Chapter 7
The string lights were still on. The flowers were still on the tables. Nobody had told the caterers to stop pouring champagne, so they kept moving between the glass walls with their trays, and that made everything worse, like we were supposed to keep pretending.
I hadn't moved far from where I'd been standing when the screen went dark. My sister found me there. She was still in her purple dress and her hands were cold when she grabbed mine.
"You need water," she said. She wasn't looking at me when she said it. She was looking past my shoulder at the projection screen.
The screen had gone gray after the silhouette faded, that flat no-signal gray that buzzed faintly. The laptop was still open on the black-draped table underneath it, the fan humming. The little girl with the yellow bow was still there too, standing beside the table with her hands knotted in front of her navy top, staring at the keyboard like she was waiting to be told what to do next.
My sister's grip tightened. "Lena," she said quietly, and tipped her chin up.
I followed her eyes to the top of the projection screen, to the small black webcam clipped to the frame.
It had a red light on. Steady. Not blinking.
I had assumed it was part of the equipment, something the venue owned for hybrid ceremonies, something inert. I hadn't noticed it at all during the video. Now I couldn't stop looking at it.
"Is that on?" my sister whispered. She didn't let go of my hand. "Has that been on this whole time?"
My breath caught. I felt it in my ribs, a sharp little pause before I could answer. The screen had shown the photo of me and him among the greenery, then that blurry dark figure in the doorway, overexposed and unfocused. And we had all reacted. Him up front with his hand out. My mother-in-law in her silver dress with her mouth open. Me, frozen in white satin.
If that light meant what I thought it meant, we hadn't just watched something. Something had watched us.
The girl shifted her weight. I turned to her and tried to keep my voice even.
"Honey," I said. "Did you turn that camera on?"
She shook her head quickly, her yellow bow trembling a little. "No. It was already on. The light was on when I opened the laptop. I thought I was supposed to leave it."
My sister stepped closer to the table, but I put my hand out.
"Don't touch anything yet," I said. I could hear how thin my voice sounded. "Just— give her space. It isn't a prank."
The words came out before I realized I was echoing what had already been said earlier. They sounded different now, quieter, like a warning to myself.
I looked again at the webcam, at that steady red eye. I thought about what he had said, about property becoming accessible through the trust once he signed, and about the way he'd looked when he said, "I know him." If he knew the man in the doorway, and that man had a way to watch us watch him, then this wasn't a message that had been dropped off. It was a conversation.
My sister understood it at the same second I did. I saw it in her face, the way her eyebrows pulled together.
"He can see us right now?" she mouthed.
I didn't know if it was live or recording. Both felt violating in the same way. I didn't want to speak loud enough for a microphone to catch.
I stepped to the black-draped table. The laptop screen was still awake, showing the media player frozen on the last frame of the doorway image. I could see the reflection of the conservatory in the glass walls behind it, and the webcam perched above it all, taking it in.
I didn't slam it shut. I didn't yank the cord. I put my hand on the lid and looked at my sister.
"If this is recording, we keep it," I whispered. "We don't delete anything."
She nodded once.
I reached for the small USB cable running from the webcam down the back of the screen stand. My fingers were shaking enough that I had to steady them with my other hand. I pinched the plug and pulled it straight out. The red light went off instantly.
The absence of it felt louder than its presence.
I then lifted the laptop, closed it gently, and held it against my chest. It was warm. The weight of it against my satin gown felt strange and heavy, not like a piece of equipment but like evidence.
The girl watched me, her eyes wide. "Am I in trouble?" she asked, her voice very small.
I crouched enough to be level with her, still holding the laptop with one arm. "No," I said. "You did exactly what someone asked you to do. That's not your fault."
May you like
My sister put her hand on the girl's shoulder and looked at me over her head. "We need to keep that somewhere safe," she said.
"I know," I said. I stood and tucked the laptop tighter against me. The webcam stayed dark on top of the now-dead screen, blind. But I kept feeling the red light even after it was gone, like the room had been documented from both ends without our permission, and now I was the one holding the proof.
