Chapter 8 - THE PRICE OF PROTECTING BLAKE
Blake walked outside.
Celeste started after him.
I stopped her.
“Give him a minute.”
“He’s my son.”
“That is exactly why he needs a minute.”
She looked at me.
There was no anger this time.
Only defeat.
Blake stood at the far edge of the driveway, staring toward the street.
The same driveway where he had filmed me the previous afternoon.
When I approached, he didn’t turn around.
“I thought I was funny.”
I said nothing.
“The orphan thing.”
His voice broke slightly.
“I thought if I made everything a joke, I didn’t have to look at what was happening.”
“That wasn’t a joke.”
“I know.”
Rainwater still darkened cracks in the pavement.
“I was cruel to you.”
“Yes.”
He finally looked at me.
“I can’t fix yesterday.”
“No.”
“But I can stop making today worse.”
That mattered more than an apology alone.
We contacted the detective assigned to my parents’ murders.
Not with theories.
With objects.
The coat.
The charm.
The folder.
The security footage.
My mother’s independent ledger.
My father’s watch.
We were told not to discuss what we had found with Grant.
That was easy.
Nobody knew where he was.
Yet.
When we returned to the house, Celeste sat at the kitchen table with the diamond earrings my father had given her lying in front of her.
“What are those for?” I asked.
“I thought you would want them.”
“He gave them to you.”
“They were bought with family money.”
“Did he give them to you?”
“Yes.”
“Then they’re yours.”
Her eyes lifted.
“You don’t have to be kind to me.”
“I’m not.”
I pulled out the chair opposite her.
“I’m trying not to become you.”
That hurt.
I could tell.
I meant it to.
Celeste nodded.
“Fair.”
For the next hour she told us everything she had withheld.
Not excuses.
Facts.
She had made the first transfer to cover Blake’s treatment.
She had discovered Grant’s theft months later.
She agreed to cooperate with my parents.
She told Grant about the garage meeting after he threatened to implicate Blake.
When Grant returned after ten, she saw blood.
She went to storage because he ordered her to retrieve whatever evidence remained.
She removed one copy of the blue folder.
Then she hid it in my father’s study rather than destroy it.
Grant later found it.
She had kept his raincoat because some part of her knew she might eventually need proof of what he had done.
“And after all that,” I said, “you threw me out.”
Celeste stared at the table.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
This answer mattered to me more than I expected.
She could have blamed Grant.
Fear.
Panic.
Blake.
Instead she said, “Because I was angry.”
I waited.
“Your father was dead. Your mother was dead. I knew my brother might be responsible. I knew I had helped start the chain of events that led there. And then you walked into the house and you still had something I didn’t.”
“What?”
“A clean conscience.”
Her voice shook.
“So I punished you.”
Blake stared at her.
Celeste continued.
“I told myself I was protecting the house from Grant. That if I made it look like I was still on his side, he wouldn’t suspect I had kept the coat.”
She shook her head.
“That was partly true.”
“What was the other part?”
“I wanted you to hurt.”
Silence.
It was the ugliest thing she had said.
And the most honest.
“I looked at you and saw Richard. I saw your mother. I saw two people who had tried to do the right thing while I kept making cowardly choices.”
Her eyes filled.
“So I hurt you.”
I thought about my hands scraping wet ash from concrete.
“Thank you for not asking me to understand.”
“I don’t deserve understanding.”
“No.”
I stood.
“But you can still decide what you do next.”
Celeste looked toward Blake.
“I already have.”
She handed Marianne a small notebook.
Her personal record of every conversation she remembered having with Grant.
Dates.
Transfers.
Threats.
Places.
Not perfect evidence.
But corroboration.
Blake went upstairs.
When he came back, he carried his phone.
“I’m giving them the original videos.”
Celeste nodded.
Then Blake looked at me.
“And the one from yesterday.”
My stomach tightened.
“The driveway?”
“Yes.”
“You can delete that one.”
He shook his head.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it shows what we did.”
I understood.
Deleting it would make him feel cleaner.
Keeping it as evidence meant accepting that it happened.
“After everything is over,” he said, “you decide what happens to it.”
The detective arrived with another investigator.
We gave them everything.
They photographed the coat where it lay.
Bagged the charm.
Copied the files.
Took the blue folder.
When they lifted my father’s watch, I almost stopped them.
Instead I let it go.
Evidence first.
Memory later.
Before leaving, one investigator asked Celeste a final question.
“Where is your brother likely to go?”
Celeste answered without hesitation.
“He won’t run far.”
“Why?”
“He thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.”
She looked toward the house.
“And he still believes that property belongs to him.”
Blake made a face.
“Why would he come back here?”
Celeste’s expression changed.
“He left something.”
“What?”
She stood quickly.
“My father’s desk.”
Her father.
Grant’s father.
My grandfather had left an old walnut desk in the upstairs guest room years earlier.
Celeste rushed toward the stairs.
We followed.
The desk looked untouched.
Then she opened the bottom drawer.
Empty.
“No.”
“What was there?”
“A photograph.”
“Of what?”
“Our father.”
“And?”
“Nothing. It was an ordinary photograph.”
Her voice trembled.
“But Grant thought the frame contained the original Red Oak ownership certificates.”
Footsteps sounded below.
Not a knock.
Not a call.
The front door opening.
Blake whispered, “Someone’s inside.”
The detectives moved first.
A man appeared at the bottom of the stairs.
Grant.
His eyes went from Celeste to me.
Then to the investigators behind us.
Everything in his face changed.
He looked at his sister.
“You kept the coat.”
Celeste answered calmly.
“Yes.”
Grant’s jaw tightened.
May you like
Then his eyes found the broken bracelet in my hand.
And for the first time, he looked afraid.
