Wedding Eve Goodbye novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Not His to Hear

Dominic's POV

I drove to the stone house faster than I had driven since Route 9, and I did not slow at a single light.

Odile was in the hall with her cane.

"Nobody has been in," she said. "Why are you so pale?"

"Because Rhonda just told me to check my doors."

I went into the study and unlocked the drawer marked Wedding day.

The envelope lay where it had lain for three years, cream paper, the wax whole, Declan's shaky hand across the front.

Play after the vows.

There were going to be no vows.

I had kept that promise one day longer than I could bear.

I sat at the desk and thought about Rhonda's smile.

If she wanted this envelope, it held something that could hurt her.

If it could hurt her, I needed it before she took it.

I cracked the wax with my thumbnail.

Inside was a small cassette, no bigger than a matchbook, and nothing else.

I put it in the recorder.

Then I did what I had thought of in the car. I plugged a cable from the recorder into my laptop and set the laptop to record whatever came out.

If the tape was taken from me, it would not be lost.

I pressed play.

There was hiss, and a cough, and then his voice.

It was thin and slow and entirely his.

"Dominic. It's Declan. They've taken you off to be stitched, and a nurse gave me a pen and a few minutes. So I'm using your machine."

My hands closed on the edge of the desk.

"You didn't kill me, son."

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