CHAPTER 5 — THE MISTRESS’S SECRET
Celeste agreed to speak only if federal prosecutors offered her protection.
Agent Brooks arranged the interview in a conference room on another floor of the hospital. I watched from a secured video feed because Dr. Reeves refused to let me leave the maternity wing.
Celeste entered wearing gray detention clothes and no makeup.
Without the expensive dress, styled hair, and smug expression, she looked much younger than twenty-two.
She sat across from Brooks and folded her hands tightly in her lap.
“You sent the Vermont coordinates,” Brooks began.
Celeste nodded.
“How did you get them?”
“Daniel kept a second phone.”
“Where is it?”
“In my apartment. Taped beneath the bottom drawer of my dresser.”
“What was on it?”
“Messages between Daniel and his father. Pictures of documents. Addresses.”
“Why did Daniel give it to you?”
“He didn’t. I stole it.”
Brooks studied her.
“Why?”
Celeste’s mouth trembled.
“Because I knew he would eventually do to me what he did to Mara.”
Watching from my bed, I felt no sympathy.
Not yet.
“You walked into my baby shower holding his arm,” I said through the speaker.
Celeste looked toward the camera.
“I know.”
“You smiled while his mother humiliated me.”
“I know.”
“You blamed me after he punched me.”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I panicked.”
“That isn’t an excuse.”
“No.”
Her willingness to agree unsettled me more than denial would have.
Brooks placed a photograph on the table.
It showed Celeste standing outside Ashford Global headquarters six months earlier.
“When did you meet Daniel?”
“At a recruiting event.”
“For what kind of job?”
“A personal assistant position.”
“You have no administrative experience.”
“I wasn’t applying.”
She swallowed.
“My older sister, Ava, worked at Ashford Memorial Hospital.”
Nora, who stood beside my bed, stiffened.
“What department?” Brooks asked.
“Reproductive medicine.”
Celeste looked toward the camera again.
“She disappeared eleven months ago.”
The anger inside me shifted.
“Did you report it?” I asked.
“Yes. Police said she left voluntarily. Her bank account showed a withdrawal in Mexico, and her passport was scanned at the border.”
“But you didn’t believe it.”
“Ava hated flying. She didn’t even have a passport.”
Someone had created one.
Brooks opened a file.
“Why approach Daniel?”
“I found messages on Ava’s old laptop. She had been communicating with someone named D.A. about patient records.”
“Daniel Ashford?”
“I wasn’t sure. I needed to get close enough to find out.”
“So you became his mistress?”
Celeste flinched.
“I told myself I was investigating him.”
“But you enjoyed the apartment.”
Her eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
“The clothes?”
“Yes.”
“The money?”
“Yes.”
Brooks let the silence stretch.
Celeste finally whispered, “I became exactly what I was pretending to be.”
It was the first honest thing I had heard from her.
“Are you pregnant?” I asked.
Her hand moved toward her flat stomach.
“No.”
“Then why did you imply you were carrying an heir?”
“Daniel told me to.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to punish you. His mother wanted you to believe you were being replaced before they forced you to sign the separation agreement.”
“What agreement?”
Celeste looked confused.
“You didn’t see it?”
I shook my head.
“Daniel had papers in his jacket. You were supposed to sign away parental rights after the baby was born.”
Nora inhaled sharply.
I stared at the screen.
“They planned to take Elena?”
Celeste nodded.
“Victor said you were emotionally unstable. They had doctors ready to say you suffered from prenatal psychosis.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Every cold comment.
Every appointment Daniel insisted I attend alone.
Every time Lenora called me fragile.
They had been building a legal story.
“Why bring you to the baby shower?” Brooks asked.
“To make Mara lose control in front of witnesses.”
“And when she didn’t?”
Celeste began crying.
“Daniel made sure she would.”
I remembered his expression before he hit me.
Not spontaneous anger.
Decision.
“The assault was planned,” I said.
“He wasn’t supposed to punch your stomach,” Celeste whispered. “He was supposed to grab you or shove you. Victor wanted a public breakdown so they could call an ambulance and take you to Ashford Memorial.”
I looked toward the NICU.
“Where Voss would be waiting.”
Celeste nodded.
The baby shower had never been a reckless display of cruelty.
It had been an operation.
Daniel would provoke me.
Witnesses would see me become emotional.
I would be injured just enough to require hospitalization.
Then Voss would perform an emergency delivery and remove the final evidence of Project Eden.
Perhaps they intended to tell me Elena had died.
Perhaps they planned to raise her themselves.
Either possibility made my blood turn cold.
“Why did Daniel hit me so hard?” I asked.
Celeste wiped her cheeks.
“Because you told them to leave.”
“That’s all?”
“He hates being rejected.”
I almost laughed.
That simple sentence explained eight years of marriage.
Brooks slid another photograph across the table.
