Chapter 6 - The Bride Who Came Looking for Answers
Claire dropped into a chair.
“My sister is dead.”
Nobody answered.
Because suddenly none of us knew that.
Robert insisted he had seen Catherine after the fall.
“She had no pulse.”
“You’re a prosecutor, not a doctor,” Claire snapped.
“Paramedics confirmed it.”
“Did you identify her body?”
Silence.
Robert looked at Margaret’s phone.
“No.”
Grant had.
Or believed he had.
His father had taken him to a hospital room.
A body lay beneath a sheet.
Grant had seen Catherine’s hair.
Her hand.
The bracelet he had given her.
He never saw her face.
Claire called the number.
Disconnected.
Lauren ordered the wedding coordinator to end the reception.
Guests were told there had been a family emergency.
Within forty minutes, Hawthorne became silent.
Only immediate family, Claire, and I remained.
Lauren changed out of her wedding gown and returned wearing a sweater and slacks.
That simple act somehow made everything more serious.
The bride was gone.
Lauren Whitaker was back.
She sat across from Grant.
“Did you know Catherine might be alive?”
“No.”
“Swear.”
“I swear.”
She believed him.
So did I.
Claire paced.
“Why contact Margaret?”
Robert answered.
“Because Margaret helped her.”
Everyone looked at him.
He finally admitted the detail he had hidden.
When he reached the balcony seventeen years earlier, Catherine was alive.
Barely.
Margaret begged him to help move her before Grant’s father returned.
They drove Catherine to a private clinic.
“Then whose body did Grant see?”
“I don’t know.”
Claire looked ready to break something.
“You let my family bury an empty coffin?”
Robert’s face collapsed.
“Catherine asked us to.”
“Why?”
“To protect you.”
Claire stopped.
“Me?”
Grant’s father had threatened Catherine’s younger sister.
Claire.
If Catherine testified, he would make Claire disappear.
Catherine chose to disappear first.
Margaret arranged it.
Robert helped.
“Where did she go?”
“Margaret never told me.”
Claire whispered, “Seventeen years.”
I stood beside her.
She grabbed my hand.
This time neither of us was pretending.
Lauren noticed.
She smiled faintly.
Then Grant’s phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered on speaker.
A woman spoke.
“Grant.”
He went pale.
Claire covered her mouth.
She knew the voice.
“Catherine?”
A pause.
Then:
“Tell Claire I’m sorry.”
Claire lunged for the phone.
“Catherine!”
The call disconnected.
A text arrived immediately.
WEST BALCONY. MIDNIGHT. COME ALONE.
Claire checked the clock.
11:58.
She ran.
We followed despite the instruction.
The balcony doors were open.
Curtains moved in the night air.
Claire stepped outside.
“Catherine?”
No answer.
Then footsteps sounded above us.
There was another narrow balcony on the third floor.
A silhouette appeared.
A woman.
Claire stared upward.
The woman leaned over the railing.
Even after seventeen years, the resemblance was unmistakable.
“Claire?”
Claire began crying.
“Catherine?”
The woman lifted one hand.
Then someone emerged behind her.
Catherine’s expression changed to terror.
The balcony light went out.
May you like
We heard her scream.
And then something came over the railing.
