“Ask your daughter.”
Harper’s eyes filled with tears.
“I didn’t know about the policy.”
Dad immediately looked at her.
“You’re lying.”
She turned toward him.
“You knew?”
Dad didn’t answer.
That was the moment I realized there was something much bigger happening inside my family.
Something they had been hiding from me.
Something that had started long before the wedding dress entered the pool.
And as I looked at the three things on the table, I finally understood why Harper wasn’t laughing anymore.
Because the third thing wasn’t a photograph.
It was a bank statement.
And beside the highlighted transaction was a name I had never expected to see.
HARPER REYNOLDS.
The amount transferred was $18,500.
The date was three weeks earlier.
And underneath it was a reference number connected to something even more disturbing.
Wedding Cancellation Deposit.
I looked at my sister.
“Tell me why you paid someone eighteen thousand five hundred dollars to cancel my wedding.”
Harper began to cry.
But she still didn’t answer.
Then Chloe noticed something I hadn’t.
She pointed at the bottom of the statement.
“Look at the account number.”
I leaned closer.
My heart stopped.
It wasn’t Harper’s account.
It was my mother’s.
And the transfer had been authorized from a computer inside this house.
Mom’s face went completely white.
Dad looked at her.
“What did you do?”
She whispered one sentence.
“I was trying to protect my family.”
And suddenly, I knew the wedding wasn’t the real target.
I was.
PART 4
“I was trying to protect my family.”
Mom’s voice was barely audible.
I stared at her.
“Protect us from what?”
She looked at Dad.
Dad looked away.
That was when I understood something.
My mother wasn’t surprised by the bank statement.
She was afraid of it.
“Mom,” I said slowly, “what did you do?”
She sat down.
Her hands trembled.
“I didn’t transfer that money to cancel your wedding.”
I looked at the statement.
“Then what was it for?”
She swallowed.
“I paid someone to investigate Chloe.”
The room went silent.
Chloe stepped backward.
“Investigate me?”
Mom immediately shook her head.
“No. Not because I thought you were a bad person.”
“Then why?”
“Because Harper told me something.”
Everyone looked at Harper.
Harper’s face had gone completely pale.
I turned toward her.
“What did you tell Mom?”
She didn’t answer.
“Harper.”
Finally, she whispered,
“I told her Chloe was marrying you for your money.”
Chloe looked like she’d been slapped.
“What?”
Harper began crying.
“I didn’t know if it was true.”
“You didn’t know?”
Chloe’s voice trembled.
“You accused me of marrying your brother for money?”
“I was scared.”
“Of what?”
“That you were going to take everything.”
I stared at my sister.
“What exactly did you think I had?”
“You have the house.”
“Which I bought.”
“You have the business.”
“Which I built.”
“You have the investments.”
“My investments.”
“And after the wedding—”
“We were already legally married.”
Harper looked down.
I continued.
“You knew that.”
She nodded.
“Then why were you trying to stop the ceremony?”
She didn’t answer.
Dad finally spoke.
“Because Harper believed that if the ceremony happened, your estate would change.”
I looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
Dad sighed.
“Before you and Chloe signed the civil marriage documents, your will listed Harper as the primary beneficiary.”
Chloe’s eyes widened.
I remembered.
My old will.
I’d written it years earlier.
At the time, Harper was the only immediate family member I had besides my parents.
But after Chloe and I got married legally, I’d started working with an attorney to update everything.
I hadn’t finished.
The wedding ceremony was supposed to happen five days later.
Dad continued.
“Harper thought if something happened to you before the new documents were completed, she would lose everything.”
I stared at her.
“So you tried to cancel my wedding?”
Harper shook her head.
“I didn’t want you dead.”
“But you wanted the wedding canceled.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I thought if you and Chloe had the ceremony, you’d immediately change everything.”
I looked at her in disbelief.
“You destroyed her wedding dress because of an inheritance?”
“I didn’t think it would go that far.”
“You threw my wife’s mother’s wedding dress into a swimming pool.”
“I was angry!”
“You stole it from our room.”
“I wanted to scare her.”
“You searched through our documents.”
“I was looking for the marriage certificate.”
“And you paid eighteen thousand five hundred dollars to someone to cancel our wedding.”
Harper covered her face.
“I made a mistake.”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“A mistake is forgetting someone’s birthday.”
I pointed toward the ruined dress.
“A mistake is spilling coffee.”
I looked directly into her eyes.
“What you did was a series of decisions.”
She began sobbing.
Mom started crying too.
But Chloe remained completely still.
She hadn’t said a word since Mom confessed.
I turned toward her.
“Chloe.”
She looked at me.
“I am so sorry.”
She shook her head.
“Not for the dress.”
I froze.
“What?”
“I’m sorry that you had to discover all of this.”
She looked at my family.
“I knew something was wrong.”
Mom lowered her eyes.
“I just didn’t realize how far it went.”
I took Chloe’s hand.
“We’re leaving.”
Dad stood.
“Wait.”
“No.”
“You need to hear the rest.”
I stopped.
Dad’s face had changed.
He looked older suddenly.
Exhausted.
“I didn’t know about the pool.”
I stared at him.
“But you knew about the investigation.”
“Yes.”
“And you knew Harper wanted the wedding canceled.”
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing.”
Dad looked down.
“I thought she would calm down.”
I laughed bitterly.
“That’s what you always say.”
He didn’t respond.
“She’s twenty years old,” I said. “You keep telling everyone she’ll grow out of it.”
Dad’s eyes filled with tears.
“I know.”
“No, Dad.”
I shook my head.
“You don’t.”
He looked at me.
“You protected her from consequences for so long that she eventually learned consequences weren’t real.”
Harper began crying harder.
Mom covered her face.
Dad whispered,
