Page 140 of All These Beautiful Strangers

I checked my coat at the front door. Inside, the room was crowded with tables set for a grand three-course meal, women in evening gowns, and men in suits. In the middle of the room was the dance floor, and Headmaster Collins was in the center of it, finishing his welcome speech to the parents and alumni. The Trustee Benefit Gala always began with that speech, followed by cocktails and the silent auction, and ended with dinner and dancing. I spotted Uncle Teddy and Aunt Grier at the edge of the crowd and I walked over to them.

“You clean up nice,” Uncle Teddy said.

“Charlotte, it’s good to see you,” Aunt Grier said, and she gave me a curt smile. I gave her a perfunctory smile back. I’d always felt a certain distance between me and my aunt that I could never quite bridge. She was never cold, exactly—after all, she and Uncle Teddy had taken me into their home at one point, raised me and Seraphina alongside my cousins for two years. After hearing her interview in the PI’s files, I understood why it always felt like she was holding me at arm’s length. It probably didn’t help that I looked just like my mother, either.

Aunt Grier’s clutch buzzed and she handed Uncle Teddy her glass of champagne.

“It’s the sitter,” Aunt Grier said, glancing at the screen. “I’m going to take this outside. I’ll be right back.”

When she was gone, Uncle Teddy took a sip of champagne from her glass and asked me, “Did you finish going through the files I sent?”

It took me a moment to understand what he was referring to, and then I remembered: the PI’s case files on my mother.

“Yes,” I said. “Thanks for sending those.”

“Did you find the answers you were looking for?” he asked.

“Yes and no,” I said. “I got some answers, but somehow more questions, too.”

Uncle Teddy nodded.

“My uncle Hank said the two of you had an interesting conversation, though,” I said.

“Did he?”

“Apparently, you threatened him and made him hand over the photographs he found at the lake house?”

“I tried asking nicely first,” Uncle Teddy said, taking another sip of Aunt Grier’s champagne. “But Hank has always been a bit . . . gruff. When he refused, I might have gotten a little . . . colorful in my response.”

“Why would you do that?”

Uncle Teddy sighed. “If you listened to those interviews, you already know.”

“You and my mother used to date,” I said.

“It was more than that. She was the first girl I ever loved,” Uncle Teddy said. “Listen,” he said after a moment, “I want you to know, that whatever was said in those interviews, whatever some people might think, Grace never cared about the money. If anything, she loved your father despite his money, despite who his family was.”

“You really think she loved him?” I asked. I used to be so sure of the deep affection my parents had for one another, so sure of their tight bond. But after everything I’d learned over the past couple months, I’d started to doubt it.

“Yes, I do,” Uncle Teddy said. “As much as it pains me to admit it.”

“You don’t think she ran off, do you?” I asked.

Uncle Teddy shook his head. “No, I don’t. But I’ve never had any solid evidence to the contrary. And when you mentioned those photographs, well, I had to see them.”

“What did you make of them?” I asked.

“Not much,” Uncle Teddy said. “They looked like some sort of blackmail, maybe, but I couldn’t make heads or tails of it, to be honest with you.”

“I couldn’t either,” I lied. If Uncle Teddy didn’t know, then he hadn’t spoken to my father about the photographs, or, if he had, my father hadn’t told him the truth. I wasn’t sure why I was protecting my father when I still wasn’t sure I believed his story, but for some reason, I was.

“Apparently, Clementine convinced the sitter she’s allowed to have processed sugar,” Aunt Grier said, returning clearly agitated. “She ate half a bag of your secret stash of marshmallows and is now running around the house like a crazy person and refuses to go to bed.”

“Come on,” Uncle Teddy said, putting his hand at the small of Aunt Grier’s back. “Let’s go look at overpriced vacation rentals. That will calm you down.”

He gave me a wink as he steered my aunt in the direction of the silent auction tables across the room.

Someone put their arms around me from behind and I stiffened. Then I heard Dalton’s voice in my ear as he tugged me close.