Chapter 8 - Victor’s Warning
Laura read her father’s note three times before she spoke.
“You had this?”
Daniel nodded.
“For three years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“It wasn’t complete.”
Laura laughed.
Her voice sounded dangerous even to herself.
“A handwritten warning from my dying father saying ‘If Celeste uses Owen, stop her’ wasn’t complete enough for you?”
“There was no context.”
“There was a name.”
“I thought he meant a legal dispute.”
“You thought.”
“Yes.”
“You keep thinking for me.”
Daniel absorbed that.
Laura walked into the kitchen.
He followed slowly.
“I was trying to protect you from a family war.”
“You protected me into one.”
Sophie stood at the stairs listening.
Daniel saw her first.
He lowered his voice.
“We should do this later.”
“No,” Laura said. “We should have done all of this earlier.”
Sophie came down.
“What did Grandpa write?”
Laura hesitated.
Daniel answered carefully.
“He was worried about Aunt Celeste and Mr. Kessler.”
“Did he know Dad would get locked up?”
“No, baby.”
“Did he know Aunt Celeste was bad?”
Laura flinched.
“People aren’t one thing.”
Sophie looked unconvinced.
“She threw my necklace away.”
Children were less interested in nuance when adults smashed their memories against stone floors.
Victor’s note contained more.
The reverse side listed three company names.
Wintermere.
Northstar.
Ashcroft.
Laura’s breath caught.
“He knew.”
Daniel nodded.
“At least some of it.”
“When did he write this?”
“No date.”
“Where did you find it?”
“Inside his desk lining. After he died.”
“Why were you searching his desk?”
Daniel looked at her.
“Because he called me two weeks before he died and asked me to.”
Another secret.
Laura felt almost numb.
“What exactly did he say?”
“He told me Celeste had begun moving money between projects without clear documentation. He didn’t want to accuse her without proof.”
“Why not tell me?”
“He said you would confront her.”
“I would have.”
“That’s what he was afraid of.”
Laura stared at the note.
Victor had understood his daughters.
Laura attacked problems directly.
Celeste survived them indirectly.
Sophie pointed to the paper.
“What does ‘uses Owen’ mean?”
Laura crouched beside her.
“I think Grandpa knew Aunt Celeste trusted Mr. Kessler too much.”
“Because they were boyfriend and girlfriend?”
Laura blinked.
“What?”
Sophie shrugged.
“I saw them kissing.”
Daniel and Laura stared.
“When?”
“At Grandpa’s birthday.”
Victor’s final birthday had been almost four years earlier.
“Where?”
“In the library.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Sophie looked confused.
“You already knew Aunt Celeste knew him.”
The simplicity of the answer hurt.
That afternoon Detective Torres confirmed Celeste and Owen’s relationship through hotel records, private emails, and photographs recovered from Owen’s office.
The relationship had lasted at least six years.
That destroyed part of Celeste’s public story.
A person could be threatened by a lover.
But it made her claim that Owen was merely outside counsel much harder to maintain.
Meanwhile, investigators processed Victor’s note.
The ink and paper appeared consistent with documents from the year before his death.
It was useful.
Not definitive.
Then Elias Ward arrived.
Elias had maintained the Avery estate grounds for twenty-seven years.
He was sixty-two, broad-shouldered, and had taught Laura how to drive a lawn tractor when she was thirteen.
He removed his wool cap inside the kitchen.
“I should’ve said something.”
Laura’s stomach tightened.
“What?”
“The greenhouse.”
Elias looked ashamed.
“Miss Celeste started using that cellar after your father got sick.”
“For what?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never went down?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“She put a new lock on it.”
Laura remembered the rusted latch Sophie had broken.
“New?”
“The inner lock. Not the hatch one.”
Daniel frowned.
“There was an inner steel door.”
Elias nodded.
“I saw Mr. Kessler carrying file boxes down there three years ago.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Elias looked at Laura.
“Your sister said they were estate records.”
“Did you see Mason?”
“Recently.”
“How recently?”
“The night Daniel disappeared.”
Silence.
Elias swallowed.
“I thought he was doing security rounds.”
“What did you see?”
“Mason drove behind the greenhouse. Mr. Kessler arrived about twenty minutes later.”
“And Celeste?”
Elias hesitated.
Laura knew before he answered.
“Her car came after midnight.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
That was hours after he had been attacked.
Celeste had known from the first night.
Not the second day.
Not “several days.”
The first night.
Detective Torres immediately took Elias’s statement.
Celeste’s attorney issued a denial.
Then the ground search resumed.
The blizzard had stopped.
Sunlight reflected painfully from the snow.
Sophie watched through a kitchen window as deputies moved in lines around the greenhouse.
Laura stood behind her.
“I want my locket.”
“I know.”
“Dad put important stuff in it.”
“Yes.”
“He shouldn’t have.”
Laura looked at her daughter.
“No.”
Sophie turned.
“Are you mad at him?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still love him?”
Laura glanced toward Daniel, who sat across the room pretending not to listen.
“Yes.”
Sophie considered that.
“Can you be both?”
Laura smiled sadly.
“Unfortunately.”
A deputy shouted outside.
Everyone turned.
Laura ran out without a coat.
Near the greenhouse wall, an officer knelt beside something glittering in the snow.
Sophie raced after her.
“My necklace!”
But when the officer lifted it, Laura’s hope died.
Only the broken silver chain had been found.
The locket itself was gone.
There were footprints beneath the newer layer of snow.
Large boot prints.
Someone had returned after the storm began.
Detective Torres crouched beside them.
“Mason?”
“Maybe.”
Daniel limped closer.
“If they found the locket first—”
“They have the backup,” Laura said.
“No.”
He shook his head.
“What?”
“The card was encrypted.”
“With what password?”
Daniel looked at Sophie.
Sophie’s expression changed.
“What?”
Daniel whispered, “Something only she knows.”
A sound came from Laura’s pocket.
Her phone.
A new email.
No sender name.
One photograph attached.
The silver locket lay open on a black table.
Beneath it was a message.
TELL DANIEL WE FOUND IT.
May you like
Then a second line appeared.
NOW WE NEED SOPHIE.
