Chapter 2: The Message From Nowhere
PART 2 ⬇️
The chapel erupted.
Two hundred people talking at once.
Chairs scraping.
Someone near the back started crying.
I stood there holding Lily's hand and stared at Rachel — a woman I had never met — wearing Claire's dress, Claire's veil, Claire's perfume.
"Why?" I said.
"Why would she do this?"
Rachel's composure finally broke.
"She couldn't go through with it.
She asked me to come in her place just long enough to—"
"To what?
Marry me without telling me?"
She flinched.
"To buy her more time."
"More time for what?"
She didn't answer.
Claire's mother stepped into the aisle.
Her hands were shaking.
"Mark.
Please.
There are things you don't know about Claire.
Things she was afraid to tell you."
"Then she should have told me herself."
"She tried." Her voice dropped.
"She tried three times.
But every time she got close, something stopped her."
Lily tugged my sleeve.
"Daddy.
Look."
She was pointing at Rachel's left hand.
I hadn't noticed it before.
Rachel was wearing a ring.
Not Claire's engagement ring.
A different one.
Simple.
Silver.
Already worn thin at the edges.
Rachel saw me looking.
Her face went pale.
"That's not what you think."
"Whose ring is that?"
She pressed her lips together and said nothing.
Then my phone buzzed in my jacket pocket.
I pulled it out.
One message.
No name.
Just a number I didn't recognize.
*Mark.
Don't sign anything.
Don't let them explain without me there.
I'm coming.
— C*
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May you like
What Claire was hiding — and what that ring meant — is darker than anyone in that chapel knew.
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