Chap­ter 10: As the evening set­tled in, the Osprey Lodge’s atmos­phere trans­formed, bathed in the soft, gold­en glow of can­dle­light. Guests con­tin­ued to min­gle, now grouped into pairs, exchang­ing sto­ries, laugh­ter, and the kind of casu­al chat­ter that filled the space with an air of false cheer­ful­ness. Amidst the noise and cel­e­bra­tion, I slipped Aidan’s phone into my lap, excus­ing myself under the guise of need­ing a restroom break, although my real inten­tion was far more urgent. Gwendolyn’s cryp­tic com­ments about Cather­ine Gard­ner had been gnaw­ing at me, and I felt com­pelled to uncov­er more about the woman who was seem­ing­ly cen­tral to the unset­tling under­cur­rents sur­round­ing the evening.

The lodge was qui­eter as I nav­i­gat­ed the hall­ways, pass­ing a long line of women wait­ing to use the restroom. Once I reached the stair­case, I made my way up, feel­ing the weight of my mis­sion. At the top, I knocked on the mas­ter suite’s door, but when no one answered, I used Aidan’s phone to unlock it, enter­ing cau­tious­ly into a dim­ly lit hall­way. The air in the room was thick with an over­pow­er­ing stench, and the chaos of dis­card­ed cloth­ing scat­tered across the floor cre­at­ed an unset­tling sense of neglect. It was a jar­ring con­trast to the pris­tine, per­fect image of the Gard­ners I had once been shown.

I was star­tled to find Cather­ine Gard­ner sit­ting amidst the dis­ar­ray, far removed from the poised and con­trolled image I had seen in pho­tographs. Her attire—a stained bathrobe and smudged makeup—left her look­ing disheveled and com­plete­ly detached from the real­i­ty of the ongo­ing wed­ding fes­tiv­i­ties. She seemed lost in her own world, watch­ing a game show, and when she noticed me stand­ing in the door­way, her con­fu­sion was evi­dent. How­ev­er, upon hear­ing my con­nec­tion to Mar­garet, she quick­ly attempt­ed to offer me a sem­blance of hos­pi­tal­i­ty, even though the sur­round­ing chaos made it hard to feel any warmth in the inter­ac­tion. Despite the mess, she poured gin into glass­es, try­ing to engage in con­ver­sa­tion, and she slow­ly began to open up about her life.

Her words began flow­ing more freely as she talked about Aidan and the com­pli­cat­ed sit­u­a­tion sur­round­ing him, par­tic­u­lar­ly the rumors about his rela­tion­ship with Dawn Tag­gart. Cather­ine recount­ed her own per­spec­tive on the events, speak­ing of Dawn’s sense of enti­tle­ment and her claims about their famil­ial bond. As the con­ver­sa­tion deep­ened, a more dis­turb­ing truth emerged: Cather­ine revealed that her hus­band, Errol, had a his­to­ry of extra­mar­i­tal affairs, adding anoth­er lay­er of dys­func­tion to an already strained fam­i­ly dynam­ic. It seemed that the family’s secrets were buried deep, only sur­fac­ing in moments of ten­sion. Cather­ine then moved the con­ver­sa­tion to a dark rec­ol­lec­tion of her own vio­lent response to Dawn’s demands, an inci­dent that had end­ed trag­i­cal­ly on the stairs, com­pound­ing the chaos already sur­round­ing them.

While I strug­gled to absorb all that Cather­ine had divulged, it was impos­si­ble to ignore the weight of what had been said. But before I could probe fur­ther, oth­ers arrived and inter­rupt­ed our con­ver­sa­tion. With my mind rac­ing and ques­tions pil­ing up, I pushed for more infor­ma­tion about Margaret’s involve­ment in this unrav­el­ing web, but Catherine’s men­tal state con­tin­ued to unrav­el as well, and she became increas­ing­ly dif­fi­cult to under­stand. Feel­ing a sense of urgency and con­fu­sion, I hasti­ly excused myself, leav­ing the room with a sense of dread about what I had just learned. The weight of the sit­u­a­tion hung heavy as I processed the real­iza­tion that Maggie’s involve­ment with Aidan and her con­nec­tion to the lies were far more com­pli­cat­ed than I had ini­tial­ly thought, leav­ing me with a lin­ger­ing sense of unease and uncer­tain­ty.