Chapter 6: The Message Nathan Never Showed Me
I turned toward Nathan.
“Is that true?”
His silence lasted one second too long.
“I gave her the password months ago.”
My hand slipped from his.
“You said the account was ours.”
“It was.
She needed the florist invoice because she was paying the deposit.”
Isabella tucked the card back into her clutch.
“He trusted me until you taught him not to.”
“Did you change the password?” I asked.
“Yes.
That same night.”
“Then how did she enter it this morning?”
“I don’t know.”
Isabella pulled up a message on her phone.
“Perhaps this will help.”
She showed me a screenshot from Nathan.
The visible words read, “Please handle her.
I can’t keep doing this.”
My chest tightened.
“When did you write that?”
Nathan reached for the phone.
“Let me see the full conversation.”
Isabella pulled it away.
“You know what you wrote.”
“I was talking about the florist.”
“That isn’t what the message says.”
A man in a gray suit left the head table and came toward us.
Nathan introduced him as Caleb, his best man.
“It isn’t the whole message either,” Caleb said.
Isabella’s chin lifted.
“And you would know?”
“Nathan forwarded the conversation to me when you accused the florist of cheating you.”
Caleb opened his own phone and read aloud.
“‘Please handle her invoice directly.
I can’t keep doing this every time Mom changes the flower order and blames the bride.’”
I looked at Nathan.
“You should have told me she still had access.”
“I thought changing the password was enough.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I know.”
Isabella gave a dismissive shrug.
“So he removed a few words.
That doesn’t prove I touched the account today.”
Evan placed his tablet on the table.
“The password was reset at seven forty-six this morning.
A code was sent to the recovery phone ending in four-one-six-eight.”
Ruth recited the full number.
“It’s Isabella’s.”
Nathan faced his mother.
“You reset it while we were getting married.”
“I did no such thing.”
The photographer stepped forward again.
“I photographed the bridal party at seven forty-five.
Isabella was behind us with her phone open.”
“You photograph everyone holding phones.”
“Yes.
But this image shows the reset code on your screen.”
She enlarged the picture.
Six numbers were visible above the wedding account’s name.
Isabella reached for the camera.
“Give me that.”
The photographer stepped back.
“No.”
Isabella grabbed the strap, and Evan caught her wrist before the camera fell.
“Do not touch our vendors,” he said.
“Everyone is conspiring against me!”
A bridesmaid appeared in the doorway.
“The seamstress is on the phone.
She says she needs to speak to the bride.”
I put the call on speaker.
“Are you safe?” the seamstress asked.
“I’m all right.
Why?”
“A woman called my shop last week.
She said she was your mother-in-law.”
Isabella backed toward her table.
“What did she ask you?” Nathan said.
The seamstress hesitated.
“She wanted to know whether the train could be detached.”
“It couldn’t,” I replied.
“We discussed that.”
“I told her the same thing.
Then she asked where the lace was most delicate.”
The photographer lowered her camera.
“Did she say why?”
“She claimed she was worried someone might step on it.”
Nathan’s eyes never left Isabella.
“Do you have the call record?”
“I have more than that.
My shop records business calls, and I saved this one because it felt wrong.”
Isabella shook her head.
“That proves I was concerned.”
“You asked where it would tear,” I said.
“I asked how to protect it.”
“The recording will show which one,” Evan replied.
His assistant hurried toward him and whispered in his ear.
Evan looked toward the hallway leading to the bridal suite.
“We found something else.”
“What?” I asked.
May you like
He turned his tablet around.
“Security footage of Isabella entering the bridal suite while everyone else was outside for photographs.”
