Part 2
I closed the laptop but kept the door locked.
“Daniel?” Rebecca called again. “What are you doing?”
“Changing my tie.”
“You’ve already changed it twice.”
I could hear the irritation beneath her voice. The ceremony was scheduled to begin in six minutes.
“Then I’m changing it a third time.”
Silence. Finally, her heels moved away.
I called Emily. No answer. I tried again. Nothing. Then I called my younger sister, Sarah. She answered immediately.
“Daniel?”
“Is Emily with you?”
A long pause. “Yes.”
“Put her on.”
“She’s asleep.”
My chest tightened. “Noah said Rebecca hurt her.”
Sarah exhaled shakily. “You need to come here.”
“Tell me what happened.”
“Not on the phone.”
“Sarah.”
Another silence. Then she said, “Emily showed up at my house around two in the morning. Her lip was split. Her wrist was swollen. She said Rebecca came to her apartment.”
I stared at the locked door. “Why?”
“Because Emily found something.”
“The USB?”
“Yes.”
I rubbed my forehead. Sarah told me Emily had been suspicious for months — she thought Rebecca was pushing me to combine finances too quickly. Then Emily discovered Rebecca had been married twice before.
“I know about one marriage.”
“There were two.”
My stomach dropped. Emily had searched court records after Rebecca accidentally mentioned living in Arizona during a period when she’d always claimed she was in California. The second marriage had ended eight years earlier. During the divorce, Rebecca’s former husband accused her of hiding debt, forging signatures, and moving money from a joint account. No criminal charges had followed. But Emily kept investigating.
Then she found something worse. Rebecca had recently started a home-equity line application using financial information connected to my house. My house. The one I had bought twenty-eight years earlier. The application was incomplete, but Emily believed Rebecca intended to persuade — or trick — me into signing documents immediately after our wedding.
“She confronted Rebecca yesterday,” Sarah said. “Rebecca denied everything. Then last night Rebecca went to Emily’s apartment.”
“Why didn’t Emily call the police?”
“She did.”
“What?”
“The police came. Emily refused medical transport, but she filed a report. She was terrified you’d think she was trying to ruin the wedding.”
I sat down. My own daughter had been afraid I would choose Rebecca over her. That realization hurt worse than anything I had seen on the USB.
“Is she safe?”
“Yes.”
“I’m coming.”
I ended the call and put the laptop in its case. When I opened the door, my best man, Michael, was waiting outside. He was sixty-two, retired from the Chicago Police Department, and had been my closest friend since college.
“You look terrible,” he said.
“I need your help.”
Five minutes later, we were in his SUV. I told him everything. Michael listened without interrupting. When I finished, he said, “Do not confront Rebecca alone.”
“I’m not going to.”
“Good.”
“I’m going to hear my daughter first.”
Sarah lived about twenty minutes away in Evanston. Emily was awake when we arrived. She sat on the living-room sofa in sweatpants and one of Sarah’s old college sweatshirts. Her lower lip was bruised. Dark finger-shaped marks circled her left wrist. Noah immediately climbed into her lap.
Emily looked at me and started crying. “Dad, I’m sorry.”
I crossed the room and hugged her. “No. I’m sorry.”
She buried her face against my shoulder. “I thought you wouldn’t believe me.”
“I should’ve listened sooner.”
She handed me her phone. It held photographs of documents, emails Rebecca had sent to a loan broker, and screenshots of messages with a man named Victor Hale.
One message from Rebecca read:
Wedding Saturday. Documents Monday. Once his assets are combined, we move forward.
Victor had answered:
Don’t rush him. A suspicious signature creates problems.
I looked at Emily. “Who is Victor?”
“I think he’s helping her with the paperwork.”
Michael leaned closer. “Forward all of this to me.”
Emily nodded. My phone started ringing. Rebecca. Again. Then again. Finally, a text appeared.
WHERE ARE YOU?
Another followed.
Everyone is waiting.
Then:
If Emily has said something, she’s lying.
I stared at the screen. I had never told Rebecca I was with Emily. Michael noticed too.
“So she knows.”
Emily whispered, “She probably figured out Noah gave you the drive.”
I typed four words.
The wedding is canceled.
Rebecca called instantly. I declined. Thirty seconds later, another message appeared.
You have no idea what you just did.
Michael read it over my shoulder. “Save that.”
I did. Then I looked at my daughter. “What happens now?”
Michael answered first. “Now we stop treating this like a family argument.”
Outside, thunder rolled across the Chicago suburbs. Back at the hotel, ninety guests were slowly discovering there would be no wedding.
But Rebecca wasn’t finished. Neither were we.
