I stop, because at the back of the garden, moving through the seated guests are two figures in black tuxedos.
Luca and Renzo beside him.
Luca is looking directly at me. James turns pale.
He has seen them too. I look at Luca for one more second then I reach out and I take the microphone from the priest's hand.
My father's face changes immediately. The pride goes out of it and he turns to Gerald with a look that I catch from the corner of my eye and I think,too late, Dad.
"Thank you all for being here," I say into the microphone, and my voice comes out steady and clear and carries to every corner of the garden. "As you know, today is my wedding. And I wouldn't be here today if not for my dearest father."
James stares at me. His mouth opens slightly and he closes it and looks around at the cameras, realizing he is standing in the middle of something he doesn't understand.
The cameras are flashing furiously, turning toward my father, and I smile at him and I say, "Come up here, Dad. Come on."
My father's smile is a masterpiece. He produces it from nowhere and he walks up to me and he takes my hand. His fingers are stiff as he leans slightly toward me and through his teeth, with the smile still perfectly in place, he whispers, "What are you doing?"
I turn to the microphone.
"My father is the best man I know," I say. "As a father. As a political figure." I pause. "As a husband."
The last word lands in the garden and I watch my father's color change.
I clap once and Sofia and the other maids appear from the edges of the garden moving through the rows of guests and they start to distribute photocopies of files. I printed more than enough copies.
I watch the papers pass from hand to hand, the documents that Renzo had retrieved from Michael's hard drive and my father's servers. He had organized them into the clearest possible sequence and sent it over. The printing took a week.
My father looks at me. "What is this?" he asks, the smile still present but cracking at the corners.
"You'll find out in a moment, Dad," I tell him softly.
I turn back to the microphone.
"In those papers," I say, "you will find proof of payment, invoices, and transcripts of recordings of my father arranging and financing the staged accident that took his wife's life."
The garden erupts. Cameras are going off everywhere at once, guests turning to each other, reporters on their feet already moving toward my father who has gone green.
"You will also find documentation of his bribery, his corrupt political practices, and his financial arrangements with several criminal organizations over the past fifteen years," I continue pleasantly. "My treat."
Senator Hartley walks out immediately and his assistant wheels James toward the side exit.
"Robert, this is a misunderstanding, if you'll just let me!" my father calls. Senator Hartley keeps walking.
Gerald materializes at my father's elbow and reporters are converging from three directions and my father is saying, loudly, "This is fabricated. Every word of this is false, this is a politically motivated attack on my family and I will be pursuing legal?—"
I look at him and I blow him a kiss.
I pull the veil from my hair and I step down from the raised platform and I walk through the garden toward the back and the reporters come to me, three of them immediately, all talking at once.
"Miss Keller, what prompted you to expose these details?"
"Is this a cheap campaign gimmick?"
"Can you confirm that these documents are real?"
"Miss Keller, do you have a statement about your father's?—"
A gunshot splits the garden in half and everyone freezes.
