Page 110 of The Bridesmaid
‘Interesting theory.’ Leopold raises a stocky eyebrow. ‘We can edit these photos, right?’ he says to Petra, waving toward the camera. ‘Crazy fan tries to disrupt Adrianna’s wedding.’
Petra dutifully takes another snap.
I notice Mark’s eyes widen slightly, like he’s not sure what to believe. Leopold puts a reassuring hand on his shoulder and turns to me.
‘The kidnapper has been identified,’ rumbles Leopold. ‘It was a tragedy. But Silky had mental health issues, and a drug addiction. She was an old family friend. None of us had any reason to wish her harm.’
‘Except that Silky knew the big family secret,’ I interject. ‘Just like Simone did.’
Something crosses Leopold’s face now. Something a lot like fear.
‘Can someone get this crazy girl out of here? Before she ruins my daughter’s entire wedding.’ Leopold glances around for his ever-present security, before realizing with cold shock that there’s no one at hand.
He lunges forward and grabs hold of my arm. I jerk it free.
‘You’ve been buying Silky’s silence for years. First with money, then with drugs. But she was becoming more demanding. Addicts always do. So you came up with a plan. Give her an uncut batch, strong enough to overdose, then frame her as the kidnapper. The perfect end to a clickbait story.’
Georgia steps in. ‘How dare you,’ she says, her voice trembling. ‘How dare you come here on Dri’s wedding day, with these accusations. We were all traumatized by Dri’s kidnap, Dad more than all of us. He wouldneverrisk the real kidnapper going free.’
‘You’re right, he wouldn’t have,’ I say.
‘What are you talking about?’ demands Georgia.
‘The big secret Leopold has been trying to hide. The family secret Simone planned to expose onWrongly Accused.’ I take a breath. ‘I couldn’t understand how the kidnapper had bypassed such an elaborate security system and gotten into the Tower Suite that night. It’s set for Adrianna’s fingerprints, and any kind of breach would have shown up. The only way someone could have drugged Adrianna and dragged her through the secret route to the panic room would be if she had let them in. But there was a second possibility.’
I whirl around, looking into Adrianna’s frightened deep blue eyes.
‘Your dad isn’t the only publicity genius in the family, is he, Adrianna? The entire kidnap was a stunt devised by his twenty-year-old daughter.’ I turn back to Leopold, the groom and the bridesmaids. ‘Adrianna kidnapped herself.’
Chapter ninety
HOLLY
The revelation of Adrianna’s self-kidnap ripples through the small wedding party, like a detonating grenade. Mark’s face explodes in wide-eyed disbelief. Georgia takes an audible gasp of air, stepping back, the bouquet lifting defensively to her chest. Ophelia looks devastated. Heart-broken, even. Leopold flows through a full spectrum of anger and panic, settling on menacing calculation.
‘There never was a kidnap,’ I tell Mark. ‘It was a set-up all along. Twenty-year-old Adrianna knew she needed a big splash to break into the media world. She’d been raised to it, after all. And Adrianna was smart enough to know how much attention stalker and kidnapping cases got. Her first move was to send herself a threatening birthday invitation, signed by Trinity. But the spread of the fingerprints didn’t just match the pattern of someone opening an invitation and reading it. There are extra prints, right where you’d expect the person who wrote the name on to make them.’
Petra snaps away, adjusting her lens to capture Adrianna’s mortified face.
‘It was easy to lock herself in the family panic room.’ I pause. ‘The simplicity of the plan was what made it so brilliant. ButAdrianna messed up. Used the manacles she’d seen around the island, and didn’t realize they rusted shut on closing.’
Adrianna swallows heavily. Something awful twists on her face, like she wants to hurt me.
‘Was it the court case against the school you wanted to detract attention from?’ I ask her. ‘Or did you just realize how much money your story could make the family nightclubs, after Leopold sunk every cent into construction work on the Kensington graveyard?’
She shakes her head.
‘Your masked captor’s persona was an amalgamation of all the terrors you had suppressed from boarding school,’ I say. ‘The stories you so desperately wanted to tell.’
I look into Adrianna’s famous sapphire eyes.
‘Because I think youdocare,’ I tell her, simply, ‘that the legacy of your ancestor’s cruelty is still hurting girls sixty years later, at Kensington Manor School. If you didn’t care, how could you have dreamed up a kidnapper like Trinity?’
‘I couldn’t,’ whispers Adrianna, her voice choked. ‘Silky wanted me to testify against the school. Icouldn’t.’ Her eyes are pleading.
Petra snaps a picture.
‘Put the camera down,’ Adrianna hisses. ‘Put thefuckingcamera down.’
