Chapter 8 - Laura’s Second Life
The diner was in Vermont.
Metadata from the photograph identified a small town near Burlington.
Rebecca contacted local counsel and an investigator.
They found the diner manager.
He remembered Laura.
“She wasn’t using that name.”
“What name?” David asked over video call.
“Anna Reed.”
“Was she alone?”
“Usually.”
“Usually?”
“A woman met her twice.”
David leaned forward.
“What woman?”
The manager described someone in her early forties with dark hair, expensive clothes, and a scar near her left thumb.
David looked at Rebecca.
Celeste had a small scar near her left thumb from a childhood sailing accident.
“No,” he whispered.
Celeste had met Laura after claiming she had no idea where she was.
The manager continued.
“There was also a man.”
“Marcus?”
David sent a photograph.
“No.”
“Grant?”
Another photograph.
The manager nodded immediately.
“That’s him.”
David felt sick.
Grant and Celeste had both known Laura’s location.
“Did she look afraid?”
The manager hesitated.
“She looked exhausted.”
“Did she leave voluntarily?”
“I don’t know. One day she just stopped coming.”
“When?”
“About seven weeks ago.”
Two months.
The photograph was nearly the last confirmed sighting.
Rebecca requested nearby business-camera archives, but most had been overwritten.
One gas station still retained transaction logs.
A credit card in the name Anna Reed had been used.
The card traced to a prepaid corporate expense program.
Issuer account: Northstar Advisory.
David stared.
“They funded her.”
“Or controlled her,” Rebecca said.
They subpoenaed broader transaction information through civil trust litigation.
Anna Reed’s card had paid rent on a furnished cottage for eleven months.
Groceries.
Pharmacy purchases.
Fuel.
No airline tickets.
No large cash withdrawals.
Laura had lived quietly.
Hidden.
Supported by the same entity Celeste allegedly used to steal.
David called Celeste.
She finally agreed to meet through attorneys.
This time Rebecca attended.
Celeste looked at the diner photograph and sighed.
“I wondered when Marcus would send you that.”
“Marcus sent it?”
“Probably.”
“You met Laura in Vermont.”
“Yes.”
David fought the urge to shout.
“You told me for eighteen months you did not know where she was.”
“I lied.”
“Why?”
“Because Laura asked me to.”
David laughed in disbelief.
“After everything?”
Celeste’s face tightened.
“Not at first.”
She looked at Ethan’s compass on the table.
“The first disappearance was Laura’s plan. She found the forged account and believed Grant was preparing evidence against her.”
“Grant worked for you.”
“He worked for whoever paid.”
“Did you pay him?”
“Yes.”
“For what?”
“Monitoring.”
“Laura?”
“You.”
David stared.
“Me?”
“You were making reckless decisions after Father died.”
“So you spied on me.”
“Yes.”
Celeste said it with the same terrifying plainness she had used at the cemetery of another story only she knew.
David continued.
“When did you find Laura?”
“Three months after Flight 2719.”
“How?”
“Marcus told me.”
“Why?”
“He wanted money.”
“Of course.”
Celeste’s eyes narrowed.
“You think this is simple because Marcus looks like a villain now.”
“He blackmailed you.”
“Yes.”
“And Laura?”
“He blackmailed her too.”
“With what?”
“Evidence suggesting you had knowingly pledged Ethan’s trust shares.”
David’s jaw tightened.
“Forged evidence.”
“Laura didn’t know that yet.”
“So she believed I was part of it.”
“For several weeks.”
The truth hurt because it kept repeating.
Laura had doubted him.
Reasonably.
“What happened when you met her?”
Celeste looked down.
“She showed me evidence Grant opened the account in her name.”
“Grant?”
“Yes.”
David stared.
“Not you?”
“I gave him access to old identity documents years earlier. I did not tell him to frame Laura.”
“But you knew afterward.”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed silent.”
“I was implicated.”
“There it is.”
Celeste’s voice rose.
“You want me to say I was brave? I wasn’t.”
Silence.
“I had moved Northstar money. I had used Ethan’s trust as leverage. I had lied to the board. Grant told me if I exposed him, he would make me look like the sole architect.”
“So you helped hide Laura.”
“I helped her stay hidden.”
“Why?”
“Because she had proof Grant was working with Marcus.”
David froze.
“Grant and Marcus?”
“Yes.”
“Then why was Northstar paying Laura?”
“Because I controlled Northstar.”
Rebecca leaned forward.
“You funded Laura’s safe house.”
“Yes.”
“While publicly accusing her of theft?”
Celeste looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
David stood.
“You destroyed her name while secretly keeping her alive.”
“I thought if everyone believed she had fled, Marcus and Grant would stop looking.”
“They found her.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Celeste looked toward the window.
“I told one person.”
“Who?”
“Jonathan.”
David closed his eyes.
Jonathan had admitted knowing.
“What happened seven weeks ago?”
“I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
Celeste’s eyes filled with genuine fear.
“I lost contact with her.”
“So did Marcus?”
“I don’t know.”
“Grant?”
“I think Grant found her.”
David stepped closer.
“And Ethan’s compass?”
“Laura told me she had given it to Ethan before she disappeared.”
“Why terrorize him for it now?”
Celeste looked at him.
“Because Marcus contacted me yesterday morning.”
“What did he say?”
“He said Ethan was carrying the only thing that could prove where Thomas’s hidden account went.”
David’s anger sharpened.
“So you dumped a meal on a child and hit him.”
“I panicked.”
“You made a choice.”
Celeste looked away.
Rebecca asked, “What did Marcus want from the hidden account?”
Celeste’s answer changed the entire investigation.
“He doesn’t want the money.”
“What does he want?”
“The shareholder register.”
David frowned.
“That is corporate recordkeeping.”
“Not this one.”
Celeste looked at him.
“Thomas created a private side agreement with early investors. Whoever holds the original register can prove Bennett Aero does not legally own several of its most valuable airport properties.”
David stared.
“How much are those properties worth?”
May you like
Celeste whispered:
“Almost three hundred million dollars.”
