She’d cornered Lily in the hallway, begging her to reconsider. “Ethan was supposed to be mine,” she had said, her voice dripping with bitterness.
Lily had told her to leave, and security had escorted her out. It seemed like a simple answer: Hannah must have come back in the night, slipped in, and destroyed the dress out of spite.
But something about that didn’t sit right with me. The house had been locked, the alarms set. To get inside undetected would have required more than desperation; it would have required planning. And as much as I disliked Hannah, she didn’t strike me as clever enough for that kind of intrusion.
So I began to watch, quietly, while the rest of the family panicked. I noticed how Anne’s younger sister, my daughter-in-law, kept avoiding Lily’s eyes, her face pale and lips tight.
I noticed how one of the bridesmaids, Sophie, kept wringing her hands, whispering to another girl in frantic tones. And I noticed, most of all, that Ethan’s mother, Margaret, sat stiff and silent in the corner, her expression unreadable.
