Chapter 11: Sunday Lunch

The video went up on Thursday night.

By Friday morning it had two hundred thousand views.

Victoria had cut it down to forty seconds.

It showed me in my wedding dress, crossing the parking lot, taking her hand and closing her fingers around a ring.

The sound was clipped so that all you could hear was my voice saying, "You've both earned it."

Then a quick shot of her, trembling, with the caption: "My own sister turned on me on her wedding day. All because someone tried to keep me safe."

The comments were not kind.

"Imagine being this bitter."

"She hit the poor girl's hand!"

"Bride from hell."

My dental office had received two calls by lunch.

My manager closed the door and said, very gently, that I might take a few days.

I took the days.

On Saturday Dustin sent a text.

"Family lunch tomorrow at the house, one o'clock. Everyone's coming. You said you wanted the statements. Come and see them."

I showed it to Rafe.

He was at my kitchen counter, cleaning the mud from his boots into a newspaper, because the impound lot had finally let his truck go.

"It's a trap," he said.

"I know."

"You're going?"

"It's Dad's house."

"Then I'm coming."

"You'll be arrested."

"I'll wait in the truck at the end of the road." He put the boot down. "If you're not out in thirty minutes I'm coming in."

"That isn't a plan."

"It's what I have."

I kissed him, and I took the statements Ross had printed for me from the bank's website, and I drove to Linden Road.

The house hadn't changed.

It was a white two-story with a deep porch and a swing on it, and the maple in the yard had turned red.

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