Chapter 3

The footsteps faded. The TV switched to a variety show, and canned laughter rolled in waves while I stood in the dark. Shelves lined the walls with old clothes, quilts, and dusty junk. The windowless room was hot, dry, and thick with the smell of mothballs. After ten minutes, I sat down with my back against a shelf leg.

Through the door, I heard Aunt May talking to my mother-in-law. "She's got a bit of a temper, sure, but she's still young. You can teach her slowly."

My mother-in-law sighed. "Do you think this is easy for me? I've treated her well, and look at this. All over one dress."

Christine cut in with her usual soft voice. "Mom, don't get upset. Anna's just anxious before the wedding. She'll be fine after tomorrow."

No one mentioned that I was locked in the storage room. No one even asked whether I'd had dinner. The blood on my palm had dried, and the cut on my ankle had soaked one small patch of my sock.

Half an hour. One hour. Two hours. The living room lights went out, footsteps went upstairs, doors closed, water ran, voices faded, and the whole house sank into silence. The night before my wedding, I was locked inside my future in-laws' storage room.

My shattered phone lay outside the door. There was no water, no food, only dust on my knees. I kept waiting for James to call, or at least ask where I was, but no one remembered there was still a person locked inside the house.

I leaned my head back against the shelf and closed my eyes. Then my hand bumped into something hard, flat, and rectangular. The screen lit up. It was William Young's tablet, and I remembered overhearing him tell Christine last month, "Password's WY2019. I stuck it on the back."

It had forty-seven percent battery left and was still connected to the house Wi-Fi. I opened the browser, entered the security system address and password, and watched the loading bar crawl forward until eight camera feeds appeared across the screen.

I opened the walk-in closet feed and dragged the timeline back. At 3:12, Christine walked in wearing lounge clothes, checked both white garment bags, snapped two photos, then raised her phone and sent a voice message before leaving with the briefest curl of a smile.

The screen stayed empty for half an hour. At 3:45, my mother-in-law entered, opened the garment bag on the left, felt the fabric inside, and hung it back on the hook to the right without realizing she'd switched them. The two dresses had changed places.

I dragged the timeline to yesterday morning. Lydia walked in with scissors in one hand, her phone in the other, and a lollipop in her mouth. After checking Christine's photo, she went straight to the left garment bag and hacked it apart before sending back a picture.

The gown she had destroyed was the one my mother-in-law had accidentally switched: Christine's own one-of-a-kind couture dress, Italian handmade lace, eight months in the making, worth around two hundred and seventy grand. My bridal gown, the one my mother designed, still hung untouched on the other side.

I kept going through the footage. Three days earlier, Christine had spent forty minutes on the study landline, then come out looking wired instead of calm. She kept revising her notes, silently mouthing one name: Henry Shaw. The plan started after that call.

I clipped every relevant video and downloaded it to the tablet. Fifteen minutes later, the battery was down to twenty-eight percent. I hid it under an old quilt, leaned back against the wall, and closed my eyes—not to rest, but to plan.

The lock turned and the door opened. The hallway lights were off, and only a dim wall lamp glowed behind the man standing there. "Anna?" It was William Young, Christine's husband and James's older brother, in pajamas and holding a glass of water.

"Why are you in here?" I stood up and dusted off my skirt without answering him.

"William, do you know how much the gown Christine's wearing to the awards gala this afternoon cost?" William froze with the glass midair. "What gown?"

I said, "A one-of-a-kind piece. Eight months of work. Around two hundred and seventy grand. Christine didn't run that by you?" He frowned. "No way. We share an account..."

"There's a tablet under the old quilts on the bottom shelf in the storage room. It has the walk-in closet surveillance footage on it. Watch it yourself."

He stared at me for a long moment without speaking, something dark settling across his face. "Anna, how exactly did you end up locked in there?"

"My hand slipped."