Chapter 3 - A Marriage Built on Threats
Emmett read the message twice.
He had been a patient man since Phoebe died, sometimes patient to the point of surrender, but I had never seen him look so confused.
“Why did she write that?” I asked.
He locked his phone.
“Because she's angry.”
It was the sort of answer people give when the truth is still taking shape.
Inside the ballroom, the band began another song.
We could hear laughter as though the evening remained exactly what the guests had expected.
Margot asked if she could have some water.
I took her toward a quiet service station while Emmett returned to the library.
A server filled a paper cup and smiled kindly at her.
She thanked him in the careful little voice she used when she wanted to be no trouble.
It nearly broke me.
Near the kitchen doors, the photographer approached carrying two cameras.
“Mr. Bennett?” she asked.
“My name is Lena Morales.”
She kept her voice low.
“I think you should know I was told not to photograph Margot.”
My grip tightened around the paper cup.
“Who told you?”
“Claire sent me a revised family shot list yesterday.”
Lena opened an email on her phone.
I saw the names of Claire's mother and father, her sister, cousins, and three people I'd never met.
Under a separate heading, there was a single line.
Do not include the groom's daughter in formal family portraits unless expressly requested by the bride.
“Can you preserve that email?” I asked.
“Absolutely.”
A second message on the screen showed a request from Vivian to keep Margot away from the bridal suite.
The conspiracy was not a single careless sentence.
It had been planned.
Lena looked toward Margot, who was tracing circles in a drop of water on the counter.
“I didn't know why they wanted it,” the photographer said.
“I should have asked.”
“You're asking now,” I replied.
I called Emmett and asked him to meet us by the kitchen.
When he arrived, Lena showed him the email without commentary.
His face changed slowly, almost painfully.
“Yesterday,” he said.
“Claire did this yesterday?”
Lena nodded.
“Her mother confirmed it this morning.”
He asked Lena to forward both messages to him and to me.
Then he knelt beside Margot and asked the photographer for one more picture.
This time he stood with his daughter in front of the window while she held the drawing between them.
When Lena raised the camera, Margot waited for someone to order her away.
No one did.
The flash lit her face, and a small genuine smile finally appeared.
Before we could admire it, Vivian came striding out of the ballroom.
“Emmett,” she snapped, “you need to come with me.”
He stayed beside Margot.
“Why?”
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“Because my daughter has paid for a wedding, and you are about to learn what happens if you humiliate her.”
