Chapter 7 - ROOM 611
Police searched Room 611 with a warrant before I ever stepped inside.
There was no Celeste.
But there was a burner phone hidden inside the lining of a suitcase.
On it were messages between Celeste and someone saved only as C.W.
CHARLES: FRIDAY MUST HOLD.
CELESTE: NATHAN IS UNSTABLE.
CHARLES: THEN REMOVE HIM.
CELESTE: AND EMMA?
CHARLES: SHE SIGNS OR SHE LOSES EVERYTHING.
The next message was different.
FOUNDER WANTS THE VALE FILE CLOSED BEFORE 9 A.M.
Detective Shah looked at me. “Any idea what the Vale file is?”
“My entire life, apparently.”
The suitcase held a passport under Celeste’s real name: Celeste March.
March.
Nathan’s warning echoed in my head.
Evelyn March.
Luis dug through archived records and found the connection by sunrise.
Evelyn was Celeste’s mother.
She had worked as a nurse at the Vermont rehabilitation clinic where my father was treated after the crash.
Then she disappeared from public records for eleven years.
One address finally surfaced in coastal New Hampshire.
Detective Shah insisted on going first.
The cottage was empty except for a kettle still warm on the stove.
In the bedroom, we found a wall covered with newspaper clippings about my family.
My mother’s obituary.
My wedding announcement.
Nathan’s store openings.
And a photograph of my father taken three months ago.
Alive.
Gray-haired.
Standing outside the same cottage.
On the back, someone had written:
THOMAS STILL WON’T SIGN.
Underneath was another line.
MARIANNE SHOULD HAVE FINISHED THIS YEARS AGO.
I stared at my mother’s name.
May you like
My dead mother.
For the first time, I wondered whether the story I had been told about both my parents was a lie.
