Chapter 6 - CELESTE REMEMBERED WHO WAS IN THE TRUCK
“Dad was in the passenger seat.”
Adrian stared at his sister.
“No.”
Celeste pressed both hands against her temples.
“I can see him.”
Evelyn moved slowly toward her.
“Sit down.”
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“Celeste—”
“I said I can see him.”
Her breathing became shallow.
Nora recognized panic immediately.
She had treated enough terrified mothers to know commands would make it worse.
“Celeste.”
Celeste looked at her.
“Tell me five things you see.”
“What?”
“Five things.”
“Nora—”
“Do it.”
Celeste swallowed.
“The table.”
“Good.”
“The yellow curtains.”
“Keep going.”
“Adrian’s coat. Mom’s bracelet. Your…”
Her eyes dropped.
“Your wedding ring.”
“Four. One more.”
Celeste looked toward the kitchen shelf.
“A blue bowl.”
Her breathing slowed.
Adrian watched Nora steady the same woman who had humiliated her twelve hours earlier.
Something complicated passed across his face.
Celeste sat.
“I was in Thomas’s truck.”
Evelyn nodded.
“According to Elena.”
“Why?”
Celeste searched her memory.
“I followed Dad.”
Adrian pulled out a chair across from her.
“From where?”
“The house.”
“You were six.”
“I used to hide in the back floor of his car.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
“I remember.”
Nora looked between them.
Celeste gave a tiny, miserable smile.
“Dad took me everywhere. If he left at night, I thought he was going somewhere important.”
“You climbed into his car?”
“Yes.”
“But Evelyn said Thomas put you in his truck.”
Celeste nodded slowly.
“Dad found me at the harbor.”
More fragments emerged.
Dominic shouting.
Victor angry.
Thomas telling them none of them were using children as shields.
Thomas lifting Celeste into his truck.
“You’re taking her home,” Dominic had said.
“No,” Thomas replied. “She stays with me until you two decide whether you’re brothers or criminals.”
Celeste began crying.
Adrian reached across the table.
She grabbed his hand.
“I think Dad followed us.”
Nora felt cold.
“In Victor’s truck?”
“Yes.”
“Then what?”
“I remember red taillights.”
“The ones in front of you?”
Celeste nodded.
“I remember Thomas saying something bad.”
Adrian almost smiled despite everything.
“What?”
Celeste looked embarrassed.
“I was six. I just remember it was a word Mom didn’t let us say.”
Evelyn actually laughed once.
The sound broke some of the pressure.
Then Celeste continued.
“Thomas stopped.”
“Why?” Nora asked.
“There was a car across the road.”
“What car?”
“I don’t know.”
“And after that?”
Nothing.
The memory stopped.
Adrian released his sister’s hand and stood.
“We need Victor.”
Nora shook her head.
“No.”
He turned.
“He knows.”
“He knows parts. But right now he expects us to accuse him.”
Celeste wiped her face.
“What do you suggest?”
Nora looked at her mother.
“Mom, the police detective who took your statement. Do you remember his name?”
Evelyn’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Raymond Sutter.”
Adrian knew the name immediately.
Nora saw it.
“Who was he?”
“Former Bellport police captain,” Adrian said. “He retired about twelve years ago.”
Celeste frowned.
“He worked security for us afterward.”
Nora’s stomach turned.
“Of course he did.”
Adrian pulled out his phone.
“No mysterious confrontation,” Nora said sharply.
He looked at her.
“I’m calling my office.”
“For what?”
“Personnel archives.”
“That’s exactly the kind of thing people have been doing without me.”
Adrian stopped.
A long silence followed.
Then he placed the phone on the table.
“You’re right.”
It was simple.
No defense.
No explanation.
For Nora, that mattered more than an apology delivered too quickly.
“Thank you.”
They searched together instead.
Vale Security kept old employment photographs online for anniversary publications.
Raymond Sutter appeared in a group photograph from 2004.
Nora zoomed in.
A heavyset man with gray beginning at his temples.
Nothing remarkable.
Then Evelyn leaned closer.
“Oh, God.”
“What?”
She pointed.
On Sutter’s wrist was a silver chain.
Hanging from it was half of a St. Christopher medal.
Adrian pulled his piece from his pocket.
Everyone stared.
Nora whispered, “That wasn’t my father’s.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“Thomas never wore religious medals.”
Adrian turned the broken piece over.
T.B.
They had assumed Thomas Bennett.
But initials could mean other things.
Celeste suddenly said, “Theodore Brennan.”
Adrian stared at her.
“Who?”
“Granddad’s accountant.”
Victor had mentioned him over the years.
Theodore Brennan.
A quiet numbers man who vanished from Vale employment shortly before Thomas died.
Adrian searched the old company archive.
A photograph appeared.
Brennan stood beside Raymond Sutter.
He wore the other half of the medal.
Nora felt the story rearrange itself.
Thomas had not been wearing it.
He had taken it from someone.
During a fight.
“The initials are Theodore Brennan,” Adrian said.
Evelyn whispered, “Then Thomas fought Brennan that night.”
Celeste suddenly stood.
“The road.”
Everyone looked at her.
“I remember why Thomas stopped.”
Her eyes widened.
“There was a man lying on the road.”
“Brennan?” Adrian asked.
“I don’t know.”
“He got out of the truck?”
“Yes.”
“And you stayed inside?”
“No.”
Celeste’s face crumpled.
“I opened the door because I was scared.”
Nora waited.
“I heard Thomas talking to someone.”
“What did he say?”
Celeste squeezed her eyes shut.
Then repeated the words a frightened six-year-old had carried for twenty-five years.
“You already killed one man for Victor. You’re not killing me too.”
Nobody moved.
Adrian’s voice was barely audible.
“Who was he talking to?”
Celeste opened her eyes.
“Detective Sutter.”
The corrupt detective had not merely buried Evelyn’s statement.
He had been on the road that night.
Adrian immediately understood the implications.
“If Sutter was protecting Victor—”
“No,” Celeste interrupted.
She looked sick.
“Thomas said ‘for Victor.’ But the person who answered said something else.”
“What?”
Celeste stared at Nora.
“He said, ‘Victor doesn’t even know what we did.’”
That reversal landed like a physical blow.
Victor might have smuggled cargo.
He might have lied for decades.
But somebody else had used his crimes as cover.
Nora’s father had discovered it.
Adrian picked up the photograph from the table.
Dominic.
Thomas.
Victor.
And a fourth man Nora had barely noticed until now.
She pointed.
“Who is that?”
Adrian frowned.
Celeste stopped breathing.
The fourth man stood slightly behind the others.
Young.
Smiling.
A hand resting on Dominic’s shoulder.
Adrian whispered the name.
“Raymond Sutter.”
Evelyn shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“That’s not Raymond Sutter.”
Adrian looked at her.
Evelyn’s face had gone pale.
“That man’s name was Michael Sutter.”
“Related?”
“Raymond’s younger brother.”
Nora stared at the photograph.
“What happened to Michael?”
Evelyn’s voice became almost inaudible.
“He died three weeks before Thomas.”
The room went silent.
Then Celeste looked down at the child’s drawing again.
On the edge of the page, almost hidden beneath the plastic sleeve, was another stick figure nobody had noticed.
A man beneath a red traffic light.
May you like
And above him, written in six-year-old Celeste’s crooked letters, were four words.
MR. MICHAEL FELL DOWN.
