Chapter 13: Her Phone

I looked at the phone in his hand.

It had a white case with a gold M on the back.

"That's hers," I said.

"She left it in my car this morning. She called four times from the house phone." He swallowed. "She's never called the house phone in her life."

"Do you know the code?"

"Our engagement date."

Of course it was.

"Then look," I said.

"Here?"

"Here. In front of the stage. Where you did it."

He stared at me for a second.

Then he typed in the code with his thumb.

Brennan opened the photos.

I came around beside him to see. He scrolled back. And back. Three years of Margaux's face in good light.

Then he stopped.

There was a folder. It wasn't hidden. It was just called "XMAS."

He opened it.

There were forty-one pictures in it, not six.

The first ones were the ones I knew. The terrace. The snow. The green dress.

Then came the ones nobody had ever printed.

Me alone, in Corbin's coat, at 11:59, with my arms around myself.

The terrace doors behind me, empty.

Me alone again, at 12:02. Me alone at 12:05, wiping my face with his sleeve.

Brennan scrolled faster.

The last picture in the folder was taken from inside the house.

The drawing room at 12:04, from the staircase, looking down over the banister.

Corbin at the piano with his back to the camera.

A ring of guests around him with their mouths open, singing.

One of them was the man from the board who sang badly.

Brennan made a sound, low, like something had hit him in the stomach.

"He went straight back in," he said.

"I told you he did."

"You told me."

He kept going, out of the folder, into her messages.

He searched for Terrace.

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