Chapter 3: The Woman by the Parking Lot
I showed the message to my husband.
He read it twice.
His jaw tightened.
"Go," he said.
"I've got Lily.
Go find out who that is."
I slipped through the side door.
The night air was cool after the warmth of the reception hall.
The parking lot was half-lit, and for a moment I didn't see anyone.
Then a woman stepped out from beside a black sedan.
She was in her sixties, well-dressed, with careful posture and tired eyes.
She held a small envelope in both hands like it was something fragile.
"You're his wife," she said.
Not a question.
"I am.
Who are you?"
She looked past me toward the hall doors.
"My name is Patricia.
I was Diane's neighbor for eleven years.
Before she moved closer to your husband."
"What do you want, Patricia?"
She held out the envelope.
"I want you to have this before she finds a way to explain it away."
I didn't take it yet.
"What's in it?"
"Photographs.
Dates.
A letter she wrote and never sent." Patricia's voice didn't waver, but her hands did, slightly.
"Diane has been telling people that Lily is not your husband's biological daughter.
She has been saying it to anyone who would listen.
His cousins.
His colleagues.
The people inside that room tonight."
The ground felt unsteady under my heels.
"She's been saying that for how long?"
"Since before Lily could walk."
I took the envelope.
Inside were three photographs.
The first showed Diane at what looked like a family dinner, leaning close to a man I recognized as my husband's cousin, her hand on his arm, her mouth clearly moving.
The second was a screenshot of a text message — Diane's name at the top — sent to someone listed only as R.
The message read: *The child isn't Marcus's.
She knows it and she married him anyway.
I have proof.*
I read it three times.
"What proof?" I said.
"There is no proof.
Because it isn't true."
"I know that," Patricia said quietly.
"But she doesn't need proof.
She just needs people to wonder."
The third item wasn't a photograph.
It was a folded piece of notepaper, handwritten, dated two years ago.
I recognized Diane's handwriting from birthday cards she had never once signed with warmth.
*If Marcus ever finds out what I've done to protect this family from that woman and her child, he will understand.
He has to understand.
She was never right for him.
Lily is the reason he stays.
Remove the reason, remove the problem.*
My hand was shaking by the time I reached the last line.
"Remove the reason, remove the problem." I looked up at Patricia.
"What did she mean by that?"
Patricia pressed her lips together.
"That's what I've been trying to figure out for two years."
A car door slammed somewhere across the lot.
We both turned.
Diane was standing twenty feet away, her ruined gown traded for a coat someone must have brought her, her eyes fixed directly on me and the open envelope in my hand.
She didn't move.
Neither did I.
Then she smiled — small, cold, and completely certain of herself.
"I see you've been talking to Patricia," she said.
May you like
"I should have warned you about her.
She's not well."
