The soft chime of the brass bell above the door announced my arrival at Whitmore’s. It was the kind of Greenwich institution where generations of old money came to drape themselves in silk. The air hung thick with the comforting, opulent scent of dried lavender and exquisite tailoring.
Rebecca Williams emerged from a sea of tulle and taffeta. She was sixty, just like me, her silver hair usually pinned in an immaculate twist. She had measured and pinned my own wedding dress back in 1983.
Just three months ago, we had stood in this exact spot fussing over Rachel’s bridal gown. Today, I was here to pick up my champagne gold mother-of-the-bride dress. The wedding was this Saturday.
Barely forty-eight hours away. But Rebecca didn’t offer her usual warm smile. Her face was tightly drawn, her complexion ashen.
Her hands, normally so deft with a needle, were visibly trembling. “Is everything all right?” I asked. She didn’t answer.
Instead, she shot a terrified glance toward the front display windows, marched over to the glass door, twisted the deadbolt, and flipped the open sign to closed. She grabbed my elbow, her grip tight and urgent, and pulled me past the mirrored fitting rooms. We slipped behind a cascading display of imported Italian scarves into a hidden VIP room I hadn’t even known existed.
The latch clicked shut. “Rebecca, what on earth—”
“Shh.”
She killed the overhead light. The space plummeted into darkness, save for a razor-thin sliver of gold bleeding in from under the door.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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