Chapter 4 - CELESTE’S VERSION
I read the sentence five times.
Each time, the words became less believable.
Once Vivian drinks it, how long before she stops breathing?
Celeste had asked the question calmly.
Not fearfully.
Not accidentally.
Calmly.
Rebecca took the transcript from my hand.
“Is the recording authentic?”
“The preliminary review indicates it is,” Detective Bell said.
“When was it made?”
“Six days ago.”
I pictured Celeste sitting across from me at dinner, smiling as she accepted my bowl.
She had known.
She had known exactly what Daniel intended.
That meant she had entered my home believing I would be dead before dessert.
The pity I had felt for her vanished.
“What was in the soup?” I asked.
“Toxicology has identified a concentrated compound derived from a cardiac medication. In a sufficient dose, it can cause vomiting, confusion, dangerous heart rhythm changes, and death.”
“How is Celeste alive?”
“She received rapid treatment, and the dose may have been lower than Daniel intended.”
“Lower?”
“We believe some of the powder remained inside the packet and some settled in the pot during transfer.”
Rebecca’s gaze sharpened.
“Could exposure affect the pregnancy?”
“The doctors are monitoring the baby closely.”
I looked through the glass wall toward the hospital corridor.
“Has she been arrested?”
“Not yet. Medical care comes first. Officers are outside her room.”
“What does she say?”
“That she had no knowledge of the poison.”
I tapped the transcript.
“And this?”
“She says the recording was edited.”
“Was it?”
“We’re analyzing it.”
A nurse entered and spoke quietly to Detective Bell. He stepped outside.
Rebecca closed the door behind him.
“Before you confront Celeste, remember that she may be useful.”
“I don’t want her to be useful. I want her charged.”
“Those are not mutually exclusive.”
I hated that Rebecca was right.
If Celeste had participated in the plan, she could testify against Daniel and Margaret.
If she had been manipulated, she could reveal how.
Either way, the truth was now inside a hospital room less than fifty feet away.
“I need to hear the full recording.”
Rebecca hesitated, then nodded.
Detective Bell allowed us to listen after returning with his supervisor’s approval.
The audio began with the sound of a car engine.
Daniel’s voice came first.
“The policy is active.”
Margaret answered.
“And the trust?”
“Vivian hasn’t changed it.”
Celeste spoke from farther away.
“She still owns the voting shares?”
“For now,” Daniel said.
“For now,” Margaret repeated.
There was the rustle of paper.
Then Celeste asked, “Once Vivian drinks it, how long before she stops breathing?”
Daniel replied, “Not at the table. She’ll feel sick later.”
“What if she calls an ambulance?”
“She won’t have time.”
The recording continued.
They discussed timing.
The anniversary dinner.
The lake house.
The storm expected that evening.
Margaret suggested Daniel disable the landline and park his car where the security cameras could not see it.
Celeste asked what story they would tell police.
Daniel said Vivian had taken medication for anxiety in the past and had recently been depressed over their marriage.
I had never been prescribed anxiety medication.
But Daniel had filled a prescription in my name two months earlier.
The full plan was simple.
Poison me.
Stage an accidental overdose.
Claim I had become emotionally unstable after discovering the affair.
Daniel would become a grieving widower.
Celeste would remain hidden for several months before appearing publicly with his child.
And Margaret would help Daniel challenge my estate.
I listened without moving.
There are betrayals so large that the mind refuses to absorb them all at once. It breaks them into smaller pieces.
Daniel had slept beside me after making the plan.
He had kissed my forehead.
He had asked whether I wanted roses or lilies for our anniversary.
He had already decided what flowers would sit on my grave.
The recording ended.
Rebecca reached over and closed the laptop.
“I’m sorry.”
I stared at the blank screen.
“I invited them into my home.”
“You did not create their choices.”
“I served her the bowl.”
“You saved yourself.”
“I could have thrown it away.”
“You had seconds to react.”
“I looked at her, and I wanted Daniel to feel afraid.”
That was the truth I had not said aloud.
I had not believed Celeste would die.
I had assumed the powder might be a sedative, something intended to make me ill, perhaps something Daniel planned to use for blackmail or humiliation.
