Part 7
At ten-fifteen, Alan received the exterior camera footage.
The angle covered the front drive but not the inside of Celeste’s trunk. It showed her leaving the house in a dark wrap, opening the trunk, leaning inside for ninety seconds, and returning with the same wrap over her shoulders. No book was visible.
At ten-forty, the estate administrator confirmed that Celeste had requested a temporary guest badge that afternoon. The badge allowed entry to the library, wine cellar, guest wing, and fitness room, but not the archive.
At eleven, the IT vendor reported that Mara’s catalog account had been accessed at 5:52 p.m. from her workstation. Mara had been in the conservation room then, speaking by phone with a paper supplier.
“Could the session have remained open?” Alan asked.
“Yes,” Mara said. “I stepped away for about six minutes.”
“Was Celeste in the archive?”
“Not that I saw.”
Celeste looked up from the chair. “I was dressing for dinner.”
Julian asked, “Can anyone confirm that?”
“My life is not usually conducted with witnesses.”
Alan studied the access data.
“What was changed at 5:52?”
The vendor’s answer arrived seven minutes later.
The digital catalog entry for the Halcyon ledger had been modified from RESTRICTED—TRUSTEE APPROVAL REQUIRED to FAMILY REFERENCE—INTERNAL USE.
Mara stared at the screen.
“That would make removal look authorized,” she said.
“For family members,” Alan replied.
Celeste rose.
“I am going to bed.”
Julian blocked the bottom of the staircase.
“You’re not taking anything upstairs.”
Her face went blank.
“What exactly do you imagine I have hidden in this dress?”
“Your room contains bags.”
“Then search it.”
The offer surprised everyone.
Celeste saw that too.
“You wanted cooperation,” she said. “Here.”
Alan called a female security supervisor to conduct the inspection with Celeste present. The supervisor arrived wearing a navy suit and an expression that suggested she had spent twenty years being blamed for other people’s decisions.
Mara stayed in the hall.
Forty minutes later, the supervisor reported that no ledger had been found in Celeste’s room, bathroom, dressing area, luggage, or personal safe.
Her car remained unsearched.
At midnight, Alan sent Mara home in an estate vehicle because her own car was parked in a lower lot now buried under snow.
Julian walked her to the side entrance.
For the first time that evening, they were alone.
“You should have told me this morning,” he said.
Mara buttoned her coat. “Yes.”
“You should not have photographed the pages.”
“No.”
“You did it anyway.”
“Yes.”
He looked down the dark corridor toward the archive.
“Do you believe Celeste took it?”
“I saw her carrying it.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Mara recognized his need for certainty. It was the same impulse that made donors ask whether a damaged letter could be restored exactly as it had been, as though conservation might reverse time instead of slowing loss.
“I believe she took it out of the archive,” Mara said. “I don’t know where she put it.”
“Do you believe she removed the pages?”
“I don’t know.”
“Do you believe my father stole from the trust?”
“I don’t know.”
Frustration crossed his face.
She added, “The records are not a verdict. They are evidence that someone needs to examine.”
“That sounds like something you say when you don’t want responsibility for what they mean.”
“No. It’s something I say because records can be true and still incomplete.”
He looked at her scrape again.
“I’m sorry about tonight.”
“Which part?”
The question came out more bitterly than she intended.
Julian accepted it without defense.
“All of it.”
The estate car waited beneath the porte cochere. Its headlights whitened the snow.
Mara put on one glove, then stopped.
“Celeste knew where the fireproof drawer was.”
Julian’s face tightened.
“I never showed her,” she continued. “Maybe someone else did. Maybe she watched me. But she went to it directly.”
“Tell Alan tomorrow.”
“I will.”
“You’re suspended until he finishes the initial review.”
“I assumed.”
“Paid.”
She almost said that did not make it better. Instead, she nodded.
As she opened the door, Julian said, “Mara.”
She turned.
“I don’t know who I’m protecting,” he said.
The admission seemed to cost him more than anger had.
She looked past him into the warm corridor, where portraits of his ancestors hung in gilded frames and watched generations mistake inheritance for knowledge.
“Then stop choosing people,” she said. “Protect the records.”
The driver took her through the storm to a small apartment above a pharmacy in Litchfield. By the time she reached her door, the scrape on her arm had stiffened and the tea on her cuff had dried into a brown fan.
Her sister, Nina, called before Mara had removed her shoes.
“You disappeared,” Nina said. “I sent you six messages.”
“My phone is with an attorney.”
There was a pause.
“That sentence has never led to anything fun.”
Mara sat on the edge of her bed.
She told Nina only that a restricted object was missing and that there had been an argument at work.
“Did somebody hurt you?”
“No.”
“You always say no too quickly.”
“The case broke. It scratched me.”
“What case?”
“A document case.”
“Did it leap at you?”
Mara closed her eyes.
Nina waited.
“Someone pulled it,” Mara said.
“Who?”
“I can’t discuss it.”
“You called me.”
“You called me.”
“Fine. Do you need me to come over?”
“No.”
“Do you want me to?”
Mara looked around the apartment. One lamp had been left on beside the couch. A mug sat in the sink from that morning. The radiator hissed and knocked as though a small animal were trapped inside it.
“No,” she said, then corrected herself. “Maybe tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
May you like
Nina did not tell her to be brave or careful. She complained for thirty seconds about a parking ticket, then described the alarming purple color of a casserole her husband had made. By the end of the call, Mara’s breathing had slowed.
She cleaned the scrape, covered it with a bandage, and slept badly.
