Chapter 20: Whose Wedding

The first slide hung over the arch, twelve feet wide, and a hundred and twenty people read it at the same time.

Bridal gown, ivory, size four. Customer: Denise Pennick. Date: March 14.

"What is that?" a woman near the back said.

Denise's head snapped toward the AV table.

"That's the wrong file," she said. "Turn it off."

The tech didn't move.

The second slide came up. It was a column of texts, with a name above each one.

Denise: Send her the photo of Dexter asleep. Make her ask.

Denise: Say you feel like you knew her father. Curious girls ask questions.

Denise: Do NOT tell Casey about the dress.

A murmur ran down the rows.

Denise crossed the sand in her champagne gown, fast, with one hand out.

"Stop this at once. Somebody stop this."

A guard from the hotel stepped in front of her, politely.

The woman from the front desk was standing beside him.

"Ma'am," she said, "the event contract is in the bride's name. She's the host."

"She canceled!"

"She rebooked in person, this morning."

I had not known she would say that. I looked at the desk woman and she gave me the smallest wink.

The third slide was a typed funeral list, with one gap highlighted in yellow.

The gap was where a daughter's name should have been.

The fourth was a photo of a page of a green ledger. Frank Bellweather + Little Captain.

The fifth was a card from a gravestone.

"Thanks for the stars, Captain," Rosalie read aloud, in the quietest voice she had. "Same time next year. L."

Lindy had not moved from the microphone.

She lifted her chin, and for the first time all week I saw what my aunt had seen at the funeral: my father's jaw, set.

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