Chapter 10 - CELESTE’S CHOICECeleste was released at 2:43 a.m. on the steps of an abandoned church in Queens.
She was barefoot, bruised, and wrapped in Reed’s suit jacket.
Detective Ortiz found her sitting beneath a broken statue of Mary, shaking so violently she could not hold the bottle of water an officer gave her.
The first thing Celeste said was not Maren’s name.
It was, “He watched.”
Ortiz crouched in front of her.
“Who watched?”
Celeste looked up.
“My husband.”
Ortiz frowned. “Reed is not your husband.”
Celeste laughed, a broken little sound.
“No. I know.”
At the medical center, Maren watched the live feed from Ortiz’s body camera.
She should have felt nothing.
Celeste had helped steal nine years of her life. She had taken emergency medication from a woman with anaphylaxis. She had smiled while Maren suffocated.
But seeing Celeste barefoot on church steps, her arrogance stripped away, Maren felt something she hated.
Recognition.
Not forgiveness.
Recognition.
Reed had made both sisters into different kinds of instruments.
Maren had been the locked door.
Celeste had been the hand willing to turn the key.
Vivian watched beside her.
“I failed both of you,” she said.
Maren did not comfort her.
Some truths did not deserve immediate comfort.
On the feed, Ortiz asked Celeste, “What happened after they took you?”
Celeste swallowed.
“They brought me to an old surgical center. Reed was already there. He wasn’t tied up anymore.”
Maren’s eyes narrowed.
Vivian whispered, “Of course.”
Celeste continued, “Alistair told him to convince me to sign a statement saying Maren planned the poisoning.”
Ortiz said, “Did Reed ask you to lie?”
Celeste laughed again.
“He didn’t ask. He told me it was the only way we survived.”
“What did you say?”
“I asked if he loved me.”
Maren looked away.
She already knew the answer.
Celeste’s voice broke.
“He said love was a story poor women tell themselves when they have nothing else to bargain with.”
Vivian inhaled sharply.
Celeste stared at the ground.
“Then Alistair played the recording. Reed saying I knew too much. Reed agreeing I should disappear.”
Ortiz was quiet.
Celeste wiped her face with the sleeve of Reed’s jacket.
“I thought I was special because he chose me over her. But he didn’t choose me. He just found the crack in the family and pushed until I split.”
Maren reached toward the screen, then stopped herself.
No.
Celeste’s regret did not erase harm.
But it might still be useful.
Ortiz asked, “Why did Alistair release you?”
Celeste looked directly into the camera.
“Because he wanted me to give Maren a message.”
Maren sat straighter.
Celeste’s eyes filled again.
“He said the memorial wall is empty.”
Vivian went still.
Nora swore softly.
Celeste continued.
“He moved the evidence years ago. Reed helped.”
Maren’s jaw tightened.
“Where is it now?” Ortiz asked.
Celeste shook her head. “I don’t know. But Reed said something when he got angry. He said Maren would never look where she was most loved.”
The room fell silent.
Vivian’s hand covered her mouth.
Maren looked at her.
“What?”
Vivian whispered, “The chapel.”
Maren frowned.
“What chapel?”
“Your father built a small chapel inside the rehabilitation wing after your grandmother died. It was where he went when decisions became too heavy.” Vivian’s eyes glistened. “He took you there the day you were born, before he brought you home. He said it was the first place that loved you outside my arms.”
Maren stared.
Where she was most loved.
Whitaker Medical’s rehabilitation wing had been closed for renovation for six months.
Reed had chaired the renovation committee.
Nora opened her laptop.
“The chapel is still on the building plans, but it was walled off in the new design.”
“Not walled off,” Maren said quietly. “Hidden.”
Vivian turned to Gabriel.
“How soon can we get there?”
Gabriel checked his phone. “Security lockdown remains active, but the service entrance under the rehab wing is old infrastructure. Elias may know it.”
Elias, sitting near the door with stitches across his forehead, nodded.
“I do.”
Maren looked at the screen again.
Celeste was being helped into an ambulance now.
She suddenly grabbed Ortiz’s sleeve.
“Tell Maren something else.”
Ortiz leaned close.
Celeste spoke into the camera as if Maren were inches away.
“I know I don’t deserve anything from you. But Reed kept a red notebook. Not digital. Paper. He wrote names in it. Dates. Leverage. He said smart men keep secrets offline.”
Maren’s eyes sharpened.
“Where?”
Celeste swallowed.
“In your bedroom.”
Maren froze.
Celeste cried harder.
“Under the floorboard beneath your side of the bed.”
For a moment, Maren could not move.
Her bedroom.
The place where Reed kissed her goodnight.
The place where he helped lift her into bed after bad pain days.
The place where he whispered that she was safe.
Under her side of the bed, he had kept a notebook of crimes.
Maren ended the feed.
Nobody spoke.
Then Vivian said, “We split.”
Nora shook her head immediately. “Absolutely not.”
Vivian looked at her. “The chapel may contain Samuel’s evidence. The notebook may contain Reed’s current network. We need both.”
Maren nodded.
“I’ll go to the house.”
“No,” Vivian said.
Maren turned.
“You don’t give me orders.”
“I give you strategy. Reed’s notebook is bait.”
“And the chapel isn’t?”
Vivian had no answer.
Maren rolled closer.
“He hid it under my side of the bed because he thought I would never be strong enough to go back there after what he did.”
Her voice shook, but her eyes did not.
“So I’m going back.”
Vivian looked at Nora.
Nora looked at Maren and sighed.
“I hate this family.”
Gabriel arranged two teams.
Vivian, Elias, and half the security detail would go to Whitaker Medical’s rehab wing.
Maren, Nora, Gabriel, and Detective Ortiz would return to the mansion under police escort to retrieve Reed’s notebook.
By dawn, rain had stopped.
The city looked washed clean, which Maren found insulting.
Nothing was clean.
At 6:10 a.m., Maren entered her home for the first time since Reed had tried to kill her on the dining room floor.
The broken glass was gone.
The blood had been cleaned.
The table still stood.
Her wheelchair marks remained faintly visible in the polished wood where Reed had kicked her.
She rolled past them without slowing.
Upstairs, her bedroom door was open.
The bed was made.
Maren stopped at the threshold.
Nora touched her shoulder.
“You don’t have to prove anything by entering.”
Maren stared at the room.
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
Inside, everything looked intimate and obscene.
Reed’s cufflinks on the dresser.
His book on the nightstand.
A framed photograph from their anniversary, his hand resting lovingly on the back of her wheelchair.
Maren picked it up and threw it against the wall.
Glass shattered.
Nobody stopped her.
Gabriel moved the bed.
Ortiz found the loose floorboard.
Beneath it sat a red leather notebook.
Maren reached for it herself.
The cover was soft from use.
Inside, Reed’s handwriting filled every page.
Names.
Payments.
Weaknesses.
Passwords.
Medical secrets.
Affairs.
Blackmail.
Then Maren turned a page and stopped breathing.
At the top was written:
VIVIAN — ACTIVE LIABILITY.
Below it were dates.
Surveillance notes.
Photographs.
Locations.
Reed had known Vivian was alive for at least three years.
Maren looked up slowly.
“My mother lied again.”
Before Nora could answer, Gabriel’s phone rang.
He listened, and his face changed.
“Vivian’s team reached the chapel.”
Maren’s grip tightened around the notebook.
“And?”
Gabriel looked at her.
“The evidence is gone.”
May you like
A beat.
Then he added, “And so is your mother.”
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