Chapter 3 - THE GHOST AT THE WEDDING
Back inside the ballroom, Nathan could not stop staring at Grace.
He had attended her funeral.
He had stood beside an empty coffin.
He had watched Lily place a stuffed rabbit beside Grace’s photograph.
Yet Grace was standing only a few feet away.
She was alive.
She was holding their daughter.
Nathan took another step.
Lily clung more tightly to Grace.
“Don’t let him take me.”
Grace felt the words against her neck.
She stared at Nathan.
“What has she been told about me?”
Nathan looked confused.
“She was told you died.”
“Then why is she afraid of you?”
Olivia recovered from the slap and pointed toward Grace.
“Security needs to remove her.”
Detective Jonah Price stepped onto the platform.
“No one is removing anyone.”
Nathan recognized him.
Jonah had investigated Grace’s disappearance six years earlier.
The case had been closed after the clinic fire.
Nathan’s voice hardened.
“You have no authority to lock my guests inside this house.”
Jonah held up a court order.
“I have authority to preserve a potential crime scene.”
Murmurs moved through the crowd.
Several guests raised their phones.
Olivia’s father, Charles Bennett, pushed through the audience.
He was seventy years old, but his presence still commanded attention.
He looked at Grace with an expression that resembled grief.
“My daughter.”
Grace’s face turned cold.
“You don’t get to call me that.”
Charles stopped at the bottom of the platform.
“We believed you were dead.”
“You signed the papers that put me inside St. Augustine.”
His eyes shifted toward Olivia.
“We were trying to help you.”
Grace reached into her dress and removed a small silver recorder.
“This contains the voice of Dr. Mercer admitting that I was never legally committed.”
Olivia laughed nervously.
“A recording can be fabricated.”
“So can security videos.”
Nathan looked at her.
“What security videos?”
Grace turned toward him.
“The ones Olivia created to convince you I was dangerous.”
“That’s insane.”
“Is it?”
Grace nodded toward Jonah.
He signaled to a technician near the sound booth.
The giant wedding screen flickered.
A video began playing.
It showed Grace inside the Holloway kitchen six years earlier.
She appeared to be shouting at Lily.
Then the image froze.
The screen divided into two frames.
In the original footage, Grace was singing while Lily danced around the kitchen.
The manipulated footage had replaced Grace’s words and inserted the sound of a screaming child.
The guests gasped.
Nathan looked at Olivia.
She shook her head.
“I’ve never seen that.”
Another video appeared.
It showed Olivia sitting in front of a computer.
She was speaking to an editor.
“Make Grace look unstable.”
Olivia lunged toward the screen controls.
Jonah caught her arm.
“Careful.”
She pulled away.
Nathan looked physically ill.
“You did this.”
Olivia’s eyes filled with tears.
“I was protecting Lily.”
“From her mother?”
“Grace was sick.”
Grace stepped forward.
“You made me sick.”
Lily began shaking.
Grace turned toward her.
The child was staring at the screen.
A woman had appeared in the background of the next piece of footage.
It was Beatrice Holloway, Nathan’s mother.
She handed Olivia a bottle of blue pills.
Lily pointed at the screen.
“That’s my medicine.”
The room went silent again.
Grace crouched in front of her daughter.
“What medicine, sweetheart?”
Lily’s lips trembled.
“Aunt Olivia gives it to me when I ask about you.”
Nathan’s face changed.
He grabbed Olivia’s wrist.
“What has she been giving my daughter?”
Olivia tried to pull free.
“It’s only something to help her sleep.”
Lily began crying.
“It makes me forget things.”
Grace stood slowly.
The pain in her eyes had become fury.
Jonah ordered an officer to collect Lily’s drinking glass.
Before anyone could move, every light in the ballroom went out.
May you like
A scream cut through the darkness.
Then Grace felt Lily being torn from her arms.
