Chapter 28 - THE WEDDING VIDEO
We called the police.
Again.
Search teams arrived.
Again.
But this time, Julian refused to wait.
"There's something we missed."
"What?"
"The wedding video."
"The recording?"
"Yes."
He opened his laptop.
The ballroom footage appeared.
Two hundred guests.
The ceremony.
The speeches.
The humiliation.
The moment Julian had called me trash.
The moment everyone had watched.
The moment Noah opened the box.
Julian paused the video.
"Look."
Behind me stood Arthur Bell.
But beside him was another man.
Daniel Mercer.
The accountant who supposedly killed himself years earlier.
I stared.
"He's alive."
Julian nodded.
"Apparently."
We continued watching.
Daniel wasn't watching the ceremony.
He was watching Noah.
Then Noah looked directly at him.
For one second, the two locked eyes.
Daniel walked toward the exit.
Julian followed the footage.
"Wait."
He zoomed in.
Daniel handed something to a waiter.
The waiter approached Noah.
Then Noah received something.
A tiny key.
My breathing stopped.
"The key."
Julian nodded.
"The key from the second box."
"But Noah didn't have it before the wedding."
"Exactly."
I looked at him.
"Then someone gave it to him that night."
"Yes."
"Who?"
Julian replayed the footage.
The waiter turned.
His face became visible.
I recognized him.
He had been at our wedding.
He had also been at my grandfather's funeral.
He had been at my mother's house.
Everywhere.
I whispered his name.
"Daniel."
Julian looked at me.
"Which Daniel?"
May you like
I stared at the screen.
"Both."
