Part 10
Celeste removed her glasses.
She had not slept well. Concealer failed to hide the shadows beneath her eyes.
“I need ten minutes.”
“No.”
“Five.”
“You accused me of theft in front of fifty people. You have used your minutes.”
Celeste looked toward the reporters’ cars.
“If they see me here—”
“That would be a consequence.”
Her face tightened.
“I came to apologize.”
“Then do it.”
Celeste’s lips parted.
Nothing followed.
Eleanor waited.
“I should not have said you stole the brooch.”
“You should not have placed it in my bag.”
“I panicked.”
“Before anything had happened?”
“You saw me leave the library.”
“So you did know about the envelope.”
Celeste glanced toward the street again.
“Please let me inside.”
“No.”
“My father does not know I am here.”
“That does not make you safer to invite in.”
For a moment, anger replaced fear in Celeste’s face.
Then she lowered her voice.
“The audit letter was not supposed to arrive yesterday. Bellweather had agreed to send it electronically.”
“You removed it.”
“I photographed it.”
“And took it.”
“Yes.”
The admission came so quietly that Eleanor almost missed it.
“Why?”
“My father needed time.”
“For what?”
“To replace the missing funds.”
“From where?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I know what the accounts looked like. I don’t know where the money went.”
“Then why protect him?”
Celeste gave a brittle laugh. “You ask that as if families are rational.”
Eleanor thought of what she had said to Leah over the settlement.
“No,” she said. “I do not.”
Celeste stepped closer to the door.
“My father said if Bellweather sent a written finding before the pledge announcement, the board might freeze the campaign. He told me to find out whether the letter had arrived.”
“So you entered the library.”
“Yes.”
“You saw me put it in the desk.”
“Through the doorway.”
“And then?”
“I took it after you left.”
“The brooch?”
Celeste’s hand moved unconsciously toward the place where it had been pinned.
“I needed people to doubt you.”
Eleanor felt no surprise. Only a slow, cold settling.
“You could have said I was mistaken.”
“You had already told Mara about the delivery.”
“So you needed me gone.”
“I needed the house to stop listening to you.”
Eleanor looked at her.
Celeste’s eyes filled, but the tears did not fall. She seemed angry at them for existing.
“I thought they would search the bag privately,” she said. “I thought Lydia would send you home. Then you grabbed the strap, the waiter stumbled, and everything—”
“You smiled.”
“What?”
“While I was in the water.”
Celeste looked away.
“I was terrified.”
“You smiled.”
“I do that when I’m afraid.”
“So does your father.”
Celeste flinched.
Eleanor loosened the door chain.
Celeste’s shoulders dropped with relief.
Eleanor did not open the door.
Instead she held out her hand.
“Your phone.”
“What?”
“Call Ruth Calder. Tell her what you told me.”
Celeste stepped back.
“I can’t.”
“You can.”
“My father will destroy me.”
“You tried to destroy me first.”
“He will cut me off from everything.”
“You are thirty years old.”
“You have no idea what that means.”
“No,” Eleanor said. “I have been cut off from everything several times. Usually by death. It is unpleasant.”
Celeste stared at her.
The reporters had noticed movement at the house. A man with a camera began walking up the sidewalk.
Celeste put on her glasses.
“Take the settlement,” she said. “Please. The money is real. The pension is real. My father will restore the funds. The center will open.”
“And the next envelope?”
“There does not have to be another.”
“There is always another.”
Celeste’s mouth trembled.
Then she turned and walked away.
The photographer called her name.
She did not run. She moved quickly but kept her face lowered, one hand holding the coat closed at her throat.
Eleanor watched until she disappeared around the corner.
Only then did she notice the black smartphone lying on the porch floor.
Celeste had dropped it when she put on her glasses.
The screen was unlocked.
A message preview appeared.
DAD: Do not contact Mercer. Westbridge is handling the remaining backup.
Eleanor did not touch the phone.
She closed the door, called Ruth, and stood guard from the other side until Thomas arrived with an evidence bag.
Within an hour, Victor Arden’s attorneys claimed the phone had been stolen.
By evening, they withdrew the accusation after a reporter supplied photographs of Celeste dropping it on Eleanor’s porch.
The phone changed the investigation.
Not because it contained a confession. Victor and Celeste had been careful in most of their messages. But it contained calendar entries, photographs of the Bellweather letter, and communications with a Westbridge executive during the period when Seacliff’s security footage was corrupted.
It also contained a draft message Celeste had never sent.
I did what you asked. She was supposed to be dismissed quietly. You never said she would fall.
Ruth warned Eleanor that drafts could be disputed. Victor’s attorneys would argue the sentence referred to removing Eleanor from the reception, not placing the brooch. They would argue that Celeste had acted independently, that Westbridge had performed routine maintenance, and that the missing funds were delayed transfers rather than theft.
But the facts no longer depended on Mara’s screen recording alone.
The original camera held a local memory cache.
Westbridge had deleted the central server file but failed to erase the storage inside the camera itself. A technician retained by Ruth recovered the full recording three days later.
It showed Celeste placing the brooch in Eleanor’s bag.
It also showed what happened at the pool.
A waiter carrying champagne had stepped backward when Victor approached him. Victor’s elbow struck the tray. The waiter collided with Eleanor. As she lost her balance, Celeste caught her wrist.
For one second, she could have pulled Eleanor forward.
Instead she released her.
May you like
Eleanor fell into the water.
The footage did not prove Celeste intended the fall. It proved she had chosen not to prevent it.
