Chapter 4: What Marcus Knew
Sophie needed four stitches.
No fracture.
The doctor used the word "fortunate" twice, and both times I had to press my nails into my palm to keep from saying something I couldn't take back.
She fell asleep holding my hand, still in the hospital gown, her flower girl ribbon folded on the bedside table.
I sat beside her and didn't move for a long time.
At half past midnight, there was a knock at the door.
Soft.
Uncertain.
Marcus stood in the doorway.
He was still wearing his groomsman's suit, but the tie was gone and the top button was open.
He looked like someone who had been sitting in a car for an hour working up the nerve to come inside.
"She okay?" he asked.
"Four stitches."
He nodded slowly.
His eyes went to Sophie, then back to me.
"You left the phone," I said.
"Yeah."
"Why?"
He came in and sat down in the chair against the wall, elbows on his knees, hands hanging between them.
He didn't look at me when he spoke.
"Because I couldn't keep pretending I didn't know what he was doing."
I waited.
"He told me two weeks ago," Marcus said.
"Not all of it.
He said he needed to handle something at the wedding.
That your daughter had a habit of taking things that didn't belong to her." He stopped.
"I didn't believe him, but I didn't say anything either.
That's on me."
"What changed tonight?"
"I watched him do it." His voice was flat.
"I was standing six feet away when he put the phone in her pocket.
She was at the dessert table.
She didn't even see him." He looked up.
"She's eight years old, Evelyn."
"I know how old she is."
"I should have stopped him right then.
I didn't.
And I've been trying to figure out why for the last four hours." He rubbed the back of his neck.
"I think I kept waiting for him to be someone different than he is.
I've been waiting for that for fifteen years."
The room was quiet except for the soft beep of the monitoring equipment.
"The text I received tonight," I said.
"Was that you?"
He looked at me.
"What text?"
"Someone told me to check his messages.
From six weeks ago."
Marcus was still for a moment.
Then he shook his head.
"That wasn't me."
"Then who?"
He didn't answer immediately.
His jaw worked like he was deciding something.
"Evelyn," he said.
"How much do you know about your father's estate planning?"
The question landed in the room like something dropped from a height.
"What does that have to do with Preston's phone?"
"Maybe nothing." He stood up.
"Maybe everything." He moved toward the door, then stopped with his hand on the frame.
"Six weeks ago, Preston hired a private attorney.
Not the family firm.
Someone separate.
I only know because he asked me to recommend someone discreet." He turned back.
"He told me it was about protecting his assets before the wedding.
Pre-nuptial matters."
"And you believed him?"
"I believed him less when he started asking questions about you.
About your relationship with your father.
Whether you'd been in contact with any estate lawyers yourself." He looked at me steadily.
"He wasn't protecting his assets, Evelyn.
He was protecting his inheritance.
From you."
He left before I could answer.
Sophie shifted in the bed.
Her hand tightened briefly around mine, then relaxed.
I looked at the folded ribbon on the bedside table.
White satin.
Still perfect, somehow, after everything.
My phone was on the windowsill.
I picked it up.
Opened the unknown text again.
*Check his messages.
The ones from six weeks ago.
Ask him what he was really trying to hide.*
Six weeks ago.
The same time Preston hired a separate attorney.
The same time he started asking Marcus questions about me.
I typed back a single word: *Who are you?*
Three dots appeared.
Then stopped.
May you like
Then appeared again.
Then the number went dark, and the dots disappeared, and no message came.
