My Best Friend Ripped Off My Veil, So I Took Back Every Dollar novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: What He Knew

In Shane's truck Holly makes him say what he knew; her aunt hands her the gala invitation.

I got into Shane's truck without deciding to.

Annette looked at me through her window with her glasses pushed up on her head.

"Cottage," she said. "I'll leave the porch light on."

She drove off with my mother's china rattling in the trunk.

Shane waited until the cul-de-sac was behind us before he handed me the paper.

It was a photo he had printed at a drugstore, a little grainy, of a laptop screen.

I read the line at the top three times.

"Transfer complete. From: Penland/Hargrove Joint Savings. To: T. McCurry Checking. $184,000.00."

The date was Thursday, 9:41 p.m.

"Where were you when you took this?" I asked.

"In my truck, in the lot at the office. He asked me to look at a spreadsheet and left his laptop open on my dashboard."

"He left it open."

"He thinks I don't read anything that isn't a blueprint."

The cab smelled like coffee and sawdust.

His hands were wide and scarred across the knuckles, and they were very still on the wheel.

"What did you know?" I said. "Say all of it. Don't leave a piece out for later."

He didn't answer for a moment.

"I knew about the money on Thursday night," he said. "I didn't say anything because I thought you'd gotten it to him on purpose. A down payment, a deal between the two of you."

"A deal."

"I didn't know about the wedding. Not until ten minutes before. Dalton walked up behind the lodge in his tux and told me to hand your flowers to Stephanie when it started."

"And you did it."

"His father was twenty feet away and watching." His jaw tightened. "I did it. I'd like to tell you I had a reason that sounded better than that."

"You didn't look at me."

"No," he said. "I couldn't."

I stared at him.

I had spent two years being polite to this man at dinners and barbecues, and he had never once said anything that mattered.

"And Melanie," I said.

His eyes stayed on the road.

"What about her?"

"Did you know about her and Dalton?"

The truck slowed for a stop sign and stopped.

He kept both hands on the wheel, and the muscle in his arm moved under the pale scar that ran down it.

"Ask me tomorrow," he said.

"I'm asking now."

"Holly." His voice was low and not unkind. "I will tell you. I'll tell you in daylight, when you aren't in that dress and you've eaten something. It won't change by tomorrow."

"That's an answer," I said.

"Yes."

I looked out at the dark trees.

I did not know whether I wanted to hit him or lean on him, and I hated that I couldn't tell.

The cottage was at the end of a gravel road with the lake behind it, and the porch light came on a hundred yards before we reached it.

He stopped the truck and left the engine running.

"I'll keep this," I said, holding up the paper.

"It's yours. I have the original."

I got out.

I left the passenger door open, and I did not look back until I reached the porch.

He had waited, with his headlights on the gravel, until I opened the front door.

Then he turned around and drove away.

Inside, the cottage was warm and smelled like onions.

Annette stood at the stove in a denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

My mother's china sat in boxes along the wall of the living room, and the green tackle box was already on the kitchen table, next to a bowl of stew.

"Sit," she said. "Eat. Don't talk until the bowl is empty."

I sat in my wedding dress and ate.

The stew was thick and plain, and halfway through I started to cry, and I kept eating.

Annette didn't pat my back or say anything kind.

She pulled a heavy cream envelope out from under the fruit bowl and slid it across to me.

It was the invitation to the evening reception, the one Dalton's mother had ordered in gold letters.

"The dinner is at six," Annette said. "The reception is at eight."

I wiped my face with the back of my wrist.

"He promised his father a big announcement," I said. "At nine. Dalton's father was going to hand over the company in front of the whole room. Four hundred people. The board, the bank, the contractors."

"All of them in one place, with a microphone."

"And a free bar."

Annette took off her reading glasses and cleaned them on her shirt.

"I was never fond of weddings," she said. "But I'm very fond of a captive audience."

I looked at the clock on her stove.

It was ten past six.

"They'll let me in?" I asked. "After today?"

"You are Holly Penland," she said. "You paid for the room."

She went to her bedroom and came back with a green silk dress over her arm, slightly too long, with the tags still on it.

"I was going to wear this to your wedding," she said.

She laid it across the back of the chair.

"His father speaks at nine," she said. "You have an hour in that room before that."

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