Chapter 8: The Envelope Opened
The reception wound down slowly the way expensive weddings do — gradually, reluctantly, with people lingering over dessert and the band playing quieter songs.
I finished my work.
I packed my equipment.
I said a professional goodbye to the coordinator, who thanked me and handed me an envelope with the payment in cash.
I almost laughed at the word envelope.
Before I left, I retrieved Julian's envelope from beneath the sweetheart table arrangement.
Adrian and Priya had moved to the dance floor.
Neither of them saw me reach underneath the flowers and slide it out.
I photographed every page in the parking lot, standing under a lamp post, sending them to Diane one by one.
When the last image sent, my phone buzzed immediately.
*Got them.
This is enough to start.
Thank you.*
I sat in my car for a while.
The venue lights were still on.
I could see shadows moving behind the frosted glass — guests leaving, staff clearing tables, the last slow dance ending.
My phone rang.
Julian.
"Are you still here?" he asked.
"Parking lot."
"I'll come out."
He appeared two minutes later, his jacket off, his tie loosened.
He looked exhausted in the way people look when they've been carrying something for too long and have finally set it down.
He got into the passenger seat without asking.
"Diane called me," he said.
"She asked for the filing access."
"Will you give it to her?"
"I already sent it." He looked straight ahead.
"I want you to know — I tried to stop it.
The funeral.
When my father told me the plan, I told him it was wrong.
He told me if I interfered, he would make sure Adrian's charges landed on me instead.
That he had enough documentation to make it look like I was the one who'd been taking the money."
I absorbed that.
"So you stayed quiet."
"I stayed quiet." His voice didn't ask for forgiveness.
It just stated the fact.
"I've been staying quiet for three months and I've hated every day of it."
"Why now?"
"Because he's doing it again.
The merger, the asset movement — he's setting it up so that when it eventually unravels, and it will unravel, Julian Parker is the name on the documents." He turned to look at me.
"I'm not noble, Meredith.
I want you to know that.
I'm not doing this because it's right.
I'm doing it because he was going to do to me what he did to Diane."
"I know."
"You're not angry?"
"I'm angry at a lot of things tonight.
You're not at the top of the list."
He nodded slowly.
"What happens now?" he asked.
"Diane files within two weeks.
After that, it moves on its own."
"And Adrian?"
I thought about Adrian on the dance floor.
The suit.
The smile.
The ranunculus in his lapel.
"Diane said there may be separate legal options for what was done to me specifically.
The funeral, the deception.
I'm going to look into it."
Julian was quiet for a moment.
"He's going to say he was coerced by our father."
"He probably was.
Partly."
"Does that matter to you?"
I considered the question honestly.
"It matters for how much I blame him versus your father.
It doesn't change what he let happen." I looked out at the venue.
"He could have called me.
At any point in three months, he could have found a way to let me know he was alive.
He didn't."
Julian had no answer for that.
"Go back inside," I said.
"Don't change anything tonight.
Act normal."
"And you?"
"I'm going home." I started the car.
"I have work tomorrow."
He got out.
Paused with the door open.
"Meredith.
I'm sorry.
For my part in it."
I looked at him.
"I know you are," I said.
He closed the door.
I drove home with the windows down, the night air cold and clean against my face, the envelope on the passenger seat.
May you like
Two weeks, I thought.
Then Gerald Parker would learn what it felt like when a plan came apart.
