Part 10
“Because either she is telling the truth, or she expected that question.”
“Or someone wants us looking only at her.”
“Yes.”
The investigation had widened again, and with it came a colder possibility.
Celeste might have taken the ledger without creating the larger scheme. Or she might have been trying to recover something someone else had already altered. Mara’s certainty about what she had seen remained, but certainty about meaning began to fail.
“Did she tell you why she entered through the passage?” Mara asked.
“She says she was meeting someone.”
“Who?”
“She won’t say.”
“Why not?”
“She says it would damage an employee.”
Mara thought of the catalog login at 5:52, the outer door left open, and the changed access classification.
“An employee helped her.”
“Maybe.”
“Who was working in the west wing?”
“Alan is checking.”
The line went quiet.
Mara heard papers moving on Julian’s end.
“I found your coffee mug,” he said.
“What?”
“The one from the archive. It says Syracuse University.”
“It was a gift.”
“It’s cracked.”
“I know.”
“Why do you keep using it?”
She sat down again.
“Because the handle fits my hand.”
“That is a terrible reason.”
“It is the normal reason.”
He gave a tired sound that might have been a laugh.
For a few seconds, they spoke about nothing. Then Julian said, “The board wants to terminate you tomorrow.”
Mara looked at the ice on the window.
“For the photographs.”
“And for failing to report the missing pages.”
“What do you want?”
“I don’t know.”
“That answer is becoming a habit.”
“Yes.”
She expected fear, but what she felt was irritation.
“Then decide before the meeting,” she said. “Don’t let the board use me to make the rest of this look contained.”
He did not answer.
After the call, Mara found the old estate floor plans in a public architectural survey digitized by the Connecticut State Library. The original nursery passage descended through a service stair to a corridor behind the dining room. A secondary branch led to a dumbwaiter shaft later converted into utility access. Renovation notes from six years earlier marked the shaft CLOSED AT ARCHIVE LEVEL but left the cellar connection unchanged.
Mara sent the plans to Alan and Simone.
At eight that evening, Alan called back.
“The utility closure was never completed.”
“Can someone move a ledger through it?”
“The opening is fourteen inches wide.”
“The book is eleven by sixteen.”
“Then yes.”
“Where does it come out?”
“A locked cabinet in the old bottling room.”
“Who has access?”
“The cellar manager, facilities director, Julian, and the estate administrator.”
“Celeste had guest access to the wine cellar.”
“Not the bottling room.”
“But she could reach the cabinet from the archive side.”
“Yes.”
“Did you search it?”
A pause.
“We did now.”
“And?”
“The ledger is not there.”
Mara closed her eyes.
“But we found the missing pages,” Alan said.
She stood so quickly the chair scraped the floor.
“Where?”
“Inside a plastic sleeve taped beneath a shelf.”
“Both?”
“Yes. And the folded note.”
“What does it say?”
“I cannot discuss the full contents by phone.”
“You called me.”
“To tell you the discovery confirms your account of the missing folios.”
“Does it identify Larkspur?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
“Who owns it?”
“I cannot tell you yet.”
“Is it Celeste?”
“No.”
“Victoria?”
“No.”
“Julian?”
Alan was silent.
Mara stopped breathing for a moment.
“No,” Alan said. “Not Julian.”
“Then who?”
“Tomorrow.”
“Alan.”
“The board meets at nine. Simone wants you present.”
“To fire me?”
“To answer questions.”
“That is not better.”
“No,” he said. “But it is necessary.”
Mara arrived at the estate Thursday morning beneath a sky the color of old paper.
The entrance hall had been cleaned. The silver tray was gone. The marble showed no stain. The document case rested on the console table inside a clear evidence bag, its broken clasp visible through the plastic.
For a second, Mara saw herself kneeling there again.
Then a staff member crossed the far corridor carrying folded linens, and the ordinary motion broke the memory.
Julian waited outside the boardroom.
He wore the charcoal suit from Monday but not the black overcoat. He looked as though he had slept in neither.
“Before we go in,” he said, “I need to tell you who owns Larkspur.”
Mara removed her gloves.
“My grandmother.”
“Your father’s mother?”
“Yes.”
“She’s been dead twelve years.”
“The company is held by her estate trust.”
“Who controls it?”
“My aunt Beatrice.”
Mara knew the name from correspondence. Beatrice Waverly Chen had resigned from the family board twenty years earlier and moved to Oregon. In photographs, she wore practical shoes and appeared to dislike every camera pointed at her.
“Why was the charitable trust paying her company?”
“It wasn’t paying her. Larkspur held settlement funds for former residents.”
“Then why hide the ownership?”
“Because my grandmother created it after discovering my grandfather had acquired the contaminated sites through Halcyon. She used her own assets to supplement the settlements.”
“That sounds almost responsible.”
“It would be, except the note says she and my father concealed the ownership to keep the original acquisitions from the board. After she died, my father continued using the charitable trust to reimburse Larkspur.”
“For money she had already paid?”
“Some of it.”
Mara understood.
“He was moving charitable money back into the family estate.”
“Yes.”
“How much?”
“Possibly four million.”
“Possibly?”
“The accounting is incomplete.”
“And Victoria approved the transfers while she was interim trustee.”
“Yes.”
“Did Celeste know?”
Julian looked toward the closed boardroom doors.
“She knew her mother had approved something improper. She says she did not know the amount or that Larkspur belonged to my grandmother’s trust.”
“Do you believe her?”
“I believe she knew enough to be afraid.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
“No,” he said. “I don’t know.”
Mara studied his face.
May you like
“Why was the note hidden in the ledger?”
“My father wrote it to Victoria. ‘Don’t let Julian sign until Victoria confirms Larkspur distribution.’ I was becoming trustee after his death. He wanted the payments continued without showing me the underlying ownership.”