But part of me had wanted to punish him.
I wanted him to watch the wrong person eat his plan.
And now an unborn child might pay for that moment.
Rebecca squeezed my hand.
“The moral responsibility belongs to the people who prepared the poison.”
Before I could answer, the door opened.
A nurse stood there.
“Ms. Monroe is asking to speak with you.”
Rebecca rose immediately.
“Absolutely not without law enforcement present.”
Celeste’s room was guarded by two officers.
She looked smaller in the hospital bed.
Her hair was pulled away from her face. There were dark circles beneath her eyes and an intravenous line taped to her arm. A fetal monitor filled the room with a rapid, steady heartbeat.
The baby was alive.
I did not realize how badly I needed to hear that sound until my knees weakened.
Celeste followed my gaze.
“He’s stable.”
A boy.
Daniel’s son.
“Why did you ask to see me?”
Her eyes filled with tears.
“You heard the recording.”
“Yes.”
“It isn’t what you think.”
“You asked how long it would take me to stop breathing.”
“I was trying to understand what they were planning.”
“You helped them choose the night.”
“No.”
“You accepted money from my company.”
“Daniel told me the payments were legal.”
“You discussed my insurance.”
“He told me you knew about it.”
Every sentence sounded like another door closing.
Celeste looked toward the officer beside the window.
Then she lowered her voice.
“Daniel was threatening me.”
“With what?”
“He said if I didn’t cooperate, he would take my baby.”
“You’re not married.”
“He had documents. Messages. Pictures of me drinking before I knew I was pregnant. He said his attorneys would prove I was unstable.”
“Why not go to the police?”
“Because Margaret told me they owned the police in the county.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“I was scared.”
“You were scared, so you attended my anniversary dinner and watched Daniel poison me?”
“I was supposed to stop him.”
I laughed once, without humor.
“How?”
“I was going to knock over the bowl.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because you switched them.”
The fetal monitor continued its quick rhythm.
Celeste looked down at her stomach.
“When you pushed the bowl toward me, I thought Daniel had changed the plan.”
“What does that mean?”
She hesitated.
“I thought he had put something harmless in your bowl for the camera.”
“What camera?”
“The camera Margaret installed.”
I stared at her.
“There was another camera?”
“They planned to record you becoming sick. Daniel wanted proof that you had taken the soup willingly.”
“Why?”
“To support the overdose story. Margaret said they could edit the footage.”
I felt cold.
“How did Margaret access my house?”
Celeste looked at me with genuine confusion.
“She had a key.”
Only three people had keys to the lake house.
Daniel.
Me.
And the property manager, Noah Price.
Noah had worked for my family for twelve years. He maintained the grounds, handled repairs, and checked the house during winter storms.
He had been loyal to my grandfather.
Or so I had believed.
“Where was the camera?” I asked.
“In the dining room light fixture.”
Detective Bell immediately radioed the deputies still processing the house.
Celeste began crying.
“You have to believe me. I didn’t know he used the real powder until he collapsed.”
“You heard him say I wouldn’t have time to reach an ambulance.”
“Margaret made me ask those questions.”
“Why?”
“She knew Daniel recorded people. She told me to sound involved so he would trust me.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It will.”
Celeste reached toward the bedside table and picked up a plastic bag containing her belongings.
From inside, she removed a silver necklace.
A tiny pendant hung from it.
She twisted the pendant apart.
Inside was a memory card.
“I recorded them too,” she said.
The officer stepped closer.
Celeste held the card out to me.
“Daniel thinks I’m carrying his baby.”
The room became completely still.
I looked at her stomach.
Then back at her face.
“He isn’t?”
“No.”
“Whose baby is it?”
Before she could answer, shouting erupted in the corridor.
One of the officers opened the door.
A nurse screamed.
A man in medical scrubs ran past the room toward the stairwell.
The second officer chased him.
Detective Bell moved into the hallway.
Then the fire alarm began to ring.
Sprinklers activated overhead.
Water crashed from the ceiling.
Through the confusion, I saw the plastic bag on Celeste’s bed.
The silver pendant was gone.
So was the memory card.
May you like
Someone had entered the hospital to steal her evidence.
And that person knew exactly where to find it.
