Chapter 2 - Anna’s Last Warning
Deputy Lauren Chen arrived with two officers from the Albemarle County Police Department fifteen minutes later.
Celeste immediately changed personalities.
By the time Chen stepped into the greenhouse, Celeste was no longer a cornered woman standing beside evidence.
She was a concerned aunt.
“I came because Sophie called me,” she said.
Edward stared at her.
“Sophie doesn’t have your number.”
Celeste smiled sadly.
“She knows how to use the house phone.”
Sophie hid behind Maria again.
“I didn’t call her.”
Chen noticed.
“So how did you know to come?”
Celeste hesitated.
“I was on the estate.”
“Why?”
“Family business.”
“What family business?”
Celeste’s attorney had not yet arrived, but her instincts apparently had.
“I think I should wait for counsel before answering questions that seem accusatory.”
Chen nodded.
“That’s your right.”
Edward almost interrupted.
Maria touched his arm.
Not here.
Not now.
The police photographed the roof-release assembly, the missing section of Celeste’s scarf, the broken glass, the brass key and Anna’s damaged note.
A crime-scene technician placed the note between sheets of archival plastic.
“Some of the ink may still be recoverable,” he said.
Edward looked toward Celeste.
She heard.
Her mouth tightened.
Chen examined the brass key.
“You said Ms. Vale possessed this?”
“I thought she did.”
“What does that mean?”
Edward explained that the registered master key had been assigned to the wall emergency box until Anna became ill. During the final months of Anna’s life, the greenhouse underwent ventilation repairs. Celeste supervised them.
After Anna died, Edward remembered handing Celeste what he assumed was the R-1 key.
“But this is R-1,” Chen said.
“Yes.”
“So what did you give Celeste?”
Edward looked at his daughter.
Celeste answered before he could.
“A duplicate.”
“You never told me you made one.”
“I didn’t think it mattered.”
“Who authorized it?”
“I did.”
“With what company?”
Celeste’s eyes flickered.
Edward caught it.
“Verdant Restoration?”
Silence.
The same name from Anna’s note.
Chen wrote it down.
Maria had taken Sophie into the library by then.
Edward joined them after the police finished preliminary interviews.
Sophie sat curled on the sofa with her porcelain rabbit against her chest.
Edward knelt.
“Sweetheart, I need to ask about something you said.”
Her eyes lowered.
“Aunt Celeste?”
“Yes.”
Maria sat nearby.
“What did she tell you about your mother?”
Sophie rubbed one painted ear of the rabbit.
“She said Mommy knew I made her sick.”
Edward stopped breathing.
“What?”
“She said Mommy got more tired after she had me.”
Maria closed her eyes.
Celeste had gone beyond manipulation.
She had been poisoning a child’s memory of her mother.
“Sophie, listen carefully.” Edward took her hands. “Your mother’s cancer had nothing to do with you.”
“She said Mommy made papers to send me somewhere.”
“Your mother made papers to protect you.”
“Why?”
“Because she loved you.”
Sophie’s face crumpled.
“Then why did she leave?”
Edward’s throat tightened.
Children understood death with terrible incompleteness.
“She didn’t choose to.”
Sophie began crying.
Edward held her.
Maria looked away.
Later that evening, Naomi Pierce arrived from Richmond.
Naomi had drafted Anna’s estate documents and represented Edward’s family for almost fifteen years.
She was fifty-two, precise and blunt enough that Anna had once called her “a legal scalpel.”
She read the surviving note through the evidence photograph.
“Thirty-one percent.”
Edward nodded.
Naomi removed a thick trust binder from her bag.
“Anna’s shares passed into Sophie’s irrevocable trust. You serve as trustee and voting representative.”
“And Celeste succeeds me.”
“If you die, resign or are removed for incapacity or breach.”
“Can she remove me?”
“Not personally.”
“Could she petition?”
“Yes.”
Edward looked toward the greenhouse through the dark windows.
“She almost dropped a roof panel on Sophie.”
Naomi did not respond emotionally.
That was why he needed her.
“What is Verdant Restoration?” he asked.
She frowned.
“A vendor, I think.”
“To the company?”
“Possibly. Why?”
Anna’s damaged note came back to him.
Edward called Vale Glass & Gardens’ chief financial officer, Peter Lawson.
He asked for every payment made to Verdant Restoration since 2018.
Peter went quiet.
“Edward, why?”
“Send them.”
“I’ll need Celeste’s authorization for archived procurement records.”
Edward stared at the phone.
“Celeste’s authorization?”
“She chairs the facilities and acquisition committee now.”
“I founded the company.”
“You stepped down as executive chairman two years ago.”
“I still own forty-three percent.”
“And Celeste manages operational requests.”
Edward hung up.
Another mistake.
After Anna’s diagnosis, he had gradually handed Celeste more authority so he could stay with his daughter.
After Anna’s death, he had handed over even more because grief made ordinary decisions feel impossible.
He had called it delegation.
Maybe it had been surrender.
Naomi watched his face.
“What?”
“I gave her access to everything.”
“Not Sophie’s trust.”
“Not yet.”
Naomi opened the trust binder.
Then stopped.
A yellow tab marked a document Edward barely remembered.
Special Investment Adviser Appointment — January 14
His signature appeared beneath it.
Celeste’s too.
Naomi’s face changed.
“You signed this?”
“What is it?”
“After Anna died, you appointed Celeste as special investment adviser over the trust’s Vale Glass & Gardens shares.”
Edward felt cold.
“You told me it would reduce family conflict.”
“I recommended an independent adviser. You chose Celeste.”
“What power does it give her?”
“Not the vote.”
Naomi turned pages.
“But she can direct you on certain sale negotiations unless you formally remove her for cause.”
Edward sat slowly.
He remembered the day.
Sophie had been screaming because she wanted her mother.
Celeste had appeared with documents and said, Let me carry some of this.
He had signed without reading every page.
“What sale negotiations?”
Naomi’s phone buzzed.
She read the email.
Then looked at Edward.
“Apparently one already exists.”
She turned the screen toward him.
A letter from Sentinel Equity Partners.
An offer to purchase Vale Glass & Gardens.
$146 million.
Closing contingent upon majority shareholder approval.
Celeste’s twenty-six percent plus Sophie’s thirty-one percent equaled fifty-seven.
Edward stared.
“If she controls Sophie’s vote…”
“She controls the company.”
Another email arrived.
This one from Celeste’s lawyer.
Notice of Intent to Petition for Removal of Trustee Based on Unsafe Conditions, Cognitive Decline, and Breach of Fiduciary Duty.
Naomi read it twice.
Then looked toward the room where Sophie slept.
“She didn’t need that glass to kill Sophie.”
Edward’s stomach tightened.
May you like
“What?”
“She may have needed it to prove you couldn’t protect her.”
