He Had a Wife I Never Knew, So I Married Her Brother novel · Chapter 13 of 24
Chapter 13: Three Hundred Witnesses
Nobody in the ballroom made a sound.
Gavin stood three feet from me with his hands open, and for one second I saw the man who used to step in front of me at doors.
Then I saw the ledger in the binder, and the second was over.
"Your wife is sitting at that head table," I said. "She's in the silver dress."
"That's a paper marriage, Linnea. You know it is."
"Six years today, according to the banner."
He flinched.
Tobias moved half a step forward, and I put my hand flat on his chest.
"Not yet," I said.
He stopped.
I turned to the guests, three hundred of them in black ties and jewels, with their glasses halfway to their mouths.
"I'm Linnea Marsden," I said. "For three years I lived with that man in a one-bedroom apartment. He told me he was a sous chef with a borrowed truck."
Someone near the front laughed nervously.
"He filled my pill box every Sunday and stood next to me while I swallowed. He told me it was so I'd never forget."
Gavin said, "Linnea, don't."
"Marcy," I said. "Now."
Marcy sat at the sound table at the back, where she had spent forty minutes charming the AV technician with a box of cookies.
She hit a key.
The big screen behind the stage, which had been showing a slideshow of Philippa and Gavin on a beach, went black.
Then it filled with a page of green ink and a column of neat checks.
*Pill box every Sunday. Lactose tablets. Watch her swallow.*
Under it, in blocky print, a man's handwriting.
*Done. 36 months. She doesn't suspect.*
The room read it.
I watched three hundred faces move their lips.
"Those are placebos," I said. "A pharmacist at my hospital tested every pill. I have her signed statement. For three years I thought I was protected, and I was being prepared."
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