Tell Me Not to Love You novel · Chapter 9 of 24

Chapter 9: What Amos Filmed

Forty people stared at the green fire in the yellow hat's hand, and nobody breathed.

My mother made a small sound and covered her mouth.

"Solveig," Rosalind said, in a voice like thin ice. "I think you should explain."

I felt Garrick start to rise.

I put my hand on his wrist, under the table, and he stayed.

"Who took my coat when I arrived?" I asked.

My voice came out steadier than I felt.

"I beg your pardon?" said Blythe.

"My green coat. I handed it to the girl at the cloak tent at eleven-thirty."

I kept my eyes on Blythe.

"It held a tissue and a bakery receipt. I'd like to know who else has been in it since."

"I'm sure I don't know," said Blythe. "Only that the bracelet was in your pocket."

"Then someone put it there."

"That's a very convenient thing to say."

"It's a very easy thing to check," said Amos.

He had not moved from his chair.

He was holding up his phone, screen out.

He wore the particular smile of a man who has waited two years for a punch line.

"I've had this propped against the champagne bucket since eleven," he said.

"Pointed at the lawn, for the memoirs. It takes in the whole cloak tent, and the sun was kind to me."

Nobody spoke.

"Garrick, be a good boy and hold this up where the table can see."

Garrick took the phone.

He turned it around, and the little screen filled with green lawn and white canvas and bright October light.

I leaned in over his arm.

At the timestamp, eleven fifty-one, a woman in a cream silk dress walked across the grass alone.

She looked left, then right, then ducked inside the cloak tent.

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