Chapter 5 - MY STEPBROTHER CAME BACK ALONEBryce returned four nights later.
Not Celeste.
Not Gavin Rusk.
Bryce.
He arrived at Whitmore House at 1:47 a.m., soaked from the rain, bleeding from one eyebrow, and pounding on the gate.
Security called me.
I watched him through the monitor.
He looked nothing like the arrogant man who had filmed me crawling across the driveway.
His hoodie was torn.
One shoe was missing.
His hands shook.
“Please,” he kept saying. “Let me in.”
Detective Ortiz had warned us that either Celeste or Bryce might return.
We called police.
Then I went downstairs.
Malcolm tried to stop me.
“Stay inside.”
“I am inside.”
“Stay upstairs.”
“No.”
Bryce stood on the opposite side of the locked front doors when security escorted him onto the property.
Two officers arrived almost simultaneously.
Only then did we let him enter.
He saw me.
His face crumpled.
“Nora.”
I stared at him.
The memory came instantly.
Smile, orphan.
I said nothing.
He took one step.
An officer stopped him.
Bryce raised his hands.
“I’m not going to hurt her.”
Ortiz arrived twenty minutes later.
By then Bryce was sitting in the library wrapped in a blanket.
“Where is your mother?” Ortiz asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Where is Gavin Rusk?”
“I don’t know.”
“Try again.”
Bryce looked toward me.
“Can she leave?”
“No,” I said.
Ortiz glanced at me.
I folded my arms.
“He humiliated me publicly. He stole my father’s safe. If he has something to say, he can say it where I can hear him.”
Bryce looked down.
For once, no sarcastic smile appeared.
“Mom tried to kill me.”
Silence.
Ortiz leaned forward.
“Explain.”
According to Bryce, after they fled Whitmore House, Celeste drove him to the quarry.
The burning-safe video had been her idea.
“She said we needed to scare Nora.”
I almost laughed.
“She dumped my mother’s ashes onto concrete. I was already scared.”
Bryce swallowed.
“Then Mom realized the ledger was missing.”
Peter’s ledger.
“She panicked. Said it could put us in prison.”
“Us?”
Bryce stared at his hands.
“I signed things.”
“What things?”
“Transfers.”
“You stole two million dollars.”
His eyes filled.
“I didn’t know it was that much.”
Daniel, who had been called and had just arrived, gave him a cold look.
“You signed corporate authorizations for money entering accounts in your name.”
“My mother told me Dad was hiding money from her.”
“You were twenty-four, Bryce, not four.”
His jaw tightened.
But he didn’t argue.
Ortiz asked about Rusk.
Bryce said Celeste contacted him after leaving the quarry.
They met at a cabin.
Then Rusk became furious.
“Why?”
“He said Mom had lied.”
“About what?”
Bryce looked at me.
“The job.”
My skin prickled.
“What job?”
“He thought she wanted your parents frightened.”
I stopped breathing.
“She told him they needed to be stopped from going to investigators.”
Ortiz’s voice hardened.
“Did Rusk admit shooting them?”
“No.”
“Did Celeste?”
Bryce looked sick.
“No. But they were screaming at each other. Rusk said, ‘Two people are dead because you changed the plan.’”
My fingernails dug into my palms.
Daniel asked quietly, “What happened after that?”
“Mom told him he’d already been paid.”
“And?”
“He said not enough for murder.”
There it was.
Almost.
Not a confession.
But close.
Bryce continued.
“Then Mom told me we had to leave. She said Rusk was becoming dangerous.”
“So how did she try to kill you?”
Bryce’s breathing accelerated.
“We drove north. She said we were meeting someone who could make passports.”
He rubbed his face.
“Then she gave me coffee.”
Ortiz narrowed her eyes.
“What was in it?”
“I don’t know. I woke up in the SUV.”
He paused.
“It was rolling.”
“What?”
“Down a slope.”
He had regained consciousness just before the vehicle struck trees.
He escaped through a broken window.
Blood found in Celeste’s SUV.
His.
“Where was Celeste?”
“Gone.”
Ortiz wrote something.
“How did you get here?”
“Walked. Hitchhiked. Stole a phone from a gas station.”
She didn’t look impressed.
“Your legal problems are not disappearing because your mother allegedly tried to kill you.”
“I know.”
For the first time, he sounded as though he meant it.
Then he looked at me.
“I’m sorry.”
I felt nothing.
Not forgiveness.
Not satisfaction.
Nothing.
“You filmed me.”
His eyes dropped.
“I know.”
“You laughed while I picked my mother out of mud.”
“I know.”
“You called me an orphan five days after both my parents were murdered.”
Tears filled his eyes.
“Nora—”
“Don’t.”
He stopped.
“I don’t care whether you’re sorry because you understand what you did or because your mother finally did something cruel to you.”
He nodded slowly.
“You don’t have to forgive me.”
“No.”
I stood.
“I don’t.”
Then Bryce said something that stopped me.
“I know where Mom keeps the original will.”
I turned.
“What original will?”
“The fake one.”
Daniel stepped closer.
“You’re certain?”
“I watched her practice Dad’s signature.”
The room went quiet.
Bryce began talking.
Months earlier, Celeste had asked him to bring documents to a private notary.
She claimed Dad was restructuring his estate.
Bryce eventually realized the witnesses on the document had never been in the same room as Dad.
He also admitted helping Celeste access Dad’s electronic signature files.
Daniel looked furious.
“Where is it?”
“A storage unit under my name.”
Police obtained a warrant.
By sunrise, they opened it.
Inside were boxes of records, jewelry, cash, passports, and the original forged will.
More importantly, there was a laptop.
Celeste’s laptop.
She had left it behind because she believed Bryce controlled the unit.
Forensic investigators began extracting data.
Two days later, Ortiz called me to the station.
“We found emails.”
“Between Celeste and Rusk?”
“Yes.”
My stomach tightened.
One message from Celeste read:
They cannot reach the federal meeting tomorrow. Fix it. Permanently if necessary.
Rusk replied:
That is not what we agreed.
Celeste:
Then consider this a new agreement. Double fee.
I stared at the screen.
“Is that enough to arrest her?”
“Yes.”
“Then find her.”
“We’re trying.”
They had issued warrants.
Rusk too.
But there was another email.
Sent after the murders.
From Rusk to Celeste.
You said scare them. I never agreed to this. Your man went too far.
I reread it.
“Your man?”
Ortiz nodded.
“That suggests there was someone else.”
“Who?”
“We don’t know.”
So maybe Rusk hadn’t pulled the trigger.
Celeste had ordered something.
But another person carried it out.
Then Ortiz showed me the final recovered message.
Celeste to an unknown encrypted address.
Evelyn is gone. Richard is gone. Girl next. Once she signs, we’re clear.
Girl next.
Me.
I leaned back.
For weeks, perhaps months, Celeste had seen my existence as paperwork standing between her and a fortune.
She had tried humiliation.
Eviction.
Threats.
Maybe worse.
But she made one enormous mistake.
She thought I was still the young woman who wanted her family’s approval.
That woman had been kneeling on the driveway.
She no longer existed.
And now I knew exactly what Celeste needed from me.
My signature.
May you like
Which meant if I wanted to bring her out of hiding, I finally had something she wanted badly enough to risk everything for.
Me.
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