Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN WHO OWNED NOTHINGBy noon, everyone seemed to be looking for Celeste.
The sheriff’s office.
Private investigators hired by the trust.
Daniel’s legal team.
And, although nobody said it aloud, probably whoever had helped kill my parents.
I should have been terrified.
Instead, I wanted to go home.
Whitmore House looked different when I returned.
Not because anything had changed.
Because I had.
Twenty-four hours earlier, I had knelt on the driveway believing I was begging for the right to stay.
Now I walked up those same steps holding a court order declaring that Celeste had never had the right to remove me.
A sheriff’s deputy entered first.
Daniel followed.
Then Malcolm.
The foyer looked as though a storm had moved through it.
Drawers stood open.
Cabinets had been emptied.
Dad’s office door was damaged.
Celeste had searched everything.
“She was looking for the keys,” I said.
Daniel nodded.
“Or documents.”
I entered Dad’s office.
The safe was gone.
Dust outlined the rectangle where it had stood.
There was also an empty section on his bookshelf.
“What was there?”
Malcolm scanned it.
“Blue binders.”
“What kind?”
“Company records.”
I walked toward the desk.
Dad’s fountain pen remained in its holder.
His reading glasses sat beside a coffee cup.
I touched the frames.
Five days.
He had been alive five days ago.
I hated how impossible that felt.
Daniel gave me space.
Then my phone buzzed.
An unknown number.
A video message.
I opened it.
Bryce’s face appeared.
“Hey, Nora.”
He was sitting somewhere dark.
“You’ve been busy.”
My stomach knotted.
He grinned.
“Lawyers? Court orders? Very dramatic.”
A woman’s voice in the background told him to hurry.
Celeste.
Bryce continued.
“Mom says you’re confused about what belongs to you.”
He lifted something into frame.
Dad’s safe.
“We’re going to simplify things.”
Then he turned the camera.
A gasoline can sat beside it.
“No.”
Bryce smiled.
“Say goodbye.”
The video ended.
I called the number.
Disconnected.
Daniel immediately contacted police.
“They’re destroying evidence,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Can you trace it?”
“The police will try.”
I watched the video again.
Malcolm leaned closer.
“Stop.”
“What?”
“Go back.”
I rewound.
He pointed at the background.
Behind Bryce was a faded red wall with white lettering.
Only three letters were visible.
RRY
Malcolm stared.
“I know that place.”
Twenty minutes later, we were driving toward an abandoned quarry outside Fairmont.
Dad had once owned part of the property through a construction company.
The old quarry office had red siding.
Its sign read:
WHITMORE QUARRY & SUPPLY
Daniel called the police and explicitly told me not to enter.
For once, I listened.
We parked half a mile away.
Police arrived soon after.
Officers moved in.
Ten minutes passed.
Twenty.
Then a detective approached our vehicle.
“They’re gone.”
My heart sank.
“The safe?”
“Still there.”
We followed him after the building was cleared.
The safe hadn’t been burned.
Bryce had staged the video.
But it was open.
Empty.
Almost.
One photograph remained inside.
A family picture.
Mom, Dad, and me.
Someone had torn Mom and Dad away.
Only I remained.
On the back, written in red marker:
STOP DIGGING.
Daniel stared at it.
“This is intimidation.”
“No.”
I turned the photograph over again.
“It’s fear.”
Celeste had gone from humiliating me publicly to running.
People who believe they’ve won don’t run.
We searched the quarry office.
Police found discarded documents that had been partially burned.
Daniel identified some as photocopies.
Then Malcolm discovered a crumpled receipt.
A gas station.
Seventy miles north.
Timestamped that morning.
Police began working the lead.
Meanwhile Daniel drove me back to Whitmore House.
That afternoon, he explained the trust.
My grandfather’s planning had been almost obsessive.
Whitmore House was protected.
So was a portfolio of twelve rental properties.
A downtown commercial building.
Stock holdings.
And an investment account worth approximately twenty-eight million dollars.
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because my brain refused to understand the number.
“Twenty-eight million?”
“Approximately.”
“My father lived like we were comfortable. Not—”
“Extremely wealthy?”
“Yes.”
“The trust was designed to compound assets quietly.”
“And Mom controlled this?”
“She had veto authority over sales and major distributions.”
“Why?”
“Because your grandfather trusted her judgment.”
I looked toward the rain outside.
