Chapter 6: What Victoria Put in the Glass
Chapter 6: What Victoria Put in the Glass
“I didn’t know.”
Victoria’s voice shook as she stared at the photograph.
Celeste closed the clinic door behind them.
“What did you give her?”
“I didn’t know what it was.”
“What did you give our mother?”
Victoria backed against the desk.
“Marcus handed me a bottle.”
Celeste’s composure broke.
She slammed the photograph down.
“What bottle?”
“A small brown one. He said it was a nutritional supplement. Mom had stopped eating.”
“And you put it in her food?”
“In her water.”
“How many times?”
Victoria began crying.
Celeste stepped closer.
“How many times?”
“Three.”
The word barely escaped her.
Celeste stared at the sister she had once carried on her shoulders, the little girl who used to crawl into her bed during thunderstorms.
Three times.
“What happened after she drank it?”
“She became sleepy. Confused.”
“And that didn’t frighten you?”
“Marcus said the doctor expected it.”
“You watched her get worse.”
“I was sixteen!”
“You were old enough to laugh while tearing open my dress.”
Victoria flinched as if struck.
Admiral Reed remained near the door.
He did not interfere.
This was not a military confrontation.
It was a family wound splitting open.
Victoria wiped her face.
“Dad told me you had stolen Mom’s money. Marcus said you wanted her dead so you could inherit everything. I believed them.”
Celeste’s voice dropped.
“Because believing them was easier than asking me.”
“You were gone.”
“I was thrown out.”
“You never called.”
“I called every week for six months.”
Victoria looked confused.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Arthur changed the house number. Every letter I sent was returned.”
Victoria shook her head.
“Dad showed us one letter. You said you never wanted to see us again.”
Celeste went still.
“I never wrote that.”
Another lie.
Another piece of her life Arthur had rewritten.
Julian examined the photograph.
“This was taken through Keller’s office window. Someone had access to the clinic.”
“Samuel Price,” Celeste said.
“The accountant?”
“My mother trusted him.”
Julian searched the clinic database.
Samuel Price had vanished thirteen years earlier.
No death certificate.
No tax filings.
No passport activity.
As if he had stopped existing.
Then Reed’s phone rang.
Federal agents had traced Arthur’s private aircraft.
It had filed a flight plan for the Cayman Islands but never departed.
The plane remained in a hangar outside Baltimore.
Inside, agents found Arthur’s luggage.
They also found blood.
Marcus’s blood.
But no Marcus.
Victoria sat down heavily.
“Dad hurt him.”
“Or Marcus wants us to think that,” Celeste said.
A printer suddenly activated in the clinic reception area.
Everyone turned.
A single sheet of paper slid into the tray.
Julian drew his weapon.
Celeste approached carefully.
The message contained only an address and a time.
Pier 19. Midnight. Come alone if you want the truth about Eleanor.
Below that was a second line.
Bring Victoria. She remembers more than she admits.
Victoria stared at the paper.
“I’ve told you everything.”
Celeste looked at her.
“No, you haven’t.”
Victoria’s lower lip trembled.
“There was one more thing.”
“What?”
“The night Mom died, she woke up.”
Celeste felt the room tilt.
“What did she say?”
Victoria looked directly at her.
“She said your name.”
“And?”
“She told me to find the red ledger.”
“What red ledger?”
“I don’t know.”
“Where did she say it was?”
Victoria hesitated.
“In the lighthouse.”
Celeste remembered the phrase from Eleanor’s letter.
The lighthouse still burns.
It had not been a password.
It had been a location.
The Vale family owned an abandoned lighthouse on a private stretch of coast.
Arthur had closed it after Eleanor’s death.
Celeste folded the printed message.
“We’re not going to Pier 19.”
Victoria looked relieved.
Celeste continued.
“We’re going to the lighthouse.”
Outside the clinic, a black sedan pulled away from the curb.
In the back seat, Arthur Vale lowered a pair of binoculars.
Beside him sat Dr. Keller.
Arthur looked toward the clinic windows.
“Celeste found the trail.”
Keller swallowed.
“What do we do?”
May you like
Arthur’s expression was empty.
“We erase her again.”
