Wedding Eve Goodbye novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Play It

Elin's POV

"I'm so sorry, everyone," Rhonda said again. "I never wanted to say this in a church."

Two hundred people went quiet.

She pressed a tissue to her eye, and her lawyer rose beside her with the briefcase.

"I loved my husband," she said. "He died in this man's car, three years ago, on Route 9. I have kept silent for him, and for my stepdaughter."

"Rhonda," I said.

"The night he died, Dominic Haldane was drunk."

A gasp ran down the pews.

"A nurse at Hartford General wrote it in the hospital file," Rhonda said. "She is here today. Show them, dear."

The grey-haired nurse stood up with the folder against her chest.

She did not open it.

Dominic did not move.

His hand in mine was cold and steady, and I felt him let the whole church look at him.

"Elin," Rhonda said, with tears on her lashes. "Sweetheart. You cannot marry the man who killed your father."

"Odile," I said. "Now."

Odile lifted her cane.

At the back of the church, Odile's driver stood at the sound table beside the sexton with Dominic's laptop open in front of him.

He pressed one key, and the speakers hummed overhead.

"What is this?" said Rhonda's lawyer.

"My father's voice," I said. "From the hospital, the night he died. He wanted it played after the vows. You made us do them in the wrong order."

Rhonda laughed, high and light.

"Darling, that tape is at the bottom of the river," she said. "I watched it..."

She stopped.

Every head in the church turned toward her.

"How do you know where it is?" I asked.

Her mouth stayed open.

Then the speakers crackled, and a thin, tired voice filled the church.

"Dominic. It's Declan."

I closed my eyes.

I had heard that voice every night of my childhood, and I had not heard it in three years.

The first part was for Dominic.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Wedding Eve Goodbye from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.