Chapter 1

"Daddy, don't marry her."

The words came out in a wet, broken rush, loud enough for the back row to hear.

Emmie Pruitt stood at the edge of the lawn in her flower-girl dress.

Both her hands were wrapped around something small and crushed.

A note.

Behind her the rented arch leaned in the heat.

Cicadas sawed in the oaks along the bluff road.

Dan Pruitt was halfway down the aisle in a rented charcoal tux.

It didn't fit his shoulders.

He was a co-op lineman, and his crew stood at the back in work boots and clean Sunday shirts.

The Coles filled the front two rows in silk.

They looked at him the way they looked at a trade-in.

Then Whitney Cole turned from the arch.

Her bridal smile was still on.

Ash-blonde hair, set stiff.

An ivory mermaid gown with a beaded sash.

Pearls borrowed from her mother.

"Emmie," she said. "Sweetheart. Go sit with Grandma."

Emmie didn't move.

She walked to her father and pressed the note into his hand.

Whitney's smile didn't move.

Her eyes did.

"Nobody likes a child who tells stories, Emmie."

Dan looked at his daughter's face.

Then he unfolded the paper.

The handwriting was small and even.

Ink, pressed hard enough to ridge the page.

After Saturday I'll be his wife, and you'll do as I say.

Stop talking about your mother.

Dan read it twice.

"Whitney."

Whitney's hand closed on his wrist.

"Give me that. It's nothing."

Her nails bit in.

Dan didn't pull away.

He didn't raise his voice.

He never did.

Then Whitney's other hand shot past him and closed around Emmie's small wrist.

She squeezed.

"I'll have her sent away before the reception," she said.

Low. Even. Almost kind.

Emmie cried without a sound.

Her face folded and not one sound came out.

Nobody on the lawn moved.

A man in the third row studied his shoes.

Whitney's mother studied the arch.

At the back, under the oaks, an old woman in a lavender dress and a gray cardigan watched with both hands on a worn leather purse.

Dan went down on one knee, slow, like he was setting a pole.

He kept the note in his hand.

"Emmie. Look at me."

She lifted her wet face.

"Is there more?"

She nodded.

She tugged his sleeve and reached into the little purse on her shoulder.

She pulled out a photograph.

A color print, 4 by 6, corners soft from being carried.

Whitney made a sound.

"Where did you get that?"

"Whitney's car," Emmie whispered. "Three weeks ago."

Dan took it.

He turned the picture to the light.

He went still.

The picture had been shot at a picnic table under a flat blue sky.

Two women, arms around each other, laughing.

One was Whitney.

The other had gray eyes and a crooked smile.

Emmie's exact smile.

Dan's thumb stopped on the print.

"Did you write this?"

Whitney let go of his wrist.

Her bouquet slipped from her fingers and hit the grass.

Nobody picked it up.

The old woman at the back took one step forward, then stopped.

The woman standing beside Whitney in the picture was smiling like an old friend.

She was Josie Pruitt.

His wife.

Emmie's mother.

And Josie had drowned in Table Rock Lake five years ago.