Chapter 6 - The Girl in Blue.
My father denied Camille's statement before she finished speaking.
"That is not what I said."
His voice was controlled, but his hands betrayed him.
He had pressed both palms flat against the conference table as though he needed it to stay upright.
Camille looked at him.
"I heard you."
"You heard part of a private conversation."
"I heard enough."
My mother stepped between them emotionally if not physically.
"Camille, you have been under enormous stress."
Camille laughed once.
"Please don't do that."
"Do what?"
"Make me sound confused because you don't like what I'm saying."
I almost smiled despite everything.
She had learned the family method in less than a day.
It had taken me thirty years to name it.
Detective Chen asked everyone except Camille and me to leave.
My father objected.
The detective did not care.
When the room finally emptied, Camille sat down and covered her face with both hands.
"I should have said something last night."
"Why didn't you?"
She lowered her hands.
Mascara had collected beneath one eye.
"Because it was my wedding."
She looked ashamed of the answer.
"That sounds horrible."
"It sounds human."
"I wanted to believe it was nothing."
"I wanted to believe he was just talking about the company."
Detective Chen opened a notebook.
"Start at the beginning."
Camille inhaled slowly.
"Around three-thirty, I went back to the suite because I forgot my earrings."
"Preston and Daniel were inside."
"They didn't know I was there."
"I heard Daniel say, 'This has to look natural.'"
"Preston said, 'She'll do the rest herself.'"
"Then Daniel said, 'Just make sure the child doesn't get hurt.'"
My hands tightened together beneath the table.
"Did they say Sophie's name?"
"Not then."
"Later Preston said, 'Once everyone sees what kind of mother Evelyn is, her objection won't matter.'"
Detective Chen looked at me.
"That connects to the board vote."
I nodded.
Camille continued.
"I walked in on purpose so they'd stop talking."
"Preston acted normal."
"Daniel left."
"I asked Preston what they meant."
"He said Evelyn had threatened to disrupt the sale and he was worried you'd embarrass the family at the wedding."
"I never threatened anything."
"I know that now."
Camille's voice broke slightly.
"I didn't know then."
Detective Chen asked about Tyler.
Camille explained that she had seen him twice before the ceremony.
Preston introduced him as private event security.
He wore a hotel vest because Preston said it would help him blend in.
"Did that seem strange?"
"Everything about the wedding was controlled."
"Preston had backups for the backups."
"I thought he was being obsessive, not criminal."
The word hung between us.
Criminal.
It sounded shocking attached to my brother.
Not because his behavior was shocking.
Because our family had spent decades ensuring that word could never reach him.
Camille looked at me.
"There's someone else you should talk to."
"Who?"
"My cousin Lydia."
"She was wearing a blue dress."
I remembered her vaguely.
A young woman near the dance floor with dark hair and a sapphire gown.
"What did she see?"
"I don't know exactly."
"But after the phone was found, she pulled me aside and said something felt wrong."
"She said she had been filming a video for social media near your table earlier."
Detective Chen was already reaching for her phone.
"Do you have her number?"
Camille nodded.
Lydia arrived at the hospital forty minutes later.
She was twenty-six, pale, and clearly terrified of becoming involved.
Her blue dress was hidden beneath a long black coat.
She held her phone with both hands.
"I didn't know if this matters."
Detective Chen gestured for her to sit.
"Show us."
Lydia opened a video filmed during cocktail hour.
At first, it seemed useless.
She had recorded herself and two cousins joking near the dance floor.
Music played loudly behind them.
Guests crossed in and out of frame.
Then she rotated the phone toward the ballroom to show the decorations.
Our table appeared in the background.
I saw Sophie's denim jacket hanging over the chair.
My breath stopped.
"Pause."
Lydia froze the frame.
Tyler stood behind Sophie's chair.
His face was partially visible.
One hand held the jacket.
The other was inside the right pocket.
Detective Chen leaned closer.
"Play it slowly."
Lydia dragged the video backward.
We watched Tyler approach the chair.
He looked left.
Then right.
He lifted the jacket.
His hand disappeared into the pocket.
Then someone entered frame.
Jenna.
Camille's sister.
Tyler jerked his hand away.
Jenna said something we could not hear over the music.
Tyler leaned toward her.
Lydia increased the volume.
The audio remained muddy.
But one phrase emerged clearly.
"Wrong pocket."
Exactly what Sophie remembered.
My eyes filled before I could stop them.
Not because I doubted Sophie.
I never had.
Because proof has a particular weight when everyone has spent hours demanding it from a child.
Detective Chen replayed the segment.
"Can you send me the original file?"
"Yes."
"Do not edit it."
"Do not upload it."
"Do not tell anyone else you have it."
Lydia nodded quickly.
Camille looked sick.
"Jenna knew."
"We don't know what she knew," Detective Chen said.
"We know she saw Tyler at the jacket."
"We need to hear from her."
Camille called her sister.
No answer.
She called again.
Voicemail.
Then a text arrived from Jenna.
I can't talk.
Camille typed immediately.
Where are you?
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Appeared again.
Then another message.
Tell Evelyn I'm sorry.
Camille went pale.
Detective Chen took the phone.
"Ask what she's sorry for."
Camille typed the question.
This time the answer took almost a minute.
I gave Tyler the jacket.
The room went silent.
Another message followed.
Preston said it was a stupid prank to teach Evelyn a lesson.
Then another.
He said nobody would get hurt.
My hands began to shake.
Camille whispered her sister's name.
"Jenna."
Detective Chen typed from Camille's phone with permission.
Where are you now?
No response.
She called dispatch.
While she spoke, my own phone buzzed.
Unknown number again.
A photograph loaded.
It showed Lydia walking into the hospital twenty minutes earlier.
Below it was one sentence.
Every witness you find gives us another problem to solve.
I showed Detective Chen.
Her expression became hard.
"They're still watching the building."
She studied the timestamp, then asked Lydia to unlock her phone and show the exact minute she had entered the hospital.
The photograph had been taken less than three minutes later.
That meant the sender was not watching from across the city.
They were close enough to see the entrance in real time.
Hospital security pulled exterior camera feeds while we waited.
One image showed a gray sedan stopped across the street for nearly twenty minutes.
The license plate was hidden by the angle.
Another camera caught a man in a dark baseball cap standing beside the parking garage elevator.
He never entered the hospital.
He simply watched the lobby doors, checked his phone, and walked away after Lydia arrived.
Camille leaned toward the monitor.
"I know that coat."
Detective Chen turned.
"Whose?"
Camille hesitated.
"One of Preston's drivers wears one like that."
"Name?"
"Ray Dorsey."
"He handles airport pickups and private errands."
The detective wrote it down.
I looked at Camille.
"How many people does Preston use for private errands?"
She gave a tired, humorless smile.
"More than I realized."
The answer made the room feel smaller.
This was no longer one arrogant man improvising after a mistake.
Preston had built a network of people who knew only their own tiny task.
A driver watched an entrance.
A contractor moved a jacket.
A sister returned it.
A mother suggested a search.
No single helper needed to understand the whole plan.
Only Preston did.
That was how men like him kept everyone feeling innocent while the machine kept moving.
At that exact moment, the lights in the conference room flickered.
Once.
May you like
Twice.
Then every light on the floor went out.
