Her face cracked.
I continued.
“But women like us don’t have to become monsters when they do.”
For once, Valerie had no answer.
The wedding was still on.
That was the part nobody could believe.
Valerie was released after questioning because the officers had only detained her for interfering with the search, and the larger case was still being built. Dad stopped answering Adrian’s calls. The venue confirmed the ceremony remained scheduled.
Grandma said it plainly.
“Then we let them walk into it.”
The morning of the wedding was bright and cruelly beautiful.
Blue sky. White clouds. The kind of day brides pray for.
The ceremony was at a vineyard outside town, the sort of place with stone arches, imported roses, and staff trained to smile through disasters.
Valerie had chosen white orchids, gold chairs, a string quartet, and a champagne wall.
Two hundred thousand dollars of elegance built on rot.
I wore black.
Grandma wore navy.
Adrian wore the same neat gray suit.
We arrived uninvited thirty minutes before the ceremony.
No one stopped us.
People rarely stop grandmothers who walk like they own the ground.
Valerie was in a bridal suite overlooking the vineyard.