Chapter 9 - THE NIGHT VIVI CHOSE A SIDE
Celeste’s men moved forward.
Detective Sloan stepped from the opposite corridor with officers.
“Don’t.”
Celeste stopped.
Her eyes narrowed.
Adrian had anticipated the trap.
Celeste had not.
“You recorded the call.”
Sloan nodded.
“And obtained a warrant.”
Celeste laughed.
“For what?”
“Conspiracy.”
“Kidnapping.”
“Evidence tampering.”
“Fraud.”
“Witness intimidation.”
The list continued.
Celeste listened without expression.
Then she looked at Vivi.
“You did this.”
Vivi shook her head.
“No.”
“I did.”
Everyone turned.
Elena stood beside Adrian.
“I came back.”
“I refused to stay erased.”
Celeste stared at her.
“You should have taken the money.”
Elena’s eyes hardened.
“You should have left my child alone.”
Celeste was arrested.
But the victory lasted less than six hours.
Her attorneys attacked immediately.
The ledger was called fabricated.
Malcolm was called an unreliable criminal.
Elena was portrayed as obsessive.
And Vivi became the key witness.
Without her testimony, prosecutors had documents.
With it, they had the person who could explain how the machine worked.
But Vivi disappeared again.
This time no one knew where she had gone.
Adrian found only a note.
I NEED TO DO ONE THING BEFORE I TESTIFY.
Elena read it.
“What thing?”
Adrian shook his head.
Then Noah walked into the room.
“Grandma has another house.”
Adrian looked at him.
“What?”
“The house with no windows.”
Elena crouched.
“Where?”
Noah shrugged.
“We went there one time.”
“What did you see?”
“A lot of beds.”
Adrian and Elena exchanged a look.
“How many?”
Noah held up both hands.
“Lots.”
Police searched Celeste’s properties.
Nothing matched.
Then Noah remembered a sound.
“Trains.”
Detective Sloan mapped Bellamy properties near rail lines.
One appeared.
An abandoned rehabilitation center forty miles north.
Police entered at dawn.
The building had been emptied recently.
But the rooms remained.
Small beds.
Children’s clothes.
Old files.
Photographs.
Adrian stood in the hallway feeling sick.
Elena opened one cabinet.
Inside were intake folders.
Children whose mothers had supposedly surrendered them.
Many signatures looked suspiciously similar.
“This wasn’t just about Noah.”
“No.”
Adrian stared down the corridor.
“It never was.”
Then they heard movement.
A door slammed.
Police ran.
A woman was found hiding inside a storage room.
Vivi.
She held a stack of files against her chest.
“I needed originals.”
Sloan stared at her.
“You could have gotten yourself killed.”
Vivi looked toward Elena.
“I already destroyed one mother’s life.”
“I wasn’t leaving these behind.”
For the first time, Elena looked at Vivi without pure hatred.
Not forgiveness.
Something more complicated.
Vivi handed over the files.
Then she raised her hands.
“I’m ready.”
May you like
“For what?”
“To confess.”
