Chapter 2 - THE BABY’S HEARTBEAT
The first sound that convinced me Celia was still truly with me was not her voice.
It was the fetal heartbeat.
Fast, steady, impossibly small through the hospital Doppler.
Celia closed her eyes when the nurse found it. I put both hands over my face and cried so quietly I hoped no one noticed. The nurse noticed. She simply continued counting.
The baby was alive.
Celia was alive.
That did not mean she was fine.
Her blood tests showed moderate dehydration, elevated ketones from inadequate food intake, low potassium, and early signs of kidney stress that improved after IV fluids. She had bruising around one shoulder, cuts across both feet, and abrasions where she had tried to force the shed door. The obstetrician found no evidence of placental injury or active bleeding, but she wanted Celia observed overnight because prolonged dehydration during pregnancy was not something she was willing to wave away with one reassuring ultrasound.
I sat beside the bed while Celia drank electrolyte solution in small amounts. She hated the taste.
“Six days,” I said.
She looked at me.
“I know.”
“I thought you were angry with me.”
“I was.”
That stopped me.
Celia managed a tired smile. “Before the shed.”
We had argued the morning I left.
Not about anything enormous.
My mother.
Always my mother.
Celia had been helping reconcile some of Norwood Home Companion’s client accounts because she was on a reduced workload from her own job during pregnancy. She had asked why Doreen still controlled certain financial files when I was supposedly president of operations.
I told her Doreen had handled client property for decades.
Celia said that was not an answer.
I said she was looking for a fight.
Then I got on a plane.
“Those texts,” I whispered. “I believed them.”
“She had my phone.”
My stomach turned.
“How?”
“She took it the first night.”
Celia rested one hand over her abdomen. “She knew my passcode.”
“How?”
“I used the same one as the alarm code for months.”
Another ordinary convenience turned into access.
“Did she write to me?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
“As far as I know.”
I looked away.
Every one of those messages had been my mother typing with my wife’s phone six hundred miles away from me.
Celia watched my face. “Abram.”
“I should’ve known.”
“You knew something was wrong. You came home.”
“On day six.”
“You were scheduled to come home tomorrow.”
That did not help.
“What happened the first day?”
Celia took a slow breath.
“I followed her to the shed.”
“Why?”
“She had a lockbox from Mrs. Hargrove’s house.”
I knew the name.
Evelyn Hargrove, eighty-one, one of our longest-standing clients. Norwood Home Companion provided meal support, transportation, home aides, medication reminders, and, in limited cases, temporary property safekeeping if clients were hospitalized.
“What kind of lockbox?”
“The metal client boxes. The ones the office says are kept in the secure vault.”
“Our secure vault is at headquarters.”
“Yes.”
“Why would one be in our shed?”
“That’s what I asked her.”
Celia said she saw Doreen carrying it through the backyard after lunch. When she followed, Doreen tried to block the door. Celia got inside before she could close it.
“What did you see?”
Celia looked toward the hospital doorway.
Detective Dana Pike? She's officer, not detective. Officer Dana had taken preliminary statement. Detective assigned could be Mara Keene. But no need yet.
Celia lowered her voice. “Boxes. Jewelry cases. Client folders. Bank envelopes. I didn’t have time to understand.”
“What did Mom say?”
“She told me I was looking at temporary property storage and that none of it concerned me.”
“And then?”
“I saw Mrs. Hargrove’s checkbook.”
My chest tightened.
“That could be authorized.”
“I know.”
Celia had spent enough time around our business to know that some clients gave limited financial powers to designated staff for groceries and bills. The company maintained controls precisely because elderly financial exploitation could begin under the cover of convenience.
“She asked me to leave. I told her I was calling you.”
Celia’s fingers tightened around the blanket.
“She took my phone. We struggled. I dropped it behind the cabinet. Then she shoved the furniture toward the door and went outside.”
“She locked you in.”
“Yes.”
“Immediately?”
Celia nodded.
“I thought she would cool down and open it after ten minutes.”
She looked at me.
“She came back after dark.”
Hope flashed before I could stop it.
“She opened the door?”
“No. She slid a bottle of water and crackers through the gap and told me I was going to stay until she finished fixing what I had interfered with.”
My throat closed.
“Did you ask for help?”
“I screamed until I lost my voice.”
Neighbors?
The Norwood property sat on nearly four wooded acres, and the shed was behind a thick hedge at the far edge of the yard. Heavy rain had started the second day. Our nearest neighbor on that side was renovating and away for the week.
Doreen knew.
Of course she knew.
“She came every day?”
“Most days. Sometimes twice. Water. A little food. She would stand outside and tell me you believed I had left because I was angry.”
I pressed my fists against my knees.
“What did she want you to do?”
“Promise I would keep quiet.”
“About the boxes?”
“Yes.”
“Anything else?”
Celia looked at me for a long moment.
“She kept asking whether I had copied anything.”
“Had you?”
Celia did not answer immediately.
Then:
“I photographed one page before she took my phone.”
My pulse changed.
“Which page?”
“I couldn’t read all of it. A ledger.”
“What was on it?”
“Names. Dates. Amounts.”
“How much?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you recognize names?”
“One.”
“Who?”
“Mrs. Hargrove.”
There it was again.
The nurse interrupted to check Celia’s IV and blood pressure. I stopped asking.
Later, Officer Dana Pike came in with a detective from the financial-crimes unit, Maren Shaw. They explained that the shed remained secured pending a search warrant. The lockboxes and cabinet had not been opened.
“Your mother says they contain confidential client property held lawfully by the company,” Detective Shaw said.
“Could they?”
“Yes.”
That answer mattered.
Doreen had run client safekeeping for years. Finding property in an unexpected location was suspicious, not proof of theft.
Then Shaw asked me something I did not expect.
“Mr. Norwood, who has legal authority over Norwood Home Companion’s client-property program?”
“My mother.”
“Only her?”
“Formally, she’s compliance director and treasurer. I handle operations.”
“Can you access the custodial ledger?”
“Yes.”
“Do not.”
I stared.
“Why?”
“Because we’re preserving records. We will request what we need through counsel.”
The business I ran had just become part of a criminal investigation.
My first instinct was to fix it.
Shaw saw that in my face.
“Do not start cleaning up anything tonight.”
“I wasn’t going to destroy evidence.”
“I didn’t say you were. I said do not alter systems, move money, contact affected clients about specific allegations, or remove files.”
I nodded.
Then she asked:
“Did Celia have login credentials?”
“Yes. Temporary bookkeeping access.”
“How much?”
“Read-only on most client accounts. Reconciliation privileges on some.”
Celia looked at me.
The detective noticed.
“What?”
Celia whispered, “Doreen asked me for my password two weeks ago.”
My stomach dropped.
“Why?”
“She said the software update locked her out of a reconciliation screen.”
“Did you give it?”
Celia closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Another ordinary shortcut.
Another door.
Detective Shaw wrote it down without reaction.
Then she said, “We’ll need the system logs.”
After she left, I sat beside Celia in silence.
Neither of us said what we were thinking.
If Doreen had my wife’s phone and my wife’s bookkeeping credentials for six days, then she had not simply been hiding something while Celia was trapped.
She had been able to write as Celia in two different worlds.
May you like
To me.
And to the company.
