Chapter 4

“Yes. I did it.”

Cora stopped shaking all at once.

She lifted her head and stared at me, the whites of her eyes shot through with red.

“I hated her. That's all.”

“Ever since college, no matter where we went, the first person anyone saw was always Cornelia.”

She spoke fast, like she'd rehearsed it many times over, and like she'd bottled it up for too many years.

“Ezra used to like her.”

“Even at my own wedding, she had to steal everyone's eyes!”

The last line was almost a scream.

“I just wanted to ruin her. I wanted her disgraced!”

A ripple of sharp breaths went through the room.

One of the officers stepped forward.

“Ms. Pruitt, you admit you deliberately set up a scheme to frame Cornelia Fox?”

“Yes.”

“The transfer was made from her old phone?”

“Yes.”

“And the recording, you had someone edit it?”

“Yes.”

The officer finished his notes and turned to me.

“Miss Fox, you're cleared of suspicion for now.”

“We'll continue investigating Cora Pruitt and Toby Dickerson.”

I didn't relax.

Cora's story sounded fine on its face. Jealousy, packed down long enough, really can drive a person to do something insane.

But she'd confessed too fast.

Once the officers stayed on the scene, her shoulders dropped, plainly, like she'd finally gotten what she was waiting for.

And there was her hand.

That hand never stopped clutching her clutch bag. Anyone who came near, she backed away from, and she wouldn't hand over her own phone either.

More than the charge of framing me, she was afraid of something else.

11:55. The big screen lit up again.

On the black field, a line of red letters rose slowly into view:

【12:05, the bride will die.】

【The one who kills her is a bridesmaid.】

The banquet hall went silent in an instant.

The eyes that had just left me swung back all at once, and some people even edged sideways on instinct, putting distance between themselves and me.

“This is an instruction, not a prophecy!”

I raised my voice, forcing myself not to look at their faces.

“Someone's planning to kill Cora at 12:05, and then pin it on me!”

The two officers snapped to attention.

“Clear the room, seal every exit!”

But the security team's radio crackled first, full of static.

“Captain, the fire doors are locked!”

“The whole surveillance system's offline, and the hall's signal is jammed!”

The first person to reach Cora was Ezra.

He pulled her into his arms and pointed at me, shouting to the security team.

“Restrain Cornelia first!”

“The comment wall already named the killer, don't let her near Cori!”

A few guards closed in at once and pinned me to the wall.

My arm was wrenched behind my back, and the pain in my shoulder made me suck in a cold breath.

“Ezra, you're the thief crying thief!”

“The one who really wants Cora dead is you!”

He looked at me from a few yards off, his eyes cold and hard.

“Cornelia, you've lost your mind.”

12:04.

Cora, who'd been huddled in Ezra's arms this whole time, suddenly tore herself free and rushed at me, hauling her gown up as she came.

The guards tried to stop her, but she came like she didn't care whether she lived, shoving them off and throwing herself right onto me.

She held me tight.

And there, at an angle no one else could see, something very small was pressed into my palm, wet and slick and sticky.

It was a memory card.

There was blood on it.

Cora pressed close to my ear, her teeth chattering.

“The scheme before, that was mine.”

“But this comment isn't.”

I grabbed her arm in return.

“Who wants to kill you?”

Cora turned her head and looked, terrified, toward Ezra under the lights.

Her lips had just parted when a snap cut through the banquet hall and every light went out at once.

It was so dark I couldn't see a thing.

Screams surged up, tables and chairs went over, glasses hit the floor and shattered.

In the chaos, someone grabbed my right hand from behind.

That hand was ice-cold, shockingly strong, and it forced something heavy into my palm, then closed my fingers around it and pushed my hand forward.

I pulled back with everything I had.

The next second, Cora's scream ripped through the dark.

“Ah……”

Something warm splashed across my face.

The lights came on.

Cora lay at my feet, a knife buried in her chest, blood running down the white gown and pooling fast on the carpet.

And my right hand was gripping the handle.

My hand was covered in blood.

The clock on the wall gave a soft tick, and the hands jumped to 12:05.

Ezra pointed at me, his eyes bloodshot, his voice nearly cracking.

“Grab her!”

“I saw her kill Cori with my own eyes!”

On the screen, the last comment surfaced slowly:

【Prophecy complete.】

“Cornelia, you can't get away.”