Chapter 4: What She Told the Guests
I didn't call the police immediately.
I called my brother first.
Daniel picked up on the second ring.
I could hear the noise of the reception hall below him, glasses and low music and sixty people who had no idea the wedding had just ended before it began.
"Where are you?" he said.
"People are asking."
"Third floor.
Bring Dad's lawyer if he's still here.
Don't tell anyone else."
A pause.
"How bad?"
"Bring the lawyer, Daniel."
I hung up.
Marcus had not moved.
Amanda had sat down on a small chair near the suite door, her bouquet still in her hands, petals starting to drop onto the carpet.
Sophie had not let go of the phone.
"Can I have that?" I asked her gently.
She handed it to me without a word.
I scrolled back through the messages.
There were forty-one of them between Amanda and Marcus going back eleven months.
The earliest one read simply: *He owns it outright.
No mortgage.
We just need the signature.*
Eleven months.
We had been engaged for fourteen.
"Amanda." I kept my voice level.
"Was any of it real?"
She looked up.
For a moment something crossed her face that might have been genuine.
Then it was gone.
"Does it matter now?"
"It matters to me."
"Then yes," she said.
"Parts of it."
"Which parts?"
She looked at Sophie.
"I do like her."
"You recorded yourself saying you'd send her away."
"That was Marcus's idea.
He wanted insurance.
Something to make sure I stayed committed." She said it like it was a reasonable explanation.
Like it made sense.
Marcus shifted near the window.
"Amanda.
Stop talking."
"She's already stopped the wedding," she said to him, flat.
"What exactly are you protecting now?"
Daniel arrived with Raymond Holt, who had been my father's estate attorney for twenty years and mine for the last three.
Raymond was sixty-four, unhurried, and had the kind of face that gave nothing away.
He looked at Marcus the way a man looks at a problem he has already solved before.
"Who are you?" Raymond asked him.
"Marcus Veil.
I represent certain property interests—"
"Do you have a card?"
A beat.
Marcus produced one.
Raymond looked at it for exactly two seconds, then placed it in his breast pocket.
"I'll need to see the document you showed my client."
"Your client can request it through proper channels."
"He's requesting it now.
Through me.
Which is a proper channel." Raymond held out his hand.
Marcus did not move.
"The document," Raymond said again.
Same tone.
Same hand.
Something shifted in Marcus's posture.
He produced the folded pages and placed them in Raymond's hand.
Raymond read slowly.
He turned to page three.
He looked at the signature.
He looked at me.
"Did you sign this?"
"No."
"Were you aware of any power of attorney being granted to Ms.
Amanda Reeves?"
"I was not."
Raymond refolded the document and placed it inside his jacket.
"This is now evidence in a potential fraud matter.
I'll be retaining it."
Marcus's voice dropped.
"You don't have the authority to—"
"I am his legal counsel and he has just verbally authorized me to retain any documents relevant to his property interests." Raymond looked at him calmly.
"You're welcome to challenge that.
I'll be at my office Monday morning."
Marcus looked at Amanda.
She was staring at the floor.
He looked at me.
The easy confidence from earlier had thinned into something colder.
"You're making a mistake," he said.
"I make mistakes," I said.
"Signing that power of attorney was one.
This isn't."
He left without another word.
His footsteps were unhurried all the way down the hall, which was somehow worse than if he had rushed.
Raymond turned to me.
"I need everything.
Every document she ever asked you to sign.
Every form, every insurance paper, every piece of paper that came across your desk in the last year."
"I'll get it."
"Tonight if possible."
Daniel put his hand on my shoulder.
"What do I tell the guests?"
I thought about sixty people downstairs.
Some of them had flown in.
Some had brought children.
All of them had dressed up and driven here and sat in chairs waiting for something that was never going to happen.
"Tell them the truth," I said.
"Tell them the wedding has been called off.
Tell them I'm sorry for the inconvenience and they're welcome to stay for the meal."
"And Amanda?"
I looked at her.
She was still sitting in the chair, bouquet in her lap, not crying, not arguing.
Just sitting there like someone waiting for a bus.
"She'll be leaving," I said.
She stood up slowly.
She set the bouquet on the chair.
She walked to the door and stopped with her hand on the frame.
"For what it's worth," she said, without turning around, "he told me you'd never figure it out."
May you like
She walked out.
Downstairs, I heard the music stop.