“And now?”
“You’re the sole beneficiary.”
The irony was nauseating.
Yesterday Celeste had thrown my clothes onto the driveway as though I owned nothing.
Today I discovered that half the things she considered hers legally belonged to me.
But the money meant very little compared with one question.
Who killed my parents?
That evening Detective Lena Ortiz arrived.
She had handled the original shooting.
“I owe you an apology,” she said.
“For what?”
“For initially treating the attack as a robbery.”
“What changed?”
“Your attorney gave us your parents’ files.”
I studied her.
“And?”
“The evidence suggests financial motive.”
“Celeste?”
“She’s a person of interest. Not a suspect yet.”
I almost argued.
Then Ortiz held up a hand.
“There’s more.”
She placed a photograph on the table.
The man Celeste had met outside the club.
“We identified him.”
“Who is he?”
“Gavin Rusk. Former private security contractor. Two arrests for extortion. Never convicted.”
“Connection to Celeste?”
“Working on it.”
“Connection to my parents?”
Ortiz’s expression darkened.
“He purchased a prepaid phone three weeks before the murders.”
My breath caught.
“That phone called your father nine times.”
Daniel leaned forward.
“Do you know what they discussed?”
“No.”
Then Ortiz produced another sheet.
“But on the night before the murders, your father called him.”
“For how long?”
“Eleven seconds.”
“Why?”
“We wondered the same thing.”
She slid an evidence transcript toward me.
Dad had left a voicemail when Rusk failed to answer.
Police recovered it from the phone provider.
The message was short.
Ortiz played it.
My father’s voice filled the room.
“Gavin, I know what Celeste hired you to do. If you come near Evelyn or Nora, everything goes to the police.”
Silence followed.
My heart hammered.
There it was.
Celeste had hired him.
For what, we still didn’t know.
But Dad had known.
“Why wasn’t this found earlier?”
“Because we didn’t know the prepaid number belonged to Rusk until today.”
Ortiz shut the recorder.
“We’re obtaining warrants.”
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
“Where is Celeste?”
“We don’t know that either.”
Then the mansion security system chimed.
Malcolm checked the monitor.
His face hardened.
“There’s someone at the gate.”
Ortiz stood.
“Who?”
Malcolm enlarged the image.
A man stood beneath an umbrella.
Middle-aged.
Thin.
Terrified.
I recognized him.
Dad’s accountant.
Peter Lang.
I pressed the intercom.
“Peter?”
His voice trembled.
“Nora, please let me in.”
The gate opened.
Minutes later, Peter entered the library carrying a waterproof document case.
“I should have come sooner.”
Daniel frowned.
“Come sooner with what?”
Peter placed the case on the table.
“Your father gave this to me two days before he died.”
My pulse accelerated.
“What is it?”
Peter looked at me.
“Evidence.”
“Of Celeste?”
“Of everyone.”
He unlocked the case.
Inside was a ledger.
A real one.
Handwritten.
Dates.
Payments.
Account numbers.
Names.
Peter pointed to a transfer for $250,000.
Recipient:
G. RUSK CONSULTING
Three days before my parents were killed.
Ortiz immediately photographed it.
Then Peter turned the page.
Another payment appeared.
This one made Daniel swear softly.
Two million dollars.
Sent from one of Dad’s companies to an offshore account.
Authorized by:
BRYCE HOLLOWAY.
“My stepbrother didn’t work for Dad.”
Peter looked grim.
“Officially, no.”
“What do you mean?”
“He had been stealing from your father for almost three years.”
My stomach turned.
“Did Dad know?”
“He discovered it recently.”
“And Celeste?”
Peter hesitated.
“She wasn’t protecting Bryce.”
“What was she doing?”
Peter looked toward the windows as though expecting someone outside.
“She was using him.”
Before I could ask more, glass exploded behind us.
Ortiz shouted.
Everyone dropped.
A bullet struck the wall above the fireplace.
Malcolm pulled me behind the sofa.
Ortiz drew her weapon.
A second shot never came.
Outside, tires screamed.
Police rushed toward the gate.
I lay frozen on the carpet.
The bullet had embedded itself in a portrait of my grandfather.
Exactly where his heart was painted.
And suddenly the message was clear.
Celeste wasn’t simply running from me.
May you like
Someone was still trying to silence everyone my parents had trusted.
Including me.
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