Chapter 2 - The Man by the Pool
The wedding was supposed to begin at five, and by six the police were photographing our terrace.
Detective Leah Navarro arrived with a notebook, a calm voice, and a manner that suggested she was accustomed to walking into other people's disasters.
She asked us to identify what we had seen rather than what we believed.
I appreciated that distinction, even while my cheek ached and my hands refused to stop shaking.
"You saw a tablet?" she asked.
"A small, pale one. She dropped it into the flute, and it began bubbling."
"Did you see where she obtained it?"
"No."
"Did you see anybody else handle the drink?"
"Not before she touched it."
Detective Navarro thanked me and wrote everything down.
A forensic technician collected the broken flute and material from the surrounding spill without claiming it would answer every question.
The detective made clear that nobody should speculate about the substance or its possible effects until proper testing and investigation were complete.
I was relieved to hear someone in authority say what the frightened people around me could not.
Not knowing was different from inventing.
Celeste had been moved to a quiet room near the service corridor while officers took her account.
We were told only that she was not free to return to the party while officers assessed the incident.
Isabelle sat inside the mansion wrapped in a light shawl, her wedding veil folded into her lap.
She had not cried at first.
I think her disbelief was larger than her grief.
Adrian remained at her side, occasionally brushing his thumb over her knuckles.
A nurse from the private medical team checked my cheek and advised me to seek further care if the pain worsened.
I nodded, embarrassed by how grateful I felt for such ordinary kindness.
Marcus entered carrying a tablet computer, his expression controlled.
"We have a name for the guest by the pool," he said.
He showed us a still photograph captured at the reception entrance.
The man had close-cropped hair, a gray suit, and a narrow, almost expressionless face.
"Julian Cross," Marcus said.
Isabelle lifted her head.
"That can't be right."
"You recognize him?" Adrian asked.
"He was my father's financial adviser."
Her father, Henry Hart, had died three years earlier, leaving Isabelle oversight of a charitable organization established in her mother's memory.
The Hart Bridge Foundation funded educational scholarships, housing assistance, and medical support for families in crisis.
Isabelle had spent years trying to preserve its purpose while learning to manage a board populated by people twice her age.
Julian Cross had been one of those people.
"He resigned last spring," she said.
"He told us he was moving overseas."
Marcus swiped to another image.
"His name wasn't on the final guest list."
"Maybe Celeste invited him," I suggested.
Isabelle shook her head.
"She knows I wouldn't want him here."
The room became still.
Adrian leaned forward.
"Why not?"
"Because I asked questions about foundation accounts after he left, and he tried to make me feel foolish for asking."
She looked down at the diamond earrings her father had given her years earlier.
"I thought he was simply offended."
That answer did not explain the attempted drink tampering, but it gave the stranger a reason to hide his face from her.
Detective Navarro arrived a few minutes later and listened as Isabelle described him.
The detective requested the guest registration records, the relevant security footage, and contact details for the staff who had checked invitations.
She told us plainly that the footage would need preservation and that any investigation into foundation finances would have to follow the evidence.
Marcus promised full cooperation.
He also disclosed something uncomfortable.
"One of the outdoor feeds was interrupted for twelve minutes earlier this afternoon."
Adrian's head snapped toward him.
"Interrupted how?"
"The monitoring console showed a connection fault, but the cameras record to more than one destination."
"Do we have the champagne footage?"
"I believe so. We are preserving everything before anyone tries to repair the system."
I thought of Celeste's instant panic when I pointed at the camera.
Perhaps she had been told the recording would not exist.
If that was true, someone had arranged far more than an impulsive act at a wedding.
Isabelle stood suddenly, her train rustling across the floor.
"I want to know why Julian came."
Adrian rose with her.
"We will find out."
"No," she said, looking at each of us.
"We will find out without deciding in advance what the answer must be."
I recognized the steel beneath her gentle voice.
This was the Isabelle who had convinced a skeptical board to preserve small scholarships when larger donors wanted prestigious projects with their names on them.
This was the woman my brother loved.
She would not trade facts for an easier story, even now.
Later that evening, Detective Navarro asked Celeste whether she knew Julian Cross.
We were not present for the interview, and the detective did not share its details.
What we did see was an officer step into the hall and ask Marcus for the whereabouts of a silver sedan reported near the service gate.
Marcus checked the driveway cameras.
The sedan had arrived without a visible wedding permit.
It had left seven minutes after the champagne tower collapsed.
The vehicle's license plate was partly obscured by a parking attendant's cart in the nearest image.
But the driver had made one mistake.
He had lowered his window to argue with a guard about the exit route.
The guard remembered him.
He also remembered a small white envelope placed on the passenger seat.
The detective wrote down the observation without explaining what it meant.
Adrian walked me to a bedroom upstairs when midnight approached.
My pale-blue dress was stained along the hem, and my left cheek had begun to swell.
"You should have told me the second you saw her," he said quietly.
"There wasn't a second."
He looked ashamed.
"I know."
He touched my shoulder, careful not to hurt me.
"I'm proud of you, Lucy, but I wish you hadn't been put in that position."
"So do I."
He paused at the door.
"Isabelle keeps saying it could have been nothing."
"She doesn't believe that."
"I think she wants to."
I understood.
A person can witness betrayal and still search for a version of events in which the betrayer was only confused.
I had seen the same impulse in Adrian after our father's last illness, when business partners promised things they never intended to deliver.
It took time to accept that a familiar face could conceal an unfamiliar purpose.
Before I turned out the lamp, a message appeared on my phone from an unknown number.
It contained no greeting.
Only one sentence.
Ask Isabelle what she was going to tell the trustees tomorrow.
My first instinct was to delete it.
Instead, I took a screenshot and called Marcus.
Then I sat on the edge of the bed, staring at those words until the meaning began to settle.
May you like
Someone knew about a meeting we had not discussed at the wedding.
And that person wanted me to wonder whether the bride had been targeted for more than a glass of champagne.
