Chapter 7 - The Confession of Celeste
By eleven o'clock that morning, the rain had stopped completely. The sky above Chicago was a brilliant, pale blue, cleared by the autumn wind.
While Evelyn was being carefully transferred to the private medical wing of Northwestern Memorial Hospital under the care of a team of independent physicians, Detective Thorne and I returned to Vale Manor.
The mansion was no longer a quiet palace of luxury. Federal agents, state investigators, and forensic accountants were swarming every room. Furniture was being pulled away from walls, safes were being drilled open, and box after box of financial ledgers was being carried out to waiting trucks.
In the grand drawing room, sitting on the velvet sofa beneath the chandelier, was Celeste Vale.
She was handcuffed. Her silver silk gown was wrinkled, her diamond necklace had been removed and placed in an evidence bag, and her sleek hair was falling in untidy strands around her face. Two uniformed state troopers stood directly behind her.
When Detective Thorne and I walked into the room, Celeste raised her head. Her eyes were red-rimmed, but the cold, vicious arrogance in her posture had returned.
"Where is Nathaniel?" Celeste demanded, her voice tight and clipped. "I want to speak to my husband."
"Mr. Vale is at the hospital with his real wife," Thorne said coldly, sitting down in an armchair across from her. He placed a thick, blue legal folder on the glass coffee table between them. "And as of nine o'clock this morning, his attorneys filed for an immediate annulment of your marriage on the grounds of criminal fraud, bigamy, and attempted murder."
Celeste let out a short, bitter laugh. "Annulment? He can't annul sixteen years of marriage! Every major contract Vale Global signed in the last decade carries my family's backing!"
"Not anymore," I said, stepping forward.
I pulled a fresh stack of financial documents from my briefcase and laid them flat on the coffee table beside Thorne's folder.
"Dr. Mercer gave a full confession two hours ago," I said, my voice perfectly level, completely devoid of emotion. "He admitted that eighteen years ago, you paid him two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to administer a paralytic nerve agent to my mother during her routine appointment at his clinic."
Celeste’s eyes flicked toward the documents, then back to my face. "Mercer is an old, senile fool trying to save his own skin."
"He also gave us the digital ledger from his private offshore server," I continued. "It contains recorded telephone calls between you and him from October 2006. In one of those calls, you explicitly instructed him to increase my mother's sedative dosage if she ever tried to write letters to the press."
Celeste’s hand twitched inside the steel handcuffs. The metal clinked sharply against the glass table.
"You thought you were so clever, Celeste," I said, leaning down until my face was just inches from hers. "You thought you could strip my mother of her mind, turn my father into a grieving drunk you could control, and throw me into the trash of the foster care system. You thought a poor girl from an agency would never have the resources to look behind your sealed corporate walls."
"You are nothing," Celeste whispered, her eyes burning with pure, unadulterated hatred. "A common, pathetic domestic servant. You think taking me down makes you a hero? You're just a bastard child raised in state homes."
"I am Clara Reed-Vale," I replied softly. "Sole biological heir to the Reed Family Trust, and eighty-five percent equity holder of Vale Global Logistics as of twelve o'clock today."
I stood up straight, turning my back on her.
"Detective Thorne, please remove this woman from my father's house."
The two state troopers stepped forward, grabbing Celeste by her elbows and pulling her up from the velvet sofa. She struggled frantically, her heels dragging across the expensive Persian rug.
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"You won't get away with this!" Celeste screamed as they dragged her toward the grand foyer. "Nathaniel is weak! He will destroy the company without me! You hear me? You'll have nothing!"
Her shrieks echoed through the marble hall until the massive double mahogany doors slammed shut, cutting off her voice forever.
