Chapter 3 - THE BAGGAGE TICKET
“Thomas!” Adrian dropped the photo, rushing to catch his father as the older man stumbled.
I moved forward instinctively, grabbing Thomas’s other arm to steady him.
“I’m alright, I’m alright,” Thomas wheezed, waving us off. But his eyes were locked on the small yellow ticket in Adrian’s hand.
“Dad, what is it?” Adrian asked.
Thomas looked at Vanessa. His expression shifted from shock to a profound, deep-seated disgust.
“That’s a baggage claim ticket,” Thomas said, his voice shaking. “From the central train station. I haven’t seen one of those since the night your mother passed away.”
Vanessa’s face turned the color of ash. “Thomas, you’re confused. Your medication—”
“Do not speak to me!” Thomas roared.
The entire ballroom flinched. Thomas Mercer was a gentle man. He had never raised his voice in the thirty years I had known him.
“My wife had a bag packed that night,” Thomas said, turning to Adrian. “She told me she was going to meet someone who had information about the company’s missing pension funds. She took a cab to the station. She checked her bag. But she never got on the train.”
Adrian stared at the ticket. “She collapsed in the station bathroom. That’s what the police report said.”
“She didn’t collapse on her own,” a small, quiet voice said.
Everyone froze.
A little girl stepped out from behind the heavy velvet curtains near the bridal table.
It was Lily, Vanessa’s seven-year-old niece. She was wearing a tiny white dress that mirrored Vanessa’s, but she looked exhausted and terrified.
“Lily, go back to your room!” Vanessa snapped, stepping toward the child.
I didn’t think. I just moved. I stepped between Vanessa and the little girl.
“Don’t yell at her,” I said.
Lily reached out and grabbed the fabric of my cheap beige dress, hiding behind my legs. She looked up at Adrian.
“Auntie V was at the station,” Lily said, her voice clear and natural for a seven-year-old. “She made me sit on a bench. She said she had to go talk to the nice lady in the bathroom.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
“Lily, what did Auntie V do?” Adrian asked gently, kneeling down to the child’s eye level.
Vanessa lunged forward. “She’s a child! She makes things up! She has an active imagination, Adrian, you know this!”
“Let the girl speak,” Thomas commanded.
Lily sniffled. “Auntie V went in the bathroom. And then she came out really fast. And she gave a heavy bag to the man with the big coat.”
Answer one.
Vanessa had met Adrian’s mother at the station. She had taken the baggage claim ticket, retrieved the bag containing the pension fund evidence, and handed it off to someone else.
Open two.
Why did Vanessa need the pension funds? And who was the man in the coat?
“What man, Lily?” Adrian asked, his voice cracking. “Who did she give the bag to?”
Lily peeked around my legs. She scanned the crowd of shocked, silent wedding guests.
Then, she raised her small finger and pointed toward the back of the room.
“Him,” Lily said. “The man who always asks Auntie V for the shiny watch.”
Every head in the ballroom turned.
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Standing near the exit doors, wearing a heavy charcoal coat over his tuxedo, was Marcus.
Adrian’s best man. His business partner. And his oldest friend.
