Chapter 14 - What Celeste Chose
Celeste spent six hours with investigators.
When she returned after midnight, she looked ten years older.
Ethan did not ask her to come inside.
They spoke on the front steps.
Leah watched through the upstairs window until Evelyn said, “You don’t have to supervise every conversation.”
“I know.”
“You can go to sleep.”
“I won’t.”
Evelyn sat beside her.
Leah asked, “Do you still love her?”
Evelyn took a long time.
“Yes.”
“After everything?”
“That is not the same as trusting her.”
Leah thought about Ethan.
Maybe love was not a verdict.
Maybe it was simply something that could remain after judgment.
Downstairs, Celeste eventually left for a hotel.
The next morning, Julia delivered a written statement.
Celeste admitted:
She had knowingly participated in unauthorized financial transfers with Grant after Charles died.
She had approached Ethan under Grant’s direction.
She had lied about knowing Mara.
She had obtained Ethan’s security information and allowed Grant to request estate documents.
She had encouraged Ethan to consider changing his will.
She had known Grant wanted Ethan’s power of attorney.
But she denied arranging false medical evidence.
She claimed Grant and Dr. Kessler handled that part without her knowledge.
Ethan read the statement twice.
“She admits almost everything except the part that could look like conspiracy to incapacitate me.”
Miriam nodded.
“Her lawyer is doing her job.”
Leah asked, “Does admitting old crimes matter if they happened twenty years ago?”
“Statutes of limitation are complicated,” Miriam said. “But recent conduct is recent.”
The strongest evidence involved impersonation, attempted financial manipulation, and current fraud.
Not every moral betrayal translated neatly into a charge.
Leah disliked that.
Miriam noticed.
“Justice and criminal prosecution are overlapping circles. They are not identical.”
“What happens to Celeste?”
“I don’t know.”
That afternoon Leah returned to school for the first time since the fire.
Rumors had already started.
A neighbor had seen police cars.
Someone knew her stepmother was staying at a hotel.
Her friend Naomi cornered her near the theater room.
“Are you okay?”
Leah almost said yes.
Instead she said, “No.”
Naomi hugged her.
Leah cried into her shoulder for thirty seconds.
Then the bell rang.
Normal life was unbelievably rude.
Classes continued.
Lunch happened.
A teacher reminded her about a history paper.
That evening, Leah found Ethan in the kitchen replacing the Bluetooth speaker Celeste had destroyed.
He had bought the exact same model.
Leah stared.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
“You could get a different one.”
“I know.”
He placed it in the same location beside the patio door.
Maybe he needed proof that objects could return even when trust could not.
His phone rang.
Thomas Baird.
Ethan answered.
Within seconds his posture changed.
“What do you mean he resigned?”
Thomas had discovered that board treasurer Martin Keane had disappeared.
Keane was one of three people able to authorize the fraudulent Mercer transfer.
His company laptop had been wiped remotely.
His wife believed he was at a conference.
He was not.
Grant had an insider.
And now the insider was gone.
Law enforcement widened the investigation.
An hour later, Leah checked an old cloud folder while searching for school files.
She found something she had forgotten.
The recording from the night of the fire was not the only audio her original phone had uploaded.
There was a second file.
Created accidentally three days earlier.
Duration: six minutes.
Location metadata: Ethan’s home office.
Leah stared at it.
Her phone had been in her backpack outside the office that evening.
Voice activation must have triggered.
She pressed play.
Celeste and Grant.
Grant said, “Keane is nervous.”
Celeste replied, “Then pay him.”
“He wants out.”
A pause.
Then Celeste said something that made Leah stop breathing.
“People who want out are exactly how my father got caught.”
Grant answered, “So what are you suggesting?”
Celeste’s voice dropped too low to hear.
May you like
Grant laughed.
Then he said, “That’s the Celeste I remember.”
