Chapter 18 - Before the Fall
I stared at the date on the bank record.
Eleven months before my spinal injury, Celeste had already begun moving trust money into a company she controlled through an intermediary.
"She wasn't taking advantage of your injury when she started," Sonia said quietly. "The injury made the scheme easier to hide."
I thought of our wedding. The way she'd brought soup to my mother when she was sick. The way she'd cried beside my hospital bed. Some of those moments might have been real. I would never know which ones.
"Was any of it love?" I asked.
Mara didn't give me the easy answer.
"Maybe she felt something," she said. "But she chose what to do with it."
Through his attorney, Warren gave investigators emails and payment instructions. Celeste promised clear title in return for fees to Pinebridge after closing. The records showed attempts to bypass the resident vote, but not whether Warren knew about the drowning.
Celeste was arrested that evening. Brooks called us after she was in custody, not before. The filed charges included attempted murder and financial offenses related to the trust. The prosecutor warned us that accusations were not convictions, and a long process lay ahead.
On television, a reporter stood outside the courthouse and repeated Celeste's old claim that I was a fragile man manipulated by my daughter.
I switched it off.
"I don't want my life to be a headline," I told Mara.
"Then let's make it something else."
Sonia called again. The emergency order had stopped the proposed transfer, but the trust still had almost no money for its residents. The missing reserve wouldn't return simply because Celeste had been arrested.
"We can pursue restitution and civil recovery," Sonia said. "But the families need repairs now."
May you like
Mara looked toward the window. Rain was dripping from the gutter onto the porch.
"Then tomorrow," she said, "we start with the roofs."
