Chapter 14: Chloe Moves First

By nine that night Chloe's video had two million views.

Her caption said: He took my parents. He took my peace. Now he's taking my voice.

The comments called Dillon a murderer.

The comments called me the woman who had held the microphone while he did it.

By ten, eleven reporters were standing under the awning of Vaughn's building.

I watched them from the flat's window with my mother's thermos in my hands.

"Your communications director has a plan," Vaughn said behind me.

"Does it have a hiding place in it?"

"It has a car in the garage and a hotel in another city."

"No."

"Gillian."

"If I leave, it's a confession."

"Of what?"

"Of being ashamed," I said. "I'm not ashamed of anything I did."

He studied me.

"Then we go down together."

"I want to say it myself."

"Then I'll stand beside you."

"You'll stand where I can see you," I said. "That's all I need."

The doorman held the glass door.

Flashes went off in my face.

"Mrs. Stroud! Did you know about the crash?"

"Did you marry Vaughn Stroud to get back at Dillon Lowry?"

"Are you protecting a killer?"

I walked to the center of the awning and waited for them to go quiet.

"I found out this afternoon, with two hundred strangers," I said. "So did you."

"Do you blame Dillon Lowry?"

"I blame everyone who knew and let me stand in a ballroom without knowing."

"What about Chloe Danvers?"

"Ask her why she cried on the morning of my wedding, and who she was crying to."

A tall man pushed through at the back of the crowd.

His shirt was untucked.

His jaw was gray with stubble, and two camera lights swung onto him at once.

"Gillian!"

Dillon came straight through the reporters and dropped onto his knees on the wet pavement in front of me.

Every camera clicked at once.

"Please," he said. "Please."

"Get up, Dillon."

"Come back. I'll fix everything. I'll tell them whatever you want. I'll do it today."

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