Chapter 4
The silence in the dressing room stretched out, heavy and suffocating, as Julian processed the words written on the slip of paper. He looked from the note to Clara, whose trembling hands were now pressed tightly against her mouth to stifle a fresh wave of sobs.
"Clara, whose handwriting is this?" Julian asked, his tone shifting from gentle confusion to a firm, demanding insistence. He needed the truth now, before they walked down the aisle and bound their lives together under false pretenses.
Clara shook her head rapidly, backing up until her spine hit the cool green wall of the vanity alcove. "I don't know. I swear I don't know," she whispered, though her darting eyes betrayed her defensive posture.
Julian stepped forward, holding the open locket between them like a shield. "Nobody else has touched this locket since the funeral. You told me yourself you threw the key into the lake, Clara. So how did this note get inside, and why did Victoria have it?"
Victoria stood quietly near the door, a silent observer to the unraveling of the adults' carefully constructed reality. She shifted her small bouquet from one hand to the other, her movements graceful and unhurried.
"She was in the garden," Victoria said softly, breaking the tense standoff with a voice that seemed to carry from much further away than the doorway.
Julian turned his head sharply toward the girl. "Who was in the garden, Victoria? Who gave this to you?"
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"The lady with the white dress," Victoria replied simply, pointing a small finger toward the tall French doors that led out to the private courtyard. "She said she forgot to give it to the bride before the party starts."
Clara let out a choked gasp, sliding down the green wall until she was sitting on the hardwood floor, her expensive lace dress pooling around her like sea foam. Her floral crown fell askew, dangling by a single hairpin over her left ear. The mention of a woman in a white dress in the private courtyard—a courtyard locked from the inside—sent a cold shiver down Julian’s spine. He strode over to the French doors and pulled the heavy brass handle.
