THE WOMAN IN HIS DEAD WIFE'S WEDDING DRESS

Percival did not go alone.

He only wanted Benedict Shaw to believe he had.

Celandine and Edwin remained fifty yards behind the tree line while Percival crossed the wet grass toward the old stone bridge. Isabetta had disappeared from the orangery before they left the house.

No one knew where she had gone.

At eleven fifty-eight, Percival reached the place where Evelina’s carriage had broken through the railing eighteen months earlier.

The repairs were still visible in the stone.

A lantern burned at the center of the bridge.

Margot Bell sat against the parapet with her hands tied.

A man stood behind her.

Not Benedict.

Dr. Lucien Harrow.

Percival stopped.

Dr. Harrow had signed Evelina’s death certificate.

He had also been the Hawthorne family physician for twenty years.

“Where is Benedict?” Percival asked.

The doctor looked exhausted.

“Far enough away to deny everything.”

Margot’s eyes filled with panic.

“He made me bring her,” Harrow said. “He said if I refused, the old records would go to the police.”

“What records?”

The doctor laughed bitterly.

“The ones proving I lied.”

Percival’s voice dropped.

“About my wife.”

Harrow nodded.

“The carriage crash did not kill Evelina immediately.”

Percival felt the night tilt around him.

“She was alive when you found her?”

“Yes.”

“Then why did you say she died at the scene?”

“Because Benedict was already there.”

The confession came in pieces.

Evelina had discovered that millions had been diverted from the Briarstone charitable trust into shell accounts controlled by Benedict. She had copied the transactions into a red ledger.

The night she died, she intended to show the ledger to Percival.

Benedict intercepted her carriage.

There had been an argument.

Harrow would not say exactly what happened on the bridge.

But when he arrived, Evelina was injured and conscious.

Benedict ordered him to record the death as immediate and accidental.

“Why would you obey him?”

Harrow looked down.

“Because I had falsified prescriptions for him for years. If he exposed me, I would lose everything.”

Percival clenched his fists.

“You lost less than she did.”

“Yes.”

The doctor’s voice broke.

Then Celandine saw movement behind the far wall.

“Percival!”

A gunshot cracked across the bridge.

Stone splintered beside Percival’s shoulder.

Harrow threw himself behind the parapet.

Margot screamed.

A second shot came from the trees.

Percival cut Margot’s bindings with the small knife from his pocket and pulled her down.

Then another figure emerged from beneath the bridge.

Isabetta.

She held a pistol.

For one heartbeat, Percival thought she had fired the shots.

Instead, she aimed past him toward the trees.

“Benedict!” she shouted. “It is over!”

No answer came.

Only footsteps retreating through the dark.

Isabetta lowered the weapon.

Celandine and Edwin rushed forward.

Percival stared at his fiancée.

“You knew.”

“I knew part of it.”

“How long?”

“Three months.”

“Three months?”

Isabetta’s eyes shone with anger, shame, or both.

“I found one page of the ledger in Benedict’s study. It had Evelina’s handwriting beside the transactions. When he caught me, he told me what would happen if I spoke.”

“So you hired Margot to impersonate my wife?”

“I needed you to reopen that room without Benedict realizing I had led you there.”

“You could have told me.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because I had already made a deal with him.”

Percival went still.

Isabetta reached inside her coat and removed a folded red page.

The missing page from Evelina’s ledger.

At the bottom was a second list of payments.

Not to Dr. Harrow.

Not to Benedict.