Chapter 3

By the time I got back to the wedding venue, Mallory was already linked arm‑in‑arm with Colin, waiting for the ceremony to start.

Suddenly, every light in the room went down, and the whole place fell quiet.

The screen behind the stage lit up.

The moment I saw what was on it, my breath caught in my throat.

It was a montage of Mallory and Colin, everything from the day they met.

The two of them sitting on the shore, waiting for the sunrise on Valentine's Day.

That was the night my wedding ended. Guests had poured drink after drink into me, and I didn't wake up until the next afternoon.

The first cake they ever baked together, two hearts linked in frosting.

That same day, they threw me a birthday party and brought out a cake exactly like it.

The trip they took to Masonridge on the quiet, holding hands, posing for every camera they could find.

I'd been posted to Masonridge that whole stretch, working assignments that could have killed me any day of the week.

When it ended, the two of them turned up out of nowhere, laughing, saying they'd come to surprise me.

The joke of it was that I was standing somewhere in the background of every memory they shared.

It felt like two hands had closed around my chest and were squeezing the air out.

Then the footage cut, and my whole body locked up.

The camera moved into the ballroom.

Standing dead center, dressed in their best, were Colin's parents.

My breath caught, and my nails dug into my palms.

Mallory led them up to Colin by the hand, her voice thick.

"Colin, I know you were scared you weren't good enough for me, so you didn't dare ask your mom and dad to come.

"But I'm telling you right now, I'm not scared of any of it.

"I brought them here so we could have them watching when we're happy."

It should have been such a touching scene.

Yet I laughed.

Walt and June Reddick had been my parents' closest friends for twenty years.

Twenty years ago, my mother and father were sent into the mountain counties on a child-trafficking case.

It made national news. More than a hundred families were caught up in it.

Every one of those children was brought home in the end.

Colin was one of them.

My parents saw how bright he was and felt sorry for the poor educational conditions in the mountains. They talked it over and brought him down to the city to live with us.

The two families had been bound together ever since.

Every holiday after that, no matter how buried my parents were in work, they drove us up to Cedar Hollow to see the Reddicks.

And they told me over and over that when I was grown, it would be on me to look after them.

Ten years ago, my parents were killed on the job.

Walt and June traveled all day and night to get to the funeral, and they stood over both coffins and cried until they couldn't stand up straight.

They held me and sobbed and swore they'd raise me like their own son.

Life was hard for them in the mountains, but they insisted on sending me two hundred dollars for living expenses, every year without fail.

Neither of them was well, but they still changed buses all night to be at my wedding.

"Adrian, if we get to stand in for your mom and dad and see you happy, it was worth every mile."

They'd held my hands then, with tears sitting in their eyes.

And now the same beautiful surprise was playing out for their own son.

But the temperature in the room had dropped through the floor.

The guests eyed Walt and June’s faded, worn‑out outfits and leaned toward one another to whisper.

Colin lowered his head, both fists locked tight.

"Colin, your dad and I don't have much."

June reached into a worn cloth bag and lifted out a red box, cradling it in both hands.

"This pendant's the only thing at home worth giving. You and Mallory take care of each other."

The box opened slowly.

The whole room went silent at once.

A deep green pendant sat inside, clear as water under the lights.

Every neck in the place craned forward, and someone sucked in a breath.

"Is that... is that an emerald?"

"Look at the color on it, look how clear it is. That's got to be top grade."

"God, that must be worth several million dollars!"

Colin's head snapped up, and his eyes instantly blazing with greed.

I stared at that pendant, and my breathing came faster and faster.