Ray inserted the drive into a small laptop beneath the booth, then looked at Emma.
“This is your wedding,” he said.
“Do you want me to stop?”
Emma wiped her face with the back of her hand.
“My uncle brought his mistress onto a memorial dance floor,” she said.
“Play it.”
The first file began with the scrape of a chair.
Then Daniel’s voice filled the tent.
“She won’t sign anything while Arthur is alive.”
Sloane answered, clearer than she had sounded when denying everything moments earlier.
“She will after.
She’ll be grieving, exhausted, and scared of handling the estate alone.”
A third voice entered the recording.
Vivian’s.
“Claire has always been emotional.
You don’t need to force her.
Give her a reason to doubt herself, then offer to take over.”
Around the tent, faces turned toward my mother-in-law.
Vivian gripped the table.
“That is edited.”
Ray paused the recording.
Daniel pointed toward the speakers.
“Anyone can manipulate audio.
Arthur hated me.
He was trying to poison Claire against her family.”
I looked down at the sealed packet addressed to Dad’s attorney.
A telephone number had been written beneath the name Helen Price, along with one instruction: Call on speaker.
I dialed.
Helen answered after the first ring.
“Claire?”
Her voice was calm, alert, and unsurprised.
“Yes.”
“Are you at Emma’s wedding?”
“Yes.”
“Did Daniel bring Ms.
Mercer?”
I looked across the floor at Sloane.
“He danced with her during Dad’s song.”
Helen exhaled slowly.
“Then your father was right.
Is the packet still sealed?”
“It is.”
“Open it.”
The red wax on the legal packet cracked beneath my thumb.
Inside were bank statements, copies of wire transfers, photographs, and a notarized declaration signed by my father seven weeks before his death.
The statements showed money leaving the joint account Daniel and I used for household expenses.
The transfers were small at first, then larger: eight thousand dollars, twelve thousand, twenty-five thousand.
Each payment had gone to a consulting company registered to Sloane.
I had never heard of it.
Daniel leaned toward the pages.
“Those were legitimate business expenses.”
“What business?” Caroline asked.
He ignored her.
Sloane tried to retreat toward the tent entrance, but Emma’s husband quietly moved into the aisle.
He did not touch her or threaten her.
He simply stood there, making it clear that disappearing before the truth emerged would be remembered.
