Chapter 5

I grabbed my jacket off the hook by the door.

Russell followed me into the hallway.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Out."

"Maren, look at me," he said. "We have rehearsal in six days. The caterer needs the final head count by tomorrow noon. Can we please stop running out of rooms and talk like two adults?"

I zipped my jacket.

"I'm not running out of a room, Russell. I'm stepping out of the frame, just like you asked me to this afternoon."

His jaw tightened, but he didn't follow me down the front steps.

Juniper Diner was four blocks west on Hennepin.

Audra was sitting in a booth near the back, an oversized gray hoodie pulled over her frame and a cup of black coffee between her hands.

I didn't take off my jacket.

I slid into the booth across from her and set my phone on the table.

"Thanks for coming," Audra said, keeping her voice low.

"I have five minutes," I said. "Say what you need to say."

"Russell told me you agreed to split the session," Audra said. "He said you wanted him to have a few solo shots before the couple photos."

"I found out you were shooting us when you walked into the studio this morning," I said.

Audra's mouth tightened.

"The $8,240 for your camera equipment came out of our wedding account," I added, holding her gaze.

She let out a short, rough breath and looked away toward the counter.

"He told me the camera money came from an insurance payout," Audra said. "He said it was his to lend."

"Did that sound true?"

She looked at the coffee between her hands. "It sounded convenient."

"That isn't what I asked."

"No," she said. "I didn't believe all of it. I needed the equipment, and believing enough of it made taking the money easier."

"And when you told the assistant to take the bride out of the picture?" I asked. "Did Russell tell you to do that, too?"

Audra looked straight at me.

"No," she said. Her voice didn't waver. "That part was mine."

"Why?"

"Because he still looked at me like I was the only interesting thing that ever happened to him," she said. "I knew it was wrong. But I liked knowing I could still pull that expression out of him with one sentence. It was vanity, Maren. Cheap vanity."

A server stopped beside us with a pot of coffee.

Audra covered her cup with one hand.

I shook my head before the server could ask me.

"When did Russell first contact you?" I asked.

"Three weeks ago."

"Before the photographer changed."

"Yes."

She did not dress the answer up.

That helped, though not enough.

"He said you knew we still talked once in a while," she added. "He said you thought hiring me would make the pictures feel less formal."

"Russell and I never discussed you taking our pictures."

Audra rubbed a thumb over a chip in the coffee mug. "Then he lied to both of us. He just lied to you with more at stake."

"Did he tell you why we were finally getting married after seven years?"

Audra shook her head.

"Willa asked whether I would still count as family if something happened to him. Russell proposed two weeks later."

The spoon beside Audra's cup stopped beneath her thumb.

"He told me the proposal was spontaneous."

"Russell likes the part of a story where he looks brave. He leaves out the woman who asked the hard question first."

I sat with those words.

"You used my wedding to feel unforgettable," I said. "And he used it to feel chosen."

"Why text me now?" I asked.

Audra looked down at her coffee.

"Because I saw the studio post."

"You saw me in the corner of it."

"I did."

She didn't deny it.

"I told myself you knew about the solo shots. Then I saw the bridal train. I saw the comments telling them to crop it out."

"And?"

"And I realized I had let him make you disappear so I could feel important for an afternoon."

I looked at her. "You could have called me before the shoot."

"I could have," she said. "I didn't. That's mine."

"What did you think would happen after the wedding?" I asked.

Audra gave a small shrug. "I thought I'd leave town again. Russell would go home with you. We'd both keep the proof that we still mattered."

"And I would live inside a story I didn't know existed."

She looked toward the rain on the window. "Yes."

Her hand tightened around the coffee cup.

"But the money wasn't my idea. Neither was what he asked me three nights ago."

Audra didn't argue further.

She pulled her phone from her pocket and tapped the screen.

Audra turned the phone toward me.

The message was from three nights before the shoot. The timestamp read 11:42 p.m.

[If I called off the wedding... would you stay?]