My sister was standing at the altar in a white satin wedding dress when a woman everyone believed had died walked through the ballroom doors.

The King County Correctional Facility was a cold, gray concrete structure that smelled of industrial bleach and damp metal.

I sat on one side of a thick glass partition in the small visiting room. A few moments later, the heavy metal door on the far side opened, and a guard led Juliette inside.

She was wearing a orange jump suit. Her hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, completely devoid of styling products or makeup. She looked tiny, fragile, and utterly broken without her high-fashion clothes and diamond jewelry.

She sat down heavily on the metal stool and picked up the gray plastic phone receiver.

I picked up mine.

“Did you come to gloat?” Juliette asked, her voice flat and raspy through the electronic speaker. “Did you come to see the great Juliette Mercer sitting in a prison jumpsuit?”

“No,” I said calmly. “I came to give you an answer.”

Juliette frowned, her brow furrowing. “An answer to what?”

“To the question you asked me five years ago,” I said. “Right before the fire swept into the east corridor. You asked me why Mother gave me the voting shares instead of splitting them equally between us.”

Juliette’s grip on the phone receiver tightened until her knuckles turned white. “She always loved you more.”

“That’s not why she did it, Juliette,” I said gently. “Mother gave me the shares because she knew Dad was too trusting. She knew he would let men like Arthur Pendelton walk all over him. She gave them to me not because she loved me more, but because she knew I was strong enough to protect you both.”

Juliette stared at me through the thick glass, her lips trembling slightly.

“Mother left a private note attached to her trust,” I continued. “I read it yesterday. Do you know what it said? It said that when you turned twenty-five, half of the dividend income was supposed to be transferred into a permanent annuity for you, so you would never have to worry about money for the rest of your life. She wanted you to be free to pursue whatever you wanted without the burden of running the company.”

Tears welled in Juliette’s eyes, spilling over her lower lashes and tracing wet paths down her pale cheeks. “She... she did that for me?”

“Yes,” I said. “Mother loved you, Juliette. I loved you. You didn't have to steal anything. You didn't have to leave me in a burning room. Everything you ever wanted was already yours.”

Juliette dropped her head onto the counter, her shoulders shaking violently as deep, hysterical sob wracked her entire body. The sound echoed weakly through the plastic speaker.

“I’m sorry...” she wept, her voice barely a whisper. “Caroline... I’m so sorry... I was so scared... Arthur told me you were going to put me in jail... he said he’d ruin me...”

“Arthur is in a cell three floors below you,” I said flatly. “He’s going to spend the rest of his life in federal prison. And you are going to serve your time, Juliette.”

She looked up at me, her eyes pleading, wet, and filled with a despair I had carried for five long years. “Will you ever forgive me?”

I looked at my sister—at the girl I used to read bedtime stories to, the girl who had watched me burn and walked away to wear my emeralds.