Chapter 8 - The Son Celeste HidCeleste’s son was named Milo.
He was not Nathan’s.
He was not some secret love child born from an affair.
He was eight years old, asthmatic, obsessed with trains, and living under another name in a boarding school funded by Beatrice Harrington.
Celeste told me everything in Ava’s office while police processed Nathan and the ledger was locked inside a safe.
She sat across from me with a bandage around her arm and no makeup on her face. Without the silk and diamonds, she looked younger. Tired. Human.
I hated that.
It is easier to punish monsters than people.
“Your mother hired me after your father disappeared,” Celeste said. “I had just lost my husband. A factory accident. No insurance. No savings. Milo was a baby. Clara paid for his care, but she never made me feel bought.”
“My mother trusted you.”
“Yes.”
“And you betrayed her.”
Celeste accepted the word like a sentence. “After Clara died, Beatrice came to me with photographs of Milo at school. She knew where he slept. She knew his doctor. She knew everything.”
“What did she want?”
“The second ledger. The Lazarus File. Proof Thomas survived.”
“Did you give it to her?”
“No. I told her Clara had destroyed it.”
“Then why did you stay?”
“Because Beatrice didn’t believe me. She put me near Nathan and told me to help him win you. If I refused, Milo would disappear into a custody case I could never afford to fight.”
Ava asked, “And Nathan?”
“Nathan thought I was his father’s old contact. He didn’t know I had worked for Clara until later.”
“So you watched him marry me.”
Celeste’s face crumpled.
“Yes.”
“You smiled at my wedding.”
“I was trying not to cry.”
That made me angry in a way her cruelty had not.
“Don’t,” I said. “Do not make yourself tragic in my story.”
She nodded quickly. “You’re right.”
But anger is not a wall when truth keeps climbing over it.
Celeste had saved my father.
Then Beatrice had turned her child into a leash.
Nathan had turned her into a mistress.
And I had turned her into the easiest person to blame because she had stood where I could see her.
Ava leaned back. “Where is Milo now?”
Celeste swallowed. “I don’t know. Beatrice moved him yesterday.”
My heart chilled.
“Yesterday?”
“After Emma went to the store. Beatrice knew the plan was changing.”
Ava stood.
“I’ll get a recovery team.”
Celeste grabbed her wrist. “You don’t understand. Beatrice has legal guardianship papers under a trust scholarship program. Everything looks proper.”
“Everything Beatrice does looks proper,” Ava said. “That’s why God invented subpoenas.”
For the first time, Celeste almost smiled.
Then her phone buzzed.
She looked at it and went white.
Ava took the phone.
The message was from an unknown number.
A photograph.
A little boy sitting beside a window, holding a wooden train.
Below it:
Tell Emma Maine is a mistake.
Celeste made a sound I never wanted to hear again.
Not a scream.
A mother breaking quietly.
I looked at the photograph.
Milo had Celeste’s eyes.
Wide.
Dark.
Trying to be brave.
The message continued.
The boy is safe as long as the girl stays away from the ghost.
The girl.
Me.
The ghost.
My father.
Ava’s voice turned cold. “Beatrice has escalated.”
“No,” I said, staring at the picture.
“She’s panicking.”
There is a difference.
Escalation means power.
Panic means fear wearing power’s clothes.
I picked up my phone and called Beatrice.
Ava said, “Emma—”
“I know.”
Beatrice answered on the second ring.
“My darling,” she said.
I could hear piano music in the background.
Of course she was calm enough for piano.
“Where is the boy?” I asked.
A pause.
“What boy?”
“Milo.”
Celeste covered her mouth.
Beatrice sighed softly. “You have been speaking with damaged people.”
“You took a child.”
“I fund a great many children’s educations. Your mother believed in charity.”
“You’re using him to threaten Celeste.”
“Celeste has always been easily frightened. That is not my fault.”
My hand tightened around the phone.
“Let him go.”
“Or what?”
There it was again.
The real Beatrice.
Not hiding.
Not yet revealed to the world, but revealed to me.
“Or I find my father,” I said.
The piano stopped.
That silence told me everything.
Beatrice did not fear Nathan in jail.
She did not fear forged documents.
She did not fear public scandal.
She feared Thomas Harrington breathing in front of a judge.
When she spoke again, her voice was velvet over steel.
“Your father is not the man you remember.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it is true.”
“Then let me see him.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because some truths do not restore families, Emma. They end them.”
I thought of my mother’s letter.
Ask her from whom she protected you.
“Did you kill my mother?”
Ava looked sharply at me.
Celeste stopped breathing.
Beatrice said nothing.
Not for one second.
Not for two.
Then she whispered, “Clara should have listened.”
The line went dead.
I lowered the phone.
Ava’s face was grim.
“She won’t stop now.”
“No,” I said.
“She won’t.”
I looked at Celeste.
“We get Milo first.”
Her eyes filled.
“Emma—”
“Not for you,” I said. “For my mother.”
Celeste nodded, crying silently.
Ava was already making calls.
But as the city darkened outside the windows, another message arrived on my phone.
This one was from my father’s number.
Do not come to Maine. Beatrice knows.
Then a second message appeared.
Come to the place where Clara said yes.
I stared at it.
My mother had said yes to my father at the old Harrington boathouse.
Not in Maine.
Not in New York.
On Larkspur Island.
The place where the family trust began.
May you like
The place Beatrice had sold last year.
Or claimed she had.
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