Antler Crown, Silent Departure novel · Chapter 17 of 24
Chapter 17: Signed Under Oath
Poppy's brokerage was on the second floor of a strip mall, over a tax preparer and a vape shop.
I went with her on Monday morning, because she had asked me to, and because nobody had come with Poppy to anything in a long time.
She wore her good navy blazer and carried a folder.
Her hands were cold when she shook the receptionist's.
The managing broker met us at the door of his glass office.
He was a heavy man with reading glasses on a cord, and he did not smile.
"Poppy. Sit. Who's this?"
"Bridget Blythe. The bride."
His eyebrows rose a little.
"The bride," he said. "All right. Sit down, both of you."
Two other agents had found reasons to stand just outside the glass, holding coffee.
The broker opened a file on his desk.
"I received a complaint Friday night, with a signature page attached. It says you took money to take part in a staged wedding, and that you tricked the bride into leaving."
"I took five hundred dollars to film a gift video," Poppy said. "I'd like to show you the rest."
She laid out the folder in order.
Page one of the release, with its first line about a gift for the bride.
The text thread where Lacey told her what to wear.
The thread where Lacey told Zack to make sure Poppy believed it.
Then she put her phone on the desk and played the courthouse clip, with Lacey shouting at Zack in front of the plastic chairs.
The broker watched the whole minute with his glasses pushed up on his forehead.
"There's one more," Poppy said.
She tapped the screen.
It was a video from the gala, shot by a guest at table seven, of Lacey saying to two hundred people that she had been sleeping at Zack's apartment since May.
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