“You knew I would come eventually,” he said.
Olivia’s fingers curled against the white silk of her dress.
“You promised me you would never speak about it.”
“I promised I would give you a chance to tell him yourself.”
Her eyes flashed toward Michael.
Michael lowered the ring hand.
“Tell me what?”
Clara stepped closer to her son, but she did not touch him. He looked twenty years younger and much older at the same time, like the boy who used to hide behind her skirt at the doctor’s office and the man who had just realized he had not known the person standing beside him.
Olivia turned to the guests.
“This is private.”
“No,” Michael said.
His voice was quiet, but it crossed the entire ballroom.
“You made it public when you threw my mother out in front of everyone.”
Olivia swallowed.
Daniel placed the envelope on the altar rail. The brown paper had softened at the corners, and a faded blue stamp marked the upper right side. Across the front, in Clara’s husband’s unmistakable handwriting, were the words: For Clara, if Olivia ever comes back.
Clara stared at the name.
Her breath caught.
“Where did you get that?”
“From the Charleston police archive,” Daniel said. “It was logged as evidence twenty-eight years ago. Your husband left it with me before he disappeared from the case.”
Michael’s head turned sharply.
“My father disappeared from a case?”
Clara looked at Daniel.
“William told me he was consulting on an insurance investigation. He said it had become complicated, but he never told me anything about Olivia.”
Olivia took one step backward.
Her heel struck the edge of the altar platform.
“I was twenty-two,” she said. “I made mistakes.”
“You were twenty-four,” Daniel answered. “And you didn’t make one mistake.”
He opened the envelope.
Inside were several photocopied documents, a small cassette tape in a clear plastic sleeve, and a photograph of a young woman standing outside a brick townhouse. She wore a red coat and held a baby against her shoulder.
Michael stared at the photograph.
