Chapter 8 - Celeste’s Confession
I wanted to hate Celeste.
It would have made everything easier.
She had slept with my husband.
She had witnessed a forged signature.
She had accepted two million dollars after my father disappeared.
There were plenty of reasons.
But nothing in this story was easy anymore.
At 2:13 a.m., Celeste called.
Not me.
My father.
He stared at the screen.
“She doesn’t know you’re here.”
“Answer.”
He did.
Celeste sounded terrified.
“Jonathan, Eleanor is coming.”
My father looked at me.
“How do you know?”
“She told Nathan she has to correct the original mistake.”
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
“You always know.”
Silence.
Then Celeste began crying.
Not elegantly.
Not softly.
It sounded ugly and frightened.
“I was twenty-one,” she said.
“Eleanor told me you were stealing from the company.”
My father’s face hardened.
“She asked me to copy files from your office.”
“You planted the flight itinerary.”
“I didn’t know what Martin intended to do with it.”
“You took the money.”
“Because your wife told me if I spoke, I would go to prison as an accomplice.”
My father closed his eyes.
Celeste continued.
“She kept the signed confession.”
“What confession?”
“One she forced me to sign after the crash.”
I leaned toward the phone.
“What did it say?”
Celeste heard my voice.
Silence.
Then a whisper.
“Emma?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, God.”
“Tell me.”
She inhaled shakily.
“The confession says I helped sabotage the plane.”
My father stood.
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Then why sign it?”
“Because Eleanor had photographs of me entering your office, copying the schedule, taking money.”
Her voice cracked.
“I thought I was helping expose you.”
I wanted to tell her that didn’t explain Nathan.
The affair.
The smiling.
The forged transfer.
So I asked.
“Why my husband?”
Celeste didn’t answer for several seconds.
“Your mother introduced us.”
My blood went cold.
“When?”
“Before you met him.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Nathan and I had supposedly met by accident at a charity auction six years earlier.
He spilled champagne on my dress.
He apologized.
We laughed.
He asked for my number.
I had told that story at our wedding.
People called it fate.
It had been an assignment.
“Your marriage was planned?” I whispered.
Celeste began crying harder.
“Nathan was supposed to get close to you.”
My father’s hands clenched.
“And you?”
“I was supposed to keep him loyal to Eleanor.”
That sentence hurt more than the affair.
Celeste had never been Nathan’s secret weakness.
She had been his handler.
“Why warn me now?”
“Because Nathan changed.”
I almost laughed.
“You’re defending him?”
“No.”
Her voice became steady.
“I’m telling you he got greedy.”
“He forged the transfers before Eleanor authorized them.”
My father and I exchanged a look.
Celeste continued.
“Eleanor planned to freeze your voting rights.”
“Nathan planned to steal them permanently.”
“And Friday?”
Celeste whispered.
“Friday is when they turn against each other.”
A vehicle appeared through the cabin window.
Black SUV.
Headlights off.
My father’s face changed.
“Get down.”
The front door handle moved.
And from outside, a woman’s voice called calmly through the rain.
May you like
“Jonathan.”
My mother had arrived.
