PART 2 — The Bride's Secret Was Never About Love
Grace did not sleep that night.
No one did.
Katherine stayed locked in the guest room with Robert sitting outside the door like a guard. Frank made coffee nobody drank. Caleb remained in the wedding room, still on the floor, staring at the untouched bed as if it were evidence of a crime he had committed before God.
At 3:17 a.m., Grace walked back into the room.
“Who is Beatrice?” she asked.
Caleb looked up slowly.
“You know who she is.”
Grace’s face tightened. “No. I know who you think she is.”
Beatrice Lane had been Caleb’s first love.
A bright girl with soft brown curls, a scholarship to nursing school, and a smile that made Caleb reckless. Five years earlier, she had died after her car went off the bridge outside Oakhaven Springs.
Everyone had called it an accident.
But Caleb had never believed that.
“She ruined Beatrice,” Caleb said. “Katherine did.”
Grace stepped closer. “Katherine didn’t even know you back then.”
Caleb laughed bitterly. “That’s what she told you.”
Then he pulled a folded envelope from his jacket pocket and threw it onto the bed.
Inside were printed messages.
Anonymous screenshots.
A police report.
And one photo of Katherine standing outside Beatrice’s apartment two days before the crash.
Grace’s hands went cold.
Caleb’s voice shook. “Beatrice told me someone was threatening her. She said a woman kept showing up, warning her to stay away from me. Then she died.”
Grace stared at the photo.
Katherine was younger. Thinner. Her hair was shorter.
But it was her.
Caleb wiped his eyes. “I married her so she would confess.”
Grace whispered, “What did you do tonight?”
Caleb looked away.
“I showed her the photo. I told her I knew everything. I told her I could make her disappear the way Beatrice disappeared.”
Grace staggered back.
“You threatened your wife on your wedding night?”
“She had to pay!”
Before Grace could answer, the guest room door opened down the hall.
Katherine stood there in her torn veil, pale and shaking.
“I didn’t kill Beatrice,” she said.
Caleb rose to his feet.
“Then why were you outside her apartment?”
Katherine’s lips trembled.
“Because Beatrice called me.”
The hallway froze.
May you like
Katherine looked at Grace, then at Caleb.
“She was my sister.”
