I sit on one side of Colette as Jackson takes the other. She smiles up at him warmly and slips one hand onto his thigh as he tucks his around the nape of her neck. She seems to lean into it, and it takes me back because the way he’s holding her isn’t what I expect. It’s not possessive like some animal needing to mark his territory. Well, it is, but it’s something else too. Tender. I expect Jackson to be a brute, a cold and insensitive man when it comes to his young, pregnant wife, but that’s not what I see. Not yet at least.
“Her shoes, actually,” Colette says and reaches for the bag beside her. “Ivy had lent them to me before dinner the night of the gala.”
“Thank you for that,” Jackson leans over to say to me. “Colette thinks I have expectations of her that I do not.” He and Colette exchange a private look.
“Well, isn’t that wonderful?” Santiago stands and checks his watch. I don’t know why he’s being so rude.
Jackson doesn’t miss the rudeness either. “It will be when you hear the rest of what I have to say.”
“Go on then. Don’t keep me in suspense,” Santiago deadpans, sitting down again and leaning back in his chair. He crosses his ankle over the opposite knee.
“As you know, I’m one of the advisors to The Tribunal.”
My heart drops to my stomach, and Colette closes her hand around mine like she feels this shift in me.
“And?” Santiago prods, unimpressed by his status, which I guess he already knew.
“Colette has been convinced your wife wouldn’t have done what she’s accused of and I’ve come to trust her intuition.”
“Intuition is all well and good, but facts are facts,” Santiago says. “And I’m not sure your visit is appropriate, considering those facts.”
“Hear me out, Santiago.”
I’m trying to follow the dynamic between the two men. They’re not friends, obviously, but not quite enemies either. Or is everyone an enemy to my husband at least in his own mind?
“You’ve seen the footage,” Jackson says.
Santiago’s lips move into a tight line, and I want to scream at him that it wasn’t me. That I didn’t try to kill him. He can’t believe I would, can he?
“Her sandals,” Jackson says. “My wife was wearing the same pair the woman in the security footage was wearing, but those aren’t the shoes she left home with. They’re your wife’s sandals.”
“Oh my god!” I clasp my hand over my mouth, understanding what this means, tears of relief ready to spring from my eyes.
Santiago is as still as stone for a moment before he uncrosses his legs, hands on his knees and leans forward.
“Her sandals?” he asks.
“Mine, actually,” Colette says. “Ivy was wearing them. We’d exchanged shoes before the dinner. It’s not possible Ivy was wearing the sandals the woman in the video was wearing because I had those on.”
I can almost see Santiago’s mind working as he processes. Then without a word, he stands and walks to the door then out of the room.
“Um,” I start, standing too as Colette and Jackson get to their feet. “I’ll see where he’s going.”
They follow me as we head toward the corridor that leads to Santiago’s office. I turn the corner to see him disappear inside. He leaves the door open, and we all follow. No one takes a seat as he moves around his desk to push a few buttons on his keyboard, and a moment later, those screens come alive with a scene I wish I could forget. But today, this morning, I move closer, peering intently at the monitors.
“There,” Jackson says just as Santiago pauses the video. It’s just a corner of the screen. Easily missed. The flat sandals Mercedes had been irritated by. She’d wanted me in heels but obeyed Santiago’s order. And there’s the woman in those same flat sandals. In the distance is Colette in a matching pair standing beside her husband.
Santiago plays the rest of the video, but it’s only in that one shot that her feet are visible.
“Play it again,” I ask, but he’s already doing that. He slows the video, and we see it again.
“I had Colette’s sandals on by then. And I was locked in the bathroom,” I say. He’s never let me tell my side of the story. He’s never wanted to hear it.
He turns to me, and I guess I expect to find relief on his face. Maybe joy even, but even I know that’s a stretch. What I see, though, is at least a sliver of the former. It should hearten me, shouldn’t it? But there’s something else in his eyes.
“Thank you, Jackson,” he says stonily.
Jackson nods. “I’ll take this to The Councilors today. You’ll still need to bring your wife in on her appointed date, but I believe this will be enough to clear her name.”
It’s over.
A sob escapes me, and I catch the edge of the desk to steady myself. It’s over. This one part at least.
Santiago nods tightly. “I need to talk to my wife,” he says, voice hoarse.
“Of course,” Jackson says and turns to Colette. He gestures to the door. That’s when I see it. The ring on his finger. The insignia with the two hammers on the hand of the man talking to Holton on the night of the gala. The name my brother wanted.
“Ivy,” Jackson says, and I shift my gaze up to his. “I hope the next time you and my wife see one another, it will be in happier circumstances.”
I nod nervously. “Thank you. Thank you both of you.”
Colette takes my hands and squeezes. “Your wedding veil is in the bag too,” she whispers when she hugs me. “See you soon.”
“Thank you so much, Colette. Really, thank you.”
“We’ll see ourselves out,” Jackson says.
I watch them go then turn to my husband to find him watching me with a strange expression on his face.
“Tell me about that night.”
“You’re going to listen?”
“Tell me.”
“After your friend came to talk to you, I
