Chapter 8 - The Wife of the Blackmailer
Simone Laurent was fifty-one, elegant, composed, and furious enough to shake.
She placed a thick envelope on Rebecca’s table.
“My husband has been lying to me for seven years.”
Ethan did not touch the envelope.
“About Celeste?”
Simone looked at him.
“So you know.”
“Since ten minutes ago.”
She gave a humorless laugh.
“That puts us almost even.”
Rebecca asked, “Why come now?”
“Because Gabriel disappeared yesterday.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“Disappeared?”
“He emptied one account, took two passports, and left his phone.”
“Where?”
“At our apartment in New York.”
“Did he say anything?”
“A note.”
Simone produced it.
Rebecca read aloud.
Do not trust Celeste. If she fails, Mercer will come after us all.
Ethan frowned.
“‘Mercer’ meaning me?”
“I don’t think so,” Simone said.
“Then who?”
“Your father.”
“My father is dead.”
“I know.”
Simone looked unsettled.
“Gabriel used ‘Mercer’ as a name for the old network—dealers, storage companies, brokers, lawyers. People who survived Richard.”
Rebecca opened the envelope.
Bank statements.
Wire confirmations.
Photographs.
A copy of a Manhattan apartment deed.
Celeste’s name did not appear.
Bellweather did.
“Bellweather owns your apartment?” Ethan asked.
Simone nodded.
“I discovered it last month.”
“That company is funded partly with Mercer trust money.”
“I know that now.”
Rebecca examined another document.
“This payment here. Nine hundred thousand dollars to Laurent Advisory.”
“My husband’s company.”
“For what?”
“Consulting, according to taxes.”
“What did he actually do?”
Simone’s expression hardened.
“He located descendants of people whose art had been taken.”
“That sounds legitimate.”
“It began legitimately.”
“And then?”
“He discovered some families had no idea what they could claim.”
Ethan understood.
“He approached Celeste.”
“Celeste approached him.”
Simone nodded toward the papers.
“They created a system. Bellweather quietly purchased claims, heir interests, or settlement rights through intermediaries. Then Bellweather negotiated with the Mercer trust as if it were independent.”
Rebecca stared.
“They were effectively negotiating against themselves.”
“Yes.”
“Profiting from both sides.”
“Yes.”
Ethan stood.
The magnitude of it sickened him.
“Using victims of stolen art to steal more money.”
Simone’s eyes flashed.
“Gabriel told himself he was taking from thieves.”
“And Celeste?”
“She told herself she was repairing your father’s crimes.”
Rebecca asked, “What did Mara discover?”
Simone reached for one final item.
A printed email.
From Mara.
To Simone.
Dated three weeks before Mara’s last hospitalization.
Your husband and Celeste are exploiting legitimate restitution claims to extract money from the Mercer trust. I have evidence. I would rather resolve this without harming innocent heirs. Meet me. Come alone.
“Did you meet her?” Ethan asked.
Simone nodded.
“At your estate.”
“The red room.”
“Yes.”
Lily had seen Simone?
“No,” Simone said when Ethan asked. “I entered through the service passage. But someone else arrived.”
“Gabriel?”
“No.”
“Who?”
“Celeste.”
Simone looked down.
“Mara made Celeste an offer.”
“What offer?”
“Return the personal money. End Bellweather’s claim-purchasing scheme. Cooperate with an independent restitution process. Mara would disclose everything internally but ask prosecutors to consider Celeste’s cooperation.”
Ethan swallowed.
“Mara was protecting her.”
“She was protecting Lily.”
“How?”
Simone looked directly at him.
“Because Celeste threatened to expose you.”
Ethan stared.
“For what?”
“She had records showing your electronic approval on several early Bellweather transfers.”
“I never approved them.”
“I believe you.”
“But?”
“But Mara didn’t know that at first.”
The room tilted.
His own wife had once suspected him.
Rebecca asked, “What changed Mara’s mind?”
Simone pointed at a banking authentication report.
“Mara discovered the approvals were generated while Ethan was physically elsewhere.”
Ethan took the page.
One transfer had been approved at 3:17 a.m. from an estate IP address.
On that exact night, Ethan had been in Boston with Mara for surgery.
“So Mara knew my credentials were compromised.”
“Yes.”
“And Celeste knew Mara knew.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t Mara tell me?”
Simone’s eyes softened.
“You were sleeping in a hospital chair beside her.”
Ethan looked away.
That hurt more than accusation.
Mara had protected him while dying.
Simone continued.
“She believed she could finish it herself.”
“She was wrong.”
“Yes.”
The words were gentle but merciless.
A mistake.
Mara’s mistake.
His mistake.
Everyone’s silence layered together.
Rebecca gathered the documents.
“This can establish fraud, self-dealing, possibly conspiracy. But we still need originals and a complete ledger.”
Simone nodded.
“Gabriel had the ledger.”
Ethan snapped his gaze back.
“What?”
“He stole it from Mara.”
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where is it?”
“I think Celeste has been trying to find that out ever since.”
Rebecca’s phone buzzed.
She checked it.
Then looked at Ethan.
“The trust filed an emergency petition.”
“For what?”
“To temporarily suspend your authority as co-beneficiary representative pending investigation of the Bellweather transfer.”
“Celeste filed it?”
“Malcolm’s firm.”
Ethan stared at the documents Mara had spent her last strength assembling.
Celeste was attacking him with the very fraud she had created.
Then Simone’s phone rang.
She answered.
No one spoke on the other end.
Her face changed.
“Gabriel?”
A distorted male voice said loudly enough for all of them to hear:
“Ask Ethan what Mara hid inside Lily’s painting.”
The call ended.
Ethan looked at the torn painting pieces stored in Rebecca’s evidence folder.
May you like
Until that moment, everyone had assumed Celeste tore it because the pendant was behind it.
Now Ethan realized they had never examined the painting itself.
