Chapter 5 - Evidence and Motive
Then Gregory entered with his camera equipment. The footage showed ordinary scenes: my mother fixing her jewelry, Bellamy’s grandfather crying happy tears, and guests enjoying the reception. Then the screen focused on me. I was talking to a friend with my glass sitting on the table behind me. Flynn stepped into the frame, charming and handsome in the way people always trusted far too easily.
He touched my shoulder, I turned slightly, and his other hand moved swiftly above my glass. The movement was quick, but it was not quick enough to escape the lens. Officer Terry paused the video to show the folded white packet. Bellamy’s hand tightened on my chair as we watched the pale powder drop into the champagne. A minute later, the video showed me switching the glasses.
Officer Terry paused the footage again and asked, “You knowingly gave him the drink you believed was contaminated?” I looked at her carefully and said, “No, I moved my own glass away from myself because I knew he had put something in it. I did not know what it was, but I knew I could not drink it.” Bellamy added, “That distinction matters legally,” and the officer nodded in agreement.
She collected both glasses as evidence. The hotel security team provided footage from the hallway cameras, showing Flynn entering the men’s restroom ten minutes before the toast and speaking with Katherine outside the door. Katherine had passed him something small from her clutch. When questioned later, she kept crying and claiming, “It was just breath mints, I swear it was only breath mints!” But everyone knew that breath mints do not cause a grown man to collapse.
By midnight, the wedding was officially over. Guests left with half-eaten cake and rumors that were thick enough to choke on. My parents left without saying a word to me. Bellamy and I did not go to our hotel suite. Instead, we spent the first night of our marriage in a sterile police station, giving formal statements beneath humming fluorescent lights.
At 3:00 in the morning, Officer Terry returned with an update. “Your brother is stable,” she reported. I felt Bellamy exhale in relief. “He ingested a strong sedative mixed with his alcohol,” the officer continued. “It was a very dangerous dose for his weight, but it was not fatal. Toxicology will confirm the exact substance later.”
“A sedative,” I repeated quietly. Officer Terry nodded and said, “It was fast-acting and disorienting, designed to cause memory gaps.” Bellamy asked, “Why would he want my wife sedated at her own wedding?” I already knew the answer, and it sat heavy in my stomach like a cold stone.
Officer Terry looked at me and asked if I knew the motive. I thought of my grandmother, Martha, who had raised me far better than my own parents ever did. When she died two years ago, she left me forty percent ownership in our family real estate company, while Flynn only received twenty percent. My father controlled the rest.
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The company had been struggling because Flynn made reckless investments, and my shares gave me the voting power to stop a merger he desperately needed. It was a merger with a massive development firm, a deal I had planned to vote against the following Tuesday. Bellamy had helped me study the documents, and we found clauses that would have forced minority shareholders to sell at a massive discount. I had refused to sign the papers, and that was when Flynn began calling me selfish and unstable.
A week before the wedding, my mother had invited me to lunch to suggest that I postpone my marriage. She claimed that stress was making me confused and that Bellamy was just after the family money. I told her that my grandmother trusted me because she knew exactly what kind of people my family were. She slapped me in the restaurant parking lot, and I had covered the mark with concealer for my bridal shower.
