Young Girl: My mom is trapped in here!

David took the envelope.

He didn't open it immediately.

He turned it over once, looked at his name on the front, and set it on the hall table.

"She prepared this before the ceremony," Elena said.

"Yes."

"Which means she knew there was a chance the wedding wouldn't happen."

"Or she wanted to make sure that if it didn't, she had the last word." David looked at the envelope.

"Either way, she walked out of here with a plan."

Elena shifted Lily against her shoulder.

"Open it."

He did.

Inside was a single folded card — the kind sold in hotel gift shops, cream-colored, plain.

Nicole's handwriting filled one side.

David read it without expression.

Then he held it out to Elena.

*You think you know what you found.

You don't.

The test in my bag was left there for you to find.

Ask yourself who gave Elena that safety pin.

Ask yourself why she was in that room alone with my things.

Ask yourself what she actually wants.

I love you.

I have always loved you.

But she has been working against us since before we were engaged.

When you're ready to hear the truth, you know how to reach me.

— N*

Elena read it twice.

"She's saying I planted it," Elena said.

"Yes."

"She's saying I staged the whole thing."

"Yes."

Elena looked up.

"David—"

"I know," he said.

"I know you didn't."

"How do you know?"

He looked at her steadily.

"Because Lily found the key.

A six-year-old found the key in her purse.

Nicole is asking me to believe that you orchestrated a conspiracy that required my daughter to perform on cue." He folded the card and put it back in the envelope.

"Nicole is smart.

But she's not thinking clearly right now.

She's angry and she's writing things she thinks sound logical."

Elena let out a slow breath.

"She's going to keep doing this," Elena said.

"She's going to build a version of events where I'm the villain.

And some people will believe her."

"Some people will."

"Your friends.

People who know her better than they know me."

"Probably."

"That doesn't worry you?"

David was quiet for a moment.

"What worries me is Marcus," he said.

"He's four years old and none of this is his fault.

Whatever happens with Nicole and Daniel Marsh — that boy is caught in the middle of it."

Elena looked at him.

That was the thing about David — the thing that had made her love him once, and the thing that had made losing him hurt the way it did.

He always moved toward the person who couldn't protect themselves.

"You should call a solicitor," she said.

"Tonight, if you can.

Before she does."

"I know."

"And you should document everything.

The closet.

The key.

The paper.

Ryan's statement.

The message from Daniel Marsh.

All of it."

"I know, Elena."

"I'm not trying to—"

"I know you're not." He looked at Lily asleep on her shoulder.

"Can you stay?

Not — I don't mean — I just mean, can you stay until I've made a few calls.

I don't want Lily to wake up somewhere unfamiliar."

"Of course."

He nodded.

Picked up his phone.

Then put it back down.

"She was in that closet for forty minutes," he said.

"I timed it afterward.

From when the ceremony started to when Lily found her.

Forty minutes."

Elena said nothing.

"She locked you in a closet for forty minutes on my wedding day," David said.

"And then she wrote me a note telling me you were the problem."

He picked up his phone again.

This time he dialed.

Elena carried Lily to the sitting room at the end of the hall and laid her gently on the sofa.

She pulled a folded blanket from the arm and covered her.

Lily didn't stir.

Elena sat in the chair beside her and listened to David's voice in the hallway — low, controlled, precise — as he began to dismantle the life Nicole had built around him.

She was almost calm.

Until her own phone lit up on the cushion beside her.

Unknown number.

She answered.

"Elena." A man's voice.

Smooth.

Unhurried.

"My name is Daniel Marsh.

I think we should talk.

I know things about Nicole that David doesn't.