Chapter 21: Forty-Two Witnesses

Nobody in the hall moved.

Lacey let go of Dustin's wrist, and then she took it again.

"Sweetheart," she said, soft and wounded. "You're not well."

"I'm well," Dustin said. "I've been well for a long time. You told everyone I wasn't."

"Dustin."

"I slept with you once, three years ago, in July. I ended it the next morning."

He said it to the room, steadily, and did not look at the floor once.

"Then you started dating my brother so you could keep sitting across from me."

He turned to my mother.

"Dean never knew until I told him. She said she'd tell you he did."

My mother's hand came down on the head table.

A woman at the back said, "Oh, my God."

"He's confused," Lacey said, and now her voice was higher.

"He's been under so much strain, and Dean has turned him against me. Mrs. Mercer, you know me."

My mother looked at her for a long moment.

"I do," she said. "I thought I did."

My father stood up at the head of the table and lifted his glass.

"Photographer," he said, loudly. "Now."

At the back of the hall Simone touched her laptop.

The screen went black, and then it showed the conservatory from above and to the left.

Lacey's voice came out of the speakers, low and clear and close.

"Smile. He's watching."

The room saw her take Dustin's wrist and bend it down against his side.

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