Chapter 4: The Signature

I told him in the car with the rain coming down.

I had never touched the wedding fund.

An hour before the ceremony, I had gone downstairs to find Brett, and I opened the groom's room door.

He was in there with Shelby.

I found my father in the hall and told him.

He looked at me and said, "Marry him anyway. The family needs this wedding."

So I took off my dress.

Laurence listened to all of it without looking away from the road.

When I stopped, he said, "You never said any of that to anyone."

"They called me a thief the next week. Nobody was going to listen."

"They'll listen now," he said.

At eleven the next morning, I walked into the club's Sunday brunch alone.

Laurence was across town signing papers for the inn, and I had asked him to stay away.

I wanted to do this part with my own face.

Sixty women sat at round tables with mimosas and little plates of fruit.

I knew most of them.

They had come to my mother's funeral, and to my birthday parties, and one of them had helped zip my wedding dress.

The talk died as soon as they saw me.

Chairs scraped as backs turned, one table after another.

A woman I had known since I was nine looked at the ceiling.

Marlene sat at the center table with her hand over her coffee cup.

She saw me and half rose.

"Delaney. Sweetheart, come sit with me."

"Thank you, Marlene. In a minute."

I walked to the middle of the room and stood where the brunch buffet ended.

"Good morning," I said. "I want to ask something."

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