My Fake Wedding Was the Start of Their Real Prison novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: September Second

Caelen played the clip seven times on the back stairs.

Then he slowed it down and played it frame by frame.

At the fourteenth second the camera tilted, and for five frames the cream page was right there in full light.

The crest at the top. The word Pledge.

Spencer's thumb on the corner, holding it flat.

"Send me the original file," Caelen said. "Not a screen recording. The original, with the data on it."

"The data?"

"Where it was filmed. When. On what phone." He was already typing. "If she still has it, ask her not to delete anything. Ever. Ask nicely."

I wrote to the woman from table nine.

She sent the file in four minutes, with a heart.

Caelen pulled it apart on his laptop.

Santa Monica. October 17. 4:12 in the afternoon.

He sat back on the step.

He didn't say anything for a long time.

"Well?" I said.

"The letter's dated September second." He looked at the porch light. "You signed it on October seventeenth. On camera. With your fiancé feeding you the page."

"So it's backdated."

"So it's backdated."

My shoulders dropped, the tension from Saturday finally breaking.

He closed the laptop.

"Eight-thirty," he said. "My team. Bring the pen."

At eight-thirty he stood at the head of the glass room with the clip on the big screen.

All four analysts were there.

The one who'd closed my video sat with her arms crossed.

Caelen played it once at full speed.

Then once slowed down.

Then he froze it on the frame with Spencer's thumb on the page.

"That is the only signature their whole claim stands on," he said.

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