I said.
"She wanted Derek to have control of it.
Which meant she would have control of it."
I put the envelope in my backpack next to the marriage certificate.
"Does Derek know you hired Paul?"
"No."
"Does Brenda?"
Gerald hesitated.
"I don't know.
She's — she's been watching me more carefully the last two weeks.
I may have been less careful than I should have been."
Downstairs, a door opened.
Voices.
Derek's laugh, loud and easy, the laugh of a man who believed everything was still going exactly as planned.
Gerald stood up quickly.
"Chloe." His voice dropped.
"Whatever you're going to do — do it before he comes up those stairs."
I looked at the door.
Then I looked at my phone.
Paul Whitmore had sent a third message while Gerald and I had been talking.
*"I'm parked on the street.
Say the word."*
May you like
I typed two letters back.
*Go.*
