Four Hundred Guests Watched Him Cheat, So I Took Everything He Had novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Lobby

Margo gives Porter's ring back in front of her neighbors, locks him out, and makes him admit Harlan told him to empty the wedding account; then Blair posts an edited clip that makes Margo look like she staged it.

I did not post the video, and midnight passed.

At nine the next morning the hospital's patient advocate called me.

The county ward transfer had been cancelled.

A nurse had sent her the recording of Harlan, and the advocate said she would be reviewing his visiting privileges.

I thanked her, borrowed a hospital sweatshirt for my shoulders, and went home.

I wanted a shower, a pair of jeans, and the end of the day.

The lobby of my building had a different plan.

Porter was kneeling on the marble in front of the elevators, holding a dozen white roses.

He still wore yesterday's tuxedo trousers.

Three of my neighbors stood near the mailboxes with their phones raised, and the doorman stood behind his desk with both arms folded.

"Margo," Porter said, and tears started on cue. "Please. I have been here since six."

"I can see that."

"I made the worst mistake of my life. I would give anything to take it back."

"You would give nothing," I said. "You gave Blair a dressing room."

Somebody near the mailboxes made a small sound and swallowed it.

Porter held out the roses.

"We can fix this. Blair means nothing to me. It was one time."

"It was not one time," I said. "Nobody scrambles into a dressing room on the day of her own wedding for one time."

His mouth opened and closed.

"Margo, I was confused."

"You were in my dressing room."

I took the diamond ring off my left hand, where it had stayed through the night, and looked at it.

I had paid for half of it myself.

I put it in the middle of the roses, between two stems, and let it sit there.

"The engagement is over," I said, loud enough for the mailboxes. "The ring is yours. Sell it and buy Blair a nicer lunch."

One of the neighbors laughed out loud.

Porter got to his feet with the flowers.

"Where am I supposed to live?"

"Not here."

"Half of that apartment is mine. I've lived there for two years."

"My name is on the deed," I said. "Yours is on a pizza box."

I turned to the doorman.

"Mr. Lindell's key fob?"

"Deactivated at eight, Ms. Fenn." He did not unfold his arms. "His things are boxed in the storage room. I took the liberty."

"Thank you."

"It was no trouble at all."

Porter's face had gone from red to a color I had not seen on him before.

"You can't just throw me out. We have a joint account. We have a honeymoon."

"We do," I said. "Let's talk about the account."

I took out my phone and opened the bank's app.

I held the screen where the neighbors could see it, because they would see it anyway.

"Thursday night, the wedding account held $41,200. I put in every dollar of it."

Porter said nothing.

"On Friday, at 3:14 p.m., $41,000 left this account. The balance is $200."

I turned the screen toward him.

"Who told you to move it?"

Porter looked at the neighbors, and then at the elevator doors, which stayed shut.

"Harlan," he said.

It came out of him before he could stop it.

"He said it was a family matter. He said it was safer in the company account until the wedding was over, and that we would sort it out afterward."

"The wedding I paid for."

"Yes."

"My money, gone the day before my wedding."

He said nothing.

A neighbor in a green coat said, quite clearly, "Oh, my God."

"You have until Friday at noon," I said. "All forty-one thousand, back in my account. If it is not there, I will take it out of your car, your watch, and every suit you own, and I will do it in a lobby just like this one."

"Margo."

"Take the roses and the ring. Do not come back."

I walked past him and pressed the button for the elevator.

Nobody in the lobby said a word, and nobody lowered a phone.

I stood in the cab with my back to the mirror and my chest going up and down, and I counted the floors.

My apartment was exactly as I had left it on Saturday morning.

There was a hanger on the closet door where the wedding dress had hung.

A ceramic bowl by the sink held Porter's cuff links and a spare tie pin.

I swept all of it into a trash bag without looking.

At 12:40 my phone began to buzz, and it did not stop.

First came a message from my aunt.

Margo, have you seen this?

Then another, and another, and then a number I did not know.

I opened the link.

It was a clip, forty seconds long, posted by Blair at noon.

It began with my own voice, very low and flat, saying: "Say it again. Louder."

It did not show the dressing room door.

It did not show Blair on the vanity or Porter's hands.

It showed me in my wedding dress, standing in a hall, whispering to my fiancé, and it made me look like the one who had planned all of it.

Her caption was one line.

Bride stages her own meltdown on a livestream. Please be kind to my sister.

The clip already had two million views.

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