Ciji Ware Read Online Free

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    The red light on Virgil’s camera glowed in the candlelit church as the age-old ceremony commenced with the exchange of vows. Corlis marveled at the composed manner in which Jack Ebert recited his promises to love, honor, and cherish his bride, forsaking all others, till death do they part.
    “And do you, Daphne,” the priest intoned, “promise to love Jack… to honor and cherish him, forsaking all others, till death do you part?”
    Corlis gently nudged Virgil’s shoulder with the rounded end of her microphone, their shared signal to focus in for a close-up. However, both reporter and cameraman were startled when the bride, instead of answering the familiar question, slowly turned her back on the priest and her groom and squarely faced the sea of faces gazing at her from the rows of packed pews.
    “First of all,” Daphne announced, her voice wavering as faintly as the pinpoints of light that shimmered on the prayer station behind her. Members in the congregation began exchanging uneasy glances. “I just want to say… how much I a-appreciate everything my mama and d-daddy have done for the wedding…” A woman in the front pew wearing a white orchid corsage began to shake her head vehemently. “In a strange way,” Daphne continued, her voice gaining strength, “I suppose the person I should thank the most is my maid of honor…”
    The groom’s frozen smile began to wither, and he turned toward the priest with a look Corlis interpreted as a demand for holy intercession. As for Cindy Lou Mallory, a stain approximately the same shade of red as her vibrant tresses spread from her décolletage to her hairline. Among the congregation, heads bobbed back and forth, and a low rumble of shocked reactions bubbled up like cheap champagne. Corlis watched with amazement as Daphne Duvallon worked her engagement ring off her finger.
    “You see…” she said, her rigid control beginning to disintegrate before everyone’s eyes. “Jack and Cindy Lou Mallory don’t know it, but I saw them making out last night. At the groom’s dinner. In the cloakroom at Antoine’s,” she added, her voice now choked with tears. “Right after the toasts were given, and we’d all been drinking and dancing for a while. It seems my maid of honor ,” Daphne Duvallon continued with stony emphasis, “has been having an affair with my groom, Jack, here, for months , while I was in New York!”
    An extremely frail, elderly woman seated next to Daphne’s mother gave an audible cry and slumped against the shoulder of a middle-aged woman sitting to her left. The seatmate swiftly began to fan her distraught companion with the wedding program, her own features etched in a combination of outrage and dismay.
    “So I’m sure y’all can understand why…” Daphne forged on bravely, “why… I can’t go through with this. I just can’t !” In a lightning gesture, she slapped her engagement ring into the hand of the stunned groom. Then the bride scooped up her twenty-five-foot lace train and nodded emphatically in the direction of Althea LaCroix.
    The musician brought her hands down on the organ’s ivory keys with a crash. Triumphant recessional music thundered ominously throughout the church while Daphne scored a bull’s-eye, dashing her red and white rose bouquet against her maid of honor’s elaborate flame-haired coiffure.
    As suddenly as King Duvallon stepped out from the line of nine groomsmen, a thought hit Corlis like a bolt of lightning.
    He knew this was going to happen! That’s why he wanted us to leave!
    The stunned wedding guests gawked, dumbfounded, as King offered his distraught sister his arm. Within seconds they swept down the aisle and disappeared.
    As for Corlis, watching this passion play from the balcony, her journalist’s instinct suddenly took over. Pavlov’s dog. The bell had rung.
    “ Follow me !” she hissed urgently to her TV crew.
    She made a dash for the paneled stairwell as if she were off to cover a