Chapter 10 - CELESTE'S LAST SECRET
Celeste was waiting at the mansion when Adrian returned.
He didn't ease into the question.
“Where were you when Evan died?”
She went pale.
Adrian knew immediately.
Simon had told the truth about at least one thing.
“You said he died in a car accident.”
“He did.”
“Where were you?”
Celeste walked toward the window.
“Celeste.”
“In the car.”
Adrian stared.
“With him?”
“Yes.”
The real story emerged slowly.
Evan had discovered Simon altering reserve-account records.
He copied files onto a portable drive.
He told Celeste he intended to meet Adrian personally.
Simon learned about it.
On the night Evan died, Celeste drove with him toward Adrian's Chicago apartment.
A vehicle followed them.
Evan panicked.
He told her to pull into a service station.
Before they reached it, another car struck them.
Their vehicle left the road.
Celeste survived.
Evan did not.
“Why isn't this in the police report?”
“Because I ran.”
Adrian stared at her.
“What?”
“I was nineteen.”
“You left your brother?”
“He was already gone.”
Her voice cracked for the first time.
“And I was terrified.”
She had been taken to a private clinic by a family friend.
Her surname was different from Evan's because they had different fathers.
Nobody connected her to the crash.
Weeks later, Simon produced evidence blaming Evan for the missing funds.
Celeste believed Simon had killed her brother.
“But you couldn't prove it.”
“No.”
“So you came after me.”
“You signed the termination.”
“I did.”
“You refused his calls.”
Adrian froze.
“He called me?”
“Eleven times.”
Adrian remembered his assistant at the time filtering unknown employees during a takeover battle.
He never saw the messages.
That did not erase his responsibility.
“I didn't know.”
Celeste laughed through tears.
“That sentence is the story of your life.”
Adrian absorbed it.
She was right.
Not knowing had become his favorite form of innocence.
He had hired people to know things for him.
And then behaved as though their failures could never belong to him.
Celeste continued.
“I met you six years later.”
“Deliberately.”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever love me?”
Silence.
Then she answered.
“I didn't intend to.”
That hurt more than he expected.
“But?”
“I did.”
Adrian looked away.
“Not enough.”
“No.”
She didn't defend herself.
“I loved you and hated you at the same time.”
“That's convenient.”
“No.”
Her voice sharpened.
“It was miserable.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“You could have left.”
“So could you.”
“I didn't know our marriage was built on revenge.”
“And I didn't know the man I planned to destroy would become the man I couldn't stop loving.”
Neither spoke.
There would be no simple reconciliation.
Too much had happened.
Too many lines crossed.
But the truth changed one thing.
Celeste was no longer merely an enemy.
She was also a witness.
“What happened to Evan's drive?”
“I thought it burned.”
“You thought?”
“He had it in his jacket.”
“Police property log?”
“I checked years later.”
“And?”
“No drive.”
Adrian understood.
Someone removed it.
Simon.
Or someone working for him.
Then Celeste remembered something.
“Evan made two copies.”
Adrian looked at her.
“What?”
“He didn't trust electronic storage.”
“Where's the second?”
“He mailed it.”
“To whom?”
Celeste shook her head.
“I never knew.”
Maya, who had been drawing quietly at the far end of the library under Thomas's supervision, looked up.
“Was your brother a gardener?”
Celeste blinked.
“No.”
“Did he like plants?”
“Why?”
Maya held up her notebook.
“Because the man on the recording said ‘Marlow buried it where Vale never looks.’”
Adrian turned.
“When did he say that?”
“Near the end.”
They replayed the final two minutes.
There it was.
Almost hidden beneath footsteps.
Marlow buried it where Vale never looks.
Adrian stared through the window.
His estate stretched across twelve landscaped acres.
Gardens.
Greenhouses.
Orchards.
Stone walls.
Places he paid millions to maintain.
Places he almost never visited.
Celeste whispered, “Evan knew this property.”
“How?”
“He worked here one summer.”
Adrian looked at Thomas.
Thomas looked toward the oldest section of the garden.
“The original rose garden.”
Celeste nodded slowly.
“Evan loved roses.”
They went outside.
Maya led them toward an old climbing rose beside a stone bench.
She pointed at a carving in the bench leg.
Two letters.
E.M.
Celeste covered her mouth.
Thomas dug carefully beneath the root line.
Six inches down, the shovel struck metal.
A small rusted box emerged from the earth.
Celeste dropped to her knees.
Adrian opened it.
Inside was a waterproof envelope.
A flash drive.
And a handwritten letter.
Addressed to:
May you like
ADRIAN VALE.
Fifteen years late, Evan Marlow's evidence had finally reached him.
