Chapter 9 - CELESTE CAME TO ME
Celeste surrendered at 6:14 the next morning.
Not to police.
To me.
She appeared outside Rachel’s office soaked from the rain, without makeup, carrying one laptop.
Detective Shah nearly arrested her in the lobby.
Celeste raised both hands. “If you put me in a regular holding cell, Charles will know where I am before lunch.”
I wanted to hate her cleanly.
It would have been easier.
“You slept with my husband.”
“Yes.”
“You helped steal my shares.”
“Yes.”
“You watched him hit me.”
Her face tightened. “I didn’t know he would do that.”
“But you smiled.”
“I was playing the role Charles expected.”
“That’s convenient.”
She accepted that without argument.
Then she opened the laptop.
“My mother, Evelyn, helped hide your father after the crash. Charles discovered it eventually. He threatened me when I was nineteen. He said if I didn’t work for him, my mother would disappear.”
“Where is Evelyn now?”
“I don’t know.”
“What about my father?”
“He moves every few months.”
“Why hasn’t he contacted me?”
“Because Charles kept proving he could reach you.”
She showed us photographs of men following me, copies of my travel schedules, even school records from when I was a teenager.
Then she opened a folder marked MARIANNE.
Inside was the coroner’s toxicology report from my mother’s death.
A sedative appeared at a level never disclosed to our family.
Rachel looked up sharply.
“Was she murdered?”
Celeste’s eyes filled.
“My mother thinks so.”
“By Charles?”
Celeste shook her head.
“No.”
She turned the laptop toward me.
A payment had been made to the doctor who signed my mother’s death certificate.
May you like
The payer was a company owned by someone I trusted even more than Charles.
My grandmother, Eleanor Vale.
