So did the pastor who had waited ninety minutes before quietly removing his stole, the string quartet, the photographer’s assistant, and the college friends who’d driven from Tennessee to watch Maddie become Mrs. Tyler Vaughn.

The wedding had been planned for eighteen months. It had come apart in the time it took to read one text message.

Chapter 2 — The Text

Maddie’s father had received it at 6:42 that evening.

She’d been waiting in the bridal suite upstairs, wearing a dress she had paid off in twelve installments. Her mother’s pearl comb held her veil in place.

Outside the window, evening sunlight covered the Kentucky hills in gold.

Frank Price entered without knocking. Her father always knocked. That was how she knew.