Wedding Eve Goodbye novel · Chapter 4 of 24

Chapter 4: Whose Coat

I stepped back and let Mina into my father's house.

Rhonda's hand tightened on the lock.

"Elin, think. That girl is the reason you stood in a church alone this morning."

"She's soaked," I said. "She can be my enemy after she's dry."

I took the duffel from Mina's shoulder and put her in the hot shower upstairs.

I gave her my oldest flannel pajamas and a cup of tea, and she sat on the edge of the guest bed holding the cup with both hands.

She was so small that the sleeves covered her fingers.

"Why would he send you here?" I asked.

"I can't say."

"You're his assistant. You live in his guest wing. He hums you to sleep over the phone."

"I can't say, Miss Marden." Her chin shook. "I promised."

"Promised who?"

She looked at the tea and did not answer.

"Then tell me one thing," I said. "Are you in love with him?"

Mina's head came up fast, and her face went blank with shock.

"No," she said. "God, no. He's..."

She stopped herself and coughed into her sleeve, a dry rattling cough that bent her over.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I haven't slept properly in weeks."

I put her to bed and turned off the light, because I could not tell what she was lying about and I was too tired to try.

At dawn Rhonda was waiting at the kitchen table with her tablet propped against the sugar bowl.

"I didn't want to show you," she said, "but you'd see it by noon anyway."

On the screen was a photograph from some gossip site.

It showed the front steps of the Haldane house at six on the morning of the wedding, gray and wet.

Mina stood on the top step in a man's black overcoat that came down to her ankles.

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