Chapter 6 - The Woman in My Mother's Photograph
Isabella had signed Daniel's death certificate without seeing a body.
Her husband ordered it.
Daniel needed to become legally dead so Margaret and Celeste would stop hunting him.
"Then where is he?"
"I don't know."
"You expect me to believe that?"
"I helped him disappear. I never knew where he went."
Vanessa interrupted.
"My mother did."
She claimed Celeste wasn't the mastermind anymore.
She was trying to escape the scheme she'd helped build.
Vanessa said she'd been following Celeste's orders until the boutique incident.
"Why humiliate Isabella?"
"Because Mother told me to create a scandal around Amelia."
"And hitting me?"
Vanessa looked ashamed.
"That wasn't planned."
"Comforting."
She handed Ramirez a flash drive.
It contained messages from Celeste.
Destroy Amelia's credibility.
Force the loan default.
Acquire Brooks & Bloom.
Recover Evelyn's files.
The flower shop mattered.
My mother had hidden something there.
Vanessa didn't know what.
Neither did I.
We returned to Chicago.
The search took hours.
At last, behind an old framed photograph in my office, Adrian found a handwritten ledger.
Names.
Dates.
Account numbers.
Victims.
Hundreds of them.
The original identity-theft network.
At the bottom of the final page was one name circled twice.
CELESTE CLARK.
Beside it:
DANIEL KNOWS WHERE THE ORIGINALS ARE.
A photograph fell from the ledger.
My mother and Celeste.
Young.
Smiling.
On the back:
SISTERS DON'T ALWAYS SHARE BLOOD.
I understood then.
Celeste hadn't merely betrayed a colleague.
She betrayed the woman who trusted her most.
My phone buzzed.
A live video arrived.
My father sat tied to a chair.
Older.
Terrified.
Alive.
A woman's hand entered the frame and rested on his shoulder.
Celeste's voice spoke.
"Bring me Evelyn's ledger."
The camera moved closer to Daniel.
"And come alone."
Before the video ended, Daniel looked directly into the camera.
He said four words.
May you like
"Don't give her anything."
Then someone behind him opened a door.