“Do you recognize this property?”
It showed a large stone building surrounded by snowy forest.
“Yes. Daniel called it Greenhaven.”
“What happens there?”
“I don’t know. He visited twice while we were together. When he came back, he couldn’t sleep.”
“Did he say why?”
“He said some investments were better left unseen.”
Nora moved closer to the screen.
“Did you ever see a little girl there? Brown hair, blue eyes, eight years old?”
Celeste shook her head.
“But there were children in the photos on Daniel’s phone.”
Nora’s knees nearly gave out.
I grabbed her arm.
“Alive?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Brooks leaned forward.
“Where are the photographs?”
“On the second phone.”
An agent was already searching Celeste’s apartment.
Twenty minutes later, the device arrived through secure digital transfer.
The photographs showed Greenhaven from inside.
A dormitory.
A classroom.
A medical examination room.
And children.
More than twenty of them.
Each wore white clothing with a number printed over the heart.
Nora searched every image.
Then she screamed.
Lily appeared in the background of the seventh photograph.
She was older than in the picture Nora carried, but unmistakable.
“She’s alive.”
Nora pressed both hands against the screen.
“My baby is alive.”
Agent Brooks immediately contacted the tactical team preparing to raid the property.
Then she opened Daniel’s messages.
The most recent exchange with Victor had occurred the night before the baby shower.
DANIEL: What happens after delivery?
VICTOR: Voss confirms viability. Mara signs documents or is declared incompetent.
DANIEL: And if she fights?
VICTOR: She will not leave the hospital.
Daniel had read the message.
He had not questioned it.
He had gone to bed beside me that night, placed a hand over Elena, and whispered that he could not wait to meet our daughter.
I felt something inside me finally die.
Not love.
That had been dying for years.
This was the death of doubt.
There was no misunderstood version of Daniel hidden beneath his cruelty. No frightened husband controlled by his father. No man worth saving.
He had known I might not leave the hospital alive.
And he had participated anyway.
Brooks continued reading.
Another message had been sent two hours before the party.
VICTOR: Brooks may have a source. Initiate cleanup.
DANIEL: Mara doesn’t know enough.
VICTOR: She knows everything.
DANIEL: Then why wait?
VICTOR: Because the federal warrant activates at 2:00. We have a narrow window to discredit her first.
My stomach tightened.
“How did Victor know the warrant time?”
Brooks’s expression hardened.
“Someone inside the investigation warned him.”
The raid had succeeded only because Brooks moved early enough to surround the house before evidence could disappear.
But an informant inside federal law enforcement had given Victor the exact schedule.
“Can you trace the message?” I asked.
“We’ll try.”
Celeste suddenly looked toward the camera.
“There’s another name on the phone.”
“What name?” Brooks asked.
“Judge Halpern.”
I recognized it immediately.
Judge Marcus Halpern was a family court judge. He attended Ashford charity events and had played golf with Victor for years.
Celeste continued.
“Daniel said Halpern would handle the custody case.”
Brooks searched the messages.
Several payments had been routed from an Ashford shell corporation to a consulting company owned by the judge’s brother.
The plan became horrifyingly clear.
Daniel and Victor intended to have me declared unstable.
Judge Halpern would award custody to Daniel.
Voss would control Elena’s medical records.
And the Ashfords would continue Project Eden with the child they considered their engineered heir.
Agent Brooks stood.
“I need to contact the U.S. Attorney.”
Celeste reached toward her.
“What about my sister?”
“We’ll search Greenhaven for her.”
“You think she’s alive?”
Brooks did not answer.
Celeste turned toward the camera.
“Mara, I am sorry.”
I looked at the young woman who had entered my baby shower believing she could play a dangerous game without becoming part of it.
“You helped them hurt me.”
“I know.”
“You stood there after Daniel hit me.”
“I know.”
“I may never forgive you.”
She nodded.
“But you gave us Lily’s location,” I continued. “And you may have saved the other children.”
Celeste covered her face.
It was not forgiveness.
But it was the truth.
That evening, the tactical team reached Greenhaven.
They found the gates unlocked.
The security systems had been erased.
Inside, the dormitories were empty.
Beds remained unmade. Food sat untouched on tables. Medical equipment still hummed in abandoned examination rooms.
The children were gone.
On the wall of the main laboratory, someone had painted a message in red.
EDEN MUST SURVIVE.
Security footage showed a convoy leaving the property less than one hour before the federal team arrived.
Three vans headed north.
Toward the Canadian border.
Voss was moving the children out of the country.
And according to the transportation manifest recovered from the desk, Nora’s daughter was not the only child on board.
Beside Lily’s name appeared another entry.
INFANT TRANSFER AUTHORIZATION: E-48.
The document had been created that afternoon.
May you like
Patient name:
ELENA ASHFORD.
