Chapter 4 - Whispers from the Groom
The voicemail from Daniel played on a loop in my mind as I sat in my parked car outside the precinct. She knows you went to the police. How could Claire possibly know I had filed a police report barely an hour after leaving the hospital? The only person I had spoken to about going to the authorities was my mother, which meant Mom must have rushed straight to Claire and Daniel to warn them the moment I walked out of Ravensworth Manor.
My phone rang again, vibrating violently against the dashboard cup holder. It was Daniel calling live this time. I hesitated for a fraction of a second before swiping the green answer button and pressing the phone to my ear.
“Daniel?” I said cautiously.
“Emma! Thank God you picked up,” Daniel whispered frantically, his voice sounding breathless, as if he were hiding in a closet or a locked room. In the background, I could faintly hear the muffled, angry shouting of a woman’s voice—Claire, screaming bloody murder down a hallway.
“Calm down, Daniel,” I said firmly, keeping my hand on the steering wheel. “Where are you? Why are you whispering?”
“We’re back at the house—well, Claire’s parents' estate,” Daniel stammered, his words tumbling over one another in a rush of sheer panic. “Your mother came over an hour ago crying hysterically, saying you were talking to detectives about the glass. Claire went completely feral, Emma. I’ve... I’ve only been married to her for twenty-four hours, but seeing the way she reacted to your name made me realize I’ve made the biggest mistake of my entire life.”
“You’re just realizing that now?” I asked dryly. “She literally tried to blind me with a glass-laced cake in front of a hundred guests.”
“I thought it was just a terrible accident! I honestly believed her when she said it was a catering malfunction!” Daniel groaned, his voice cracking with emotion. “It wasn't an accident, Emma. Last night, after you left for the hospital, I found something in her vanity drawer while looking for aspirin. It was a receipt from a specialty glass-blowing workshop downtown, dated three days before the wedding, along with a custom mold shaped exactly like the crystal shards on top of the cake.”
My grip on the steering wheel tightened until my knuckles turned stark white. “She made them herself.”
“Yes! She spent hours in that workshop crafting them,” Daniel whispered harshly. “And that’s not even the worst part. When I confronted her about it this morning—when I asked her what on earth possessed her to put glass in a pastry—she didn't even deny it. She just laughed in my face, Emma. She said you ‘needed to be taught a permanent lesson’ for trying to overshadow her bridal entrance by wearing a dress that was slightly too similar to her color palette.”
I stared blankly out the windshield at the quiet street. A dress color palette. She had nearly blinded me, torn my facial tissue, and subjected me to emergency microsurgery because my dress was the wrong shade of cream. The sheer, psychopathic disproportion of her logic was staggering.
“Detective Vance is already opening a formal criminal investigation,” I told Daniel coldly. “The police are going to pull those bakery records, and they’re going to look into that glass-blowing workshop. You need to pack your bags and get out of that house right now, Daniel. If you stay there protecting her, you’re an accessory.”
“I tried to leave,” Daniel choked out, a sudden crash echoing through the phone line as if a door had been violently shoved open on his end. “I told her I was walking out the front door—!”
“Daniel? Daniel!” I shouted into the phone.
A sharp, breathless gasp echoed through the speaker, followed by the terrifying sound of a struggle. Then, a voice came across the line—not Daniel’s terrified whisper, but Claire’s voice, cold, mocking, and dripping with venomous amusement.
“Well, well, look who’s calling,” Claire sang out softly into the microphone. “Playing little detective with the police, are we, Emma? Did you enjoy your little trip to the hospital? Did the doctors tell you how pretty your new facial scar is going to look?”
“Put Daniel on the phone, Claire,” I snarled, my voice dropping into a dangerous register. “You’ve crossed a line you can never come back from. The police have the glass shards, they have the medical reports, and they’re coming for you.”
Claire let out a sharp, mocking laugh that sent chills straight down my spine. “Let them come! Do you honestly think a couple of local cops can touch me? Dad’s legal team has handled much worse than a bitter, jealous spinster crying over a little bit of shattered sugar—or whatever stupid story you told them.”
“It wasn't sugar, Claire, and you know it,” I fired back. “Daniel just told me about the glass-blowing receipt. He told me everything.”
The line went dead silent for three long seconds. The mocking amusement vanished entirely from Claire’s tone, replaced by a sudden, venomous hatred.
“That pathetic, spineless coward,” Claire hissed through clenched teeth. Then, her voice morphed into a sickeningly sweet, singsong taunt. “Well, if Daniel likes talking to you so much, maybe he can keep you company while you rot. Because by the time the police actually show up here with a warrant, Emma... nobody is going to find anything left of either of us.”
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The call abruptly disconnected with a sharp click.
I stared at my phone screen in sheer horror. Without wasting a single second, I dialed Detective Vance’s direct precinct line, my heart pounding against my ribs like a trapped bird.
