Chapter 2

Naomi drove for ten minutes before the first video hit her phone.

She was on the county road, the van humming at a comfortable sixty miles per hour, Red Oak Venue growing smaller in her rearview. The phone buzzed in her apron pocket, and she almost ignored it—she'd been ignoring it all morning, letting the texts pile up like snow. But something about this buzz was different. It was longer. Heavier.

She fished the phone out and glanced at the screen.

DEREK MAYES: Sent you something. Watch it before you turn it off.

The message was followed by a video thumbnail. Naomi pulled over at the next gravel turnoff, killed the engine, and pressed play.

The footage was grainy, the kind of quality that comes from a fixed camera twelve feet up on a pole. But the audio was clear. Crystal clear.

She watched herself stand in front of the van, six hours earlier, pulling a hotel pan of salmon roulade from the back. She watched Celeste emerge from the reception hall, gown pristine, veil perfect. She watched her sister's face do the thing it always did when Naomi was within arm's reach—the lips curving into that half-smile that said, *I know you. I'm not impressed.*

"Naomi." Celeste's voice on the recording. "You're early."

"I wanted to make sure everything was perfect," her own voice replied.

"Oh, it will be." Celeste surveyed the van. "What did you make? Please tell me you didn't do the mushroom thing again."

"Mushroom duxelles in the roulade. It's your favorite."

"Is it?" Celeste laughed, a dry, dismissive sound. "I don't remember."

Naomi watched herself pause. The recorded version of her stood with a hotel pan in her hands, a dish towel over her shoulder, and the pause was so visible even through the grainy footage. The pause was a woman swallowing a sentence she wanted to say.

"Okay," her recorded self said. "Well, it's ready."

"Great." Celeste turned to leave. "You'll be paid, don't worry. After the wedding. We'll settle up."

"Settling up" was a phrase Naomi had heard her whole life. It was what her mother said when she borrowed twenty dollars for groceries. It was what her father said when he "forgot" to reimburse her for the air filter he'd asked her to pick up. It was a phrase that meant *eventually*, which meant *never*.

On the footage, the recorded Naomi watched Celeste walk back into the reception hall. Then she turned to the van and kept unloading.

The camera angle shifted. A different section of the same feed. The clock in the corner read 7:47 a.m.

Naomi watched herself load the cake—the three-tier white buttercream with the cascading sugar roses she'd piped until her fingers cramped. She watched herself check the chafing dishes, the sterno cans, the serving spoons. She watched herself lean into the back of the van and adjust the stack of plates, and the camera caught the way she flexed her wrist, the way the burn marks caught the light.