“Actually…”
She showed her friends the photo of Monica holding a kitchen rag.
“This should be her gown.”
The table erupted.
Katherine sent the picture to the gala guest group.
Caption:
SPECIAL ENTERTAINMENT SATURDAY. DON’T MISS IT.
Responses arrived instantly.
Laughing emojis.
Applause.
One person asked if guests could throw things.
Another posted a joke about trained animals.
Two hundred people.
Not one said:
Stop.
Monica listened from the kitchen.
Then returned to her basement room.
She reached beneath the mattress.
Emergency extraction instructions.
A tiny sheet of paper.
She wrote two words.
It’s time.
The next morning she slipped the message to Ruth.
Ruth hid it inside a grocery bag.
The delivery driver carried it away.
A man in a gray coat collected it from a mailbox.
One phone call followed.
Then the machinery Katherine had no idea existed began moving.
Saturday night, the Prescott mansion glowed like a palace.
