Chapter 9: Saturday Evening
David kept Marcus for another two hours.
I sat with Sophie in the car park while the light changed — that long golden shift that happens on late Saturday afternoons when the day hasn't decided to end yet.
She had her head on my arm.
She'd found a loose thread on her flower girl dress and was winding it around her finger and unwinding it again.
"Are we going home?" she said.
"Soon," I said.
"Is Amanda coming back?"
"No," I said.
"She's not."
Sophie was quiet for a moment.
"Will she try to?"
I thought about how to answer that.
"Some people might come and talk to her on our behalf," I said.
"Grown-up people whose job is to sort things like this out.
But she won't come to our house."
Sophie unwound the thread.
Wound it again.
"I didn't like her," she said.
"I tried.
Because you liked her."
"I know you tried," I said.
"She was nice when you were watching," Sophie said.
"Different when you weren't."
I didn't say anything.
"I thought maybe I was wrong," she said.
"Because you're the dad and you're supposed to know things."
"I didn't know this one," I said.
"You did.
You were right and I was wrong."
She looked up at me.
"You're not angry?"
"At you?
No.
At myself, a little."
She considered that.
"You shouldn't be," she said.
"She was very good at pretending."
David came out of the service entrance at ten past six.
He walked to the car and leaned against it beside me.
"Marcus has given a full account," he said.
"Signed.
He's also handed over every document, email, and communication he has.
Including the one where she told him to make sure his name was the only one on the folder."
"What happens to him?" I said.
"He cooperated fully and immediately.
That matters." David paused.
"He's not a good man.
But he's not the architect of this."
"Amanda is."
"Yes." David looked at Sophie, who had gone back to her thread.
"I'm going to file a report with the police on Monday.
What happened in that bridal suite this morning — what she did to Sophie — that's a separate matter from the fraud, and it needs to be recorded."
Sophie's hand went still on the thread.
"It's okay," I said to her.
"You don't have to do anything.
I'll handle it."
"She'll know we've reported it," David said to me, quietly.
"That's when she'll make contact."
"Through a lawyer?"
"Almost certainly.
She'll try to negotiate.
Offer to drop any counter-claims in exchange for us not pursuing the fraud report." He looked at me.
"My advice is to let her make the offer.
Let her put it in writing.
And then decline."
"And then?"
"And then we have one more document," he said.
I looked at him.
"She's going to make a mistake," David said.
"People like this always do.
They're very good at the setup.
They're not as good at the exit."
He said goodnight to Sophie, who told him seriously that she thought he was a good lawyer, which made him smile for the first time all day.
He drove away.
I sat there a little longer.
"Daddy," Sophie said.
"Yeah."
"Can we get chips on the way home?"
I laughed.
It came out of nowhere and it was real.
"Yeah," I said.
"We can get chips."
She smiled — small and satisfied — and leaned back against my arm.
I started the car.
My phone buzzed as I pulled out of the car park.
Unknown number.
No message.
Just a missed call.
May you like
I looked at it for a second.
Then I put the phone face-down on the passenger seat and drove my daughter home.
