Chapter 8 - Someone Inside My Apartment
The woman stopped beneath the lobby light.
Celia looked from her to Lorenzo.
“That can’t be Marianne.”
“No,” Lorenzo said.
The resemblance had fooled him for half a second.
The woman was younger.
Mid-thirties.
Same eyes as the woman in the old photographs.
She raised both hands.
“My name is Julia Hail.”
Celia’s stomach tightened.
“Travis has a sister?”
“Half sister.”
Lorenzo stepped slightly closer to Celia, then stopped himself.
Celia noticed.
Julia did too.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone.”
“Then start explaining,” Celia said.
Julia removed an envelope.
“My mother was Marianne Hail.”
Celia stared.
“Travis never mentioned you.”
“He didn’t know about me until six months ago.”
That timing mattered.
Julia explained.
Marianne had given birth to Julia years before Travis, during a relationship that ended quickly. Julia was raised by her father outside Illinois.
Marianne contacted her shortly before dying.
She told Julia about Anthony.
Ward.
The Ducas.
The evidence.
“She made me promise not to contact Travis unless Ward came after him.”
“And did he?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Five years ago.”
The year Travis began receiving Halcyon money.
Julia had approached Travis anonymously at first.
She tried to warn him.
Instead, Travis became obsessed with proving the Ducas had destroyed Anthony.
“He wouldn’t believe our mother lied to protect him,” Julia said. “Then he found her statement.”
“And learned Ward was responsible,” Celia said.
“Yes.”
“Why keep working for Ward?”
“Because Travis wanted evidence strong enough to destroy him.”
Lorenzo’s expression remained hard.
“That doesn’t excuse what he did to Celia.”
“I didn’t say it did.”
Celia appreciated the answer.
Julia looked directly at her.
“He told himself everything he did was necessary. That’s the problem with Travis. Once he decides his reason is good, he believes the method stops mattering.”
Celia felt something settle inside her.
That was Travis.
Perfectly.
Not a monster.
Not misunderstood.
A man who continually decided his intentions mattered more than other people’s boundaries.
“Did you write ‘Trust Celia’?”
“Yes.”
“How did you access the locker?”
“My mother had a second key.”
“Why me?”
“Daniel told me you were the only investigator Ward hadn’t compromised.”
“And the message just now?”
“Mine.”
Celia exhaled.
“Maybe stop sending anonymous threatening messages.”
Julia looked genuinely embarrassed.
“Fair.”
“What did you mean by who created Halcyon?”
Julia opened the envelope.
Corporate formation documents.
Halcyon had been incorporated twenty-one years earlier.
Simon Ward was nowhere on the original paperwork.
Neither was Anthony.
Neither was Lorenzo’s father.
The founder was listed through a legal trust.
Julia had uncovered the beneficiary.
Celia read the name.
Elaine Mercer.
“No.”
Lorenzo took the paper.
Celia shook her head.
“Elaine helped us.”
“She did,” Julia said.
“Ward attacked her.”
“He threatened her.”
“Then how could she—”
“Because Halcyon wasn’t originally created for fraud.”
Julia explained.
Elaine had established the company with two partners as a legitimate redevelopment investment before entering public service.
She sold her interest.
Ward later gained control through intermediaries and transformed it.
“So Elaine hid her connection because it would destroy her career,” Celia said.
“Yes.”
“Does that make her involved?”
“I don’t know.”
Celia hated those words.
She called Elaine.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
They drove to Elaine’s home with Julia following separately.
The front door stood open.
Celia stopped.
Police were called.
Inside, nothing appeared disturbed.
Elaine was gone.
On the dining table sat a folder.
CELIA.
Inside was a confession.
Not to Ward’s crimes.
To cowardice.
Elaine admitted creating Halcyon decades earlier.
She admitted discovering Ward’s takeover years later.
And she admitted remaining silent because exposing him would expose her undisclosed financial history.
Her silence gave Ward time.
Anthony suffered.
Lorenzo’s father died before clearing his name.
Travis grew up with a lie.
Daniel disappeared.
And Celia was placed in danger.
The final paragraph read:
I kept telling myself I was protecting the department. Really, I was protecting myself.
Celia lowered the letter.
There was an address beneath the signature.
Lakefront.
They found Elaine sitting alone on a public bench overlooking dark water.
She did not run.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Celia sat beside her.
“You could have stopped this years ago.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Fear.”
Celia almost laughed at the cruelty of the answer.
Fear.
The same thing that kept Marianne silent.
The same thing that kept Celia from reporting Travis’s first escalation.
Fear did not make all choices equal.
But it explained how damage multiplied.
Elaine surrendered the remaining documents voluntarily.
She resigned.
Investigators later determined she had not participated in Ward’s fraud after selling Halcyon, though her concealment and failures became part of the official inquiry.
For Celia, the investigation was finally complete.
But her personal story wasn’t.
Three weeks later, she returned to her apartment for the last time.
She had decided to move.
Not because Travis had driven her out.
Because she no longer wanted the place.
That distinction mattered.
Lorenzo helped carry boxes.
Hannah supervised and mostly criticized their lifting technique.
At sunset, Hannah left to return the rental van.
Celia remained upstairs with Lorenzo.
The apartment was almost empty.
“You know,” she said, “the first night you came here, I thought you were terrifying.”
“Only the first?”
She smiled.
“You were standing by my window looking like you were preparing for a siege.”
“I was checking the fire escape.”
“Normal people check whether there’s coffee.”
“I checked that too.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“There wasn’t any.”
Celia laughed.
Lorenzo looked at her.
The silence changed.
He stepped closer.
Then stopped.
Celia knew what he was doing.
Waiting.
Not assuming.
Her chest tightened for a completely different reason than it had months earlier.
She closed the distance herself.
Their first kiss was quiet.
No dramatic collision.
No desperate claim.
Just a question asked without words and answered the same way.
When they separated, Lorenzo rested his forehead lightly against hers.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
A knock sounded.
Both turned.
Hannah shouldn’t be back yet.
Celia checked her phone.
A message from Hannah.
STILL AT RENTAL PLACE. WHY?
Another knock.
Celia looked through the peephole.
Nobody.
Then she noticed something slide beneath the door.
A white envelope.
Her name was written on it.
Celia opened it carefully.
Inside was a single photograph.
Travis.
Standing at the intersection of Wacker and Michigan.
Taken that morning.
May you like
On the back were six words:
HE WANTS TO TELL YOU EVERYTHING.
