The attorney was a woman named Caroline Brooks, whose career had been built on estate disputes too complicated to interest the newspapers. She disliked spectacles. She disliked wedding interruptions even more. But when she heard Margaret's voice through the ballroom speakers, she understood why postponement was no longer a neutral choice. Security guards halted at the doorway while she identified herself and asked Daniel and Celeste to accompany her to a private room.
Celeste refused. "This is my wedding," she announced. Caroline regarded the bride's white gown, the shattered glass near the head table, and the child clinging to her mother's skirt. "Then perhaps," she said, "we should refrain from making the child the centerpiece of a public accusation." She asked the sound technician to disconnect the equipment and invited Hannah to step outside with Lucy. Hannah agreed at once. She had not wanted the recording played for an audience, and she was determined not to let anyone confuse a child's desperate action with a legal strategy.
Daniel followed them into the corridor. He tried to apologize to Lucy, who asked a question he could not deflect. "Were you really going to send me away?" He said no, then corrected himself. He had agreed to explore the school, he said, because Celeste insisted it would be good for her. Lucy studied his face. "You didn't ask me." Daniel bent to her level, the first honest movement Hannah had seen from him all weekend. "You're right," he said. "I should have asked." Lucy did not hug him. She turned into Hannah's arms.
Behind the closed doors, Caroline showed Daniel copies of two documents. One authorized a sale of riverfront property held partly for Lucy's benefit. The other attested that Hannah had accepted a residential placement plan and surrendered certain decisions to the trustee. Daniel recognized his own signature on a preliminary consultation form, but not the altered page attached to it. Celeste insisted it was routine and that Martin could explain everything.
Priya kept her voice low, conscious that guests might overhear. She wanted something much smaller than revenge: a safe home where Lucy could ask questions.
Martin's explanation was polished. The family had to act before a favorable development offer expired. Residential tuition would be covered. Lucy would benefit from security and structure. But Caroline pointed to the signature date: Hannah supposedly signed at 10:14 a.m. on a Wednesday when a pharmacy security log showed she had been working across town. That did not prove the signature false by itself, but it made the document highly suspect. Daniel finally asked the question he should have asked weeks earlier: "Who actually watched her sign?" Martin glanced at Celeste, and neither answered.