Chapter 6 - The Web of Collusion
The clock on the dashboard of Tessa’s Honda Civic read 3:42 AM.
We were parked outside my small apartment building. The street was quiet, shrouded in a thin layer of pre-dawn mist that smelled of wet pavement and damp leaves. I sat with my head leaning against the cold glass of the passenger window, clutching my handbag to my chest like an armor plate.
My phone hadn't stopped vibrating for five hours.
News of the disastrous Montgomery wedding had already leaked. In the digital age, a high-society scandal doesn't stay local for more than twenty minutes. A guest had recorded a thirty-second video of me walking down the aisle with the Cannon Beach portrait looming above the altar, captioned: *“GROOM’S ‘DEAD’ FIANCÉE SHOWS UP AT BILLIONAIRE WEDDING!”*
It had already garnered over four million views on TikTok and Facebook. My inbox was flooded with hundreds of messages from college friends, distant relatives, local florists, and tabloid journalists begging for an interview.
*“Meredith, are you alive? What is going on?”*
*“Is this real? Tell me this is fake!”*
*“Call me immediately, Meredith!”*
“You don't have to look at them,” Tessa said softly, reaching over to squeeze my hand. “Leave the phone in the glove box. Come inside, take a hot shower, and sleep for three hours. The police said they won't need you until eight o'clock at the cemetery.”
“I can't sleep, Tessa,” I whispered. My throat felt like raw sandpaper. “Every time I close my eyes, I see him in that mirror. Smiling. Straightening his tie. He was happy. He wasn't haunted by me. He was *excited* to marry her.”
“He is a sociopath, Meredith,” Tessa said fiercely. “A weak, narcissistic, cowardly monster. And today, you stripped the skin right off him.”
Before I could reply, the glare of headlights swept across our car.
A sleek black sedan had pulled up behind us, its engine idling with a low, menacing purr. The passenger door opened, and a man in a dark trench coat stepped out into the mist.
My heart seized. “Tessa, lock the doors.”
“Wait,” Tessa murmured, peering through the rear-view mirror. “That’s... that’s Julian.”
It was Julian. He looked entirely different without the tuxedo. He was wearing an old navy wool coat, his hair unwashed, his shoulders slumped as if the sky were falling directly on his back. He walked slowly toward the passenger side of our car and tapped gently on the glass.
I lowered the window two inches. “What do you want, Julian? If you’re here to beg for Colleen, I’m calling Detective Vance.”
“I’m not here to beg,” Julian said, his voice hoarse, his breath condensing in the freezing morning air. “I’m here to give you this.”
He reached into his pocket and slid a heavy, brass safety deposit box key and a manila envelope through the cracked window.
I looked down at the envelope. “What is this?”
“It’s Adrian’s private box at First National Bank,” Julian said, resting his forehead against the cold frame of the window. “He didn't just borrow money to pay bookmakers, Meredith. He took out a life insurance policy on *you* five months before the accident.”
A cold, paralyzing dread trickled down the back of my neck.
“What?”
“He took out a million-dollar supplemental rider through a private maritime insurer while he was traveling with Clara’s father’s firm,” Julian revealed, tears finally spilling over his eyelids. “Adrian’s original plan wasn't to fake his own death. His original plan was to stage an ‘accident’ for you in the woods behind your parents' cabin during your bridal retreat.”
The world stopped spinning. The air left my lungs entirely.
“He... he was going to kill me?”
“Colleen stopped him,” Julian choked out, weeping openly in the dark street. “Not because she loved you, but because she knew Richard Montgomery’s private investigators would look into any sudden death connected to Adrian before he married Clara. She convinced Adrian that faking his own death was cleaner. It removed him from his Atlantic City debts, gave him an untraceable exit, and left you alive so there would be no homicide investigation. Colleen didn't save your life out of mercy, Meredith. She saved you because murdering you was too risky for Adrian’s timeline.”
I held the envelope in my lap, feeling the sharp edges of the documents inside.
The man I had loved for four years. The man whose shoulder I had cried on when my father passed away. The man who made me pancakes on Sunday mornings and kissed the top of my head before leaving for work.
He hadn't just abandoned me. He had weighed the profit margin of my murder against the convenience of his own disappearance.
“Why are you giving this to me?” I asked, my voice barely a whisper against the hum of the engine.
Julian stepped back into the shadows, his face drenched in shame. “Because for ninety days, I was a coward. Because I watched you break and did nothing. Because you deserve to bury him for real this time.”
May you like
He turned around and walked back to his car, vanishing into the gray morning fog before I could say another word.
***
