“You have Camille.”
Camille Rhodes was her maid of honor.
“I asked Camille after you never replied.”
“To what?”
“The message I sent you in February.”
“I never got a message.”
Maren frowned.
“I sent you a whole letter.”
“Email?”
“Yes.”
“To which address?”
She named an old account connected to the Langford Civic Trust, where I had once helped with legal administration.
“That email hasn’t worked in more than a year.”
Maren looked confused.
“Dad gave me the address.”
Something passed between
jokes wrong.”
Maren stopped smiling.
Then nodded.
“You’re right.”
That was probably the first important thing my sister and I said to each other that night.
A knock came at the door.
Before anyone answered, Aunt Rosalind Langford entered carrying a champagne flute.
She took one look at me.
Then at my ring.
“Well.”
Maren pointed.
“You knew?”
Rosalind drank her champagne.
“I signed the courthouse certificate.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Three years?”
“Yes.”
“And you never told me?”
“Evelyn asked me not to.”
Maren looked betrayed.
Rosalind shrugged.
“I keep secrets better than this family keeps opinions.”
I almost laughed.
Then Rosalind looked at me.
“Julian is here.”
My pulse changed.
“Where?”
“East lobby.”
“He apparently knows Judge Everett Shaw, who was trying to leave before Victor cornered him.”
Of course.
Maren looked at me.
“What are you going to do?”
For three years, somewhere in the angrier part
