Chapter 4
Celeste entered my study with Grant under guard.
I placed one of Lily’s worn flats on the desk.
Celeste stared.
“What is this?”
“You tell me.”
She folded her arms.
“A shoe.”
“Too small.”
No reaction.
“Why did my maid buy replacements?”
Her jaw tightened.
“Because Elena has boundary problems.”
I almost smiled.
“She spent forty-five dollars helping my child walk without pain.”
“She undermined household rules.”
“What rules?”
Celeste hesitated.
Good.
“The spending cap.”
“What spending cap?”
Silence.
I leaned back.
“My spending cap.”
She looked toward Grant.
Wrong move.
“Celeste.”
She sighed.
“I was trying to control waste.”
“By restricting a three-year-old’s shoes.”
“By stopping staff from using Lily as an excuse to buy whatever they wanted.”
I stared.
“Did Elena do that?”
“No.”
“Then why punish Lily?”
Her eyes hardened.
“I didn’t punish her.”
I placed the worn flat closer.
“This did.”
Silence.
Grant looked uncomfortable.
Interesting.
I turned toward him.
“You knew about the household limits?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Security monitored large deliveries.”
“Large.”
He looked down.
“Celeste asked us to monitor all child-related deliveries.”
There it was.
Not spending control.
Surveillance.
“What were you looking for?”
Grant said nothing.
Celeste snapped:
“Don’t.”
I looked at him.
“Why were you monitoring Lily’s packages?”
His face tightened.
“Because Elena kept receiving things outside Celeste’s system.”
“Things like shoes.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Letters.”
I went still.
“What letters?”
Grant looked at Elena through the glass wall outside my study.
“From Sofia.”
The room disappeared.
My wife had been dead eighteen months.
“How?”
Celeste spoke before Grant could.
“Old scheduled deliveries.”
I slowly turned toward her.
“You intercepted letters my wife arranged before she died.”
Her confidence finally cracked.
Not because she regretted it.
Because the story had moved somewhere she did not want me looking.
“What did the letters say?”
Silence.
Grant answered.
“Most were for Lily.”
My hands became cold.
“What did you do with them?”
Celeste said nothing.
I stood.
May you like
My daughter had lost her mother at two.
And somebody had been stealing the words Sofia left behind.
