One Night to Forever novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Family Breakfast

Breakfast at the lake house was served on the glassed-in porch, with the lake gray and flat behind the windows.

Margaret sat at the head with a boiled egg she didn't touch.

Desmond sat beside her, unshaven, in the same trousers as the night before.

Ford had the folder.

The aunt and uncle sat at one end, with the look of people who had been dragged from bed to watch a car crash.

Bianca had changed into a sweater the color of cream.

She sat with her ankles crossed and a small, wounded expression.

I sat across from her, and Hazel, still in her scrubs, sat down next to me with her backpack on her lap.

"I didn't invite her," Margaret said, nodding at Hazel.

"I did," I said. "She's my sister."

"Good. I like a witness."

Margaret touched the rim of her teacup.

"Bianca. You have something to show the family. Ford, put it where we can all see."

Desmond laid Bianca's phone on the table with the screenshot lit.

Ford read the three lines to himself, and his mouth went thin.

The porch was so silent that I could hear the lake against the stones.

The aunt put her hand to her mouth.

Desmond didn't look at me.

"It's cropped," I said. "I never wrote those three lines."

"That's what she said at two this morning," Bianca said softly. "She swore she deleted nothing, and her phone shows nothing."

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