Chapter 4 - My Mother’s House
The next morning, I did exactly what my father had told me not to do.
I went to my mother’s house.
But I didn’t go inside.
Daniel parked across the street in an unmarked SUV.
Maya had strongly objected.
I told her I wasn’t planning to confront anyone.
I wanted to see who came and went.
At 8:12 a.m., Nathan’s car arrived.
At 8:19, Celeste arrived separately.
At 8:47, Martin Keene stepped through my mother’s front door carrying the same leather case from the bank photograph.
My stomach twisted.
Four people connected to the forged documents were meeting in the house where I had grown up.
“Still think this is about an affair?” Daniel asked quietly.
“No.”
Nathan’s betrayal hurt.
But what I felt now was different.
It was the sensation of realizing my entire life might have been arranged around me while I mistook the walls of the cage for protection.
At 9:06, my mother walked into the front garden.
She wore cream trousers and a blue silk blouse.
She looked elegant.
Controlled.
Normal.
She held her phone to her ear.
Mine rang.
I let it vibrate.
Across the street, she lowered the phone.
Then she turned her head.
Directly toward our vehicle.
Daniel stiffened.
“She see us?”
“I don’t know.”
My mother stared for three long seconds.
Then she smiled.
Not warmly.
Not nervously.
She simply smiled and walked back inside.
“Drive.”
Daniel didn’t argue.
We were two blocks away when a truck pulled from an alley behind us.
It followed through three turns.
Daniel accelerated.
The truck did too.
“This is not Nathan,” he said.
“How do you know?”
“Nathan is impulsive.”
He checked the mirror.
“This is organized.”
We reached a crowded intersection.
Daniel cut across two lanes just before the light changed.
The truck was trapped behind traffic.
Twenty minutes later, we were back at Maya’s office.
A package waited at reception.
No return address.
Inside was an old brass key.
Beneath it was a note.
Union Station. Locker 314. Go alone if you want the truth about Jonathan.
Maya immediately said no.
Daniel said absolutely not.
I stared at the handwriting.
I knew it too.
Celeste.
She had worked in my childhood home from the time I was nine until I was fifteen.
She used to label my mother’s files.
She had once written my name on birthday envelopes.
The slant of the E had never changed.
“Celeste sent this.”
Daniel checked the package.
“No prints.”
“Why would she help me?”
“Maybe she isn’t.”
Maya folded her arms.
“Or maybe someone wants you to believe she is.”
I looked at the key.
Then I remembered Celeste standing beside Nathan while he hit me.
She had smiled.
But just before I walked away, her expression had changed.
Not when I mentioned divorce.
Not when Nathan dropped to his knees.
Her face changed when I said the word shares.
For half a second, she had looked frightened.
May you like
I had assumed she was afraid for Nathan.
Now I wondered whether she had been afraid of someone else.
