Chapter 10 - Celeste Chooses a SideCeleste looked smaller without her phone, jewelry, and audience.
She entered the library wrapped in a borrowed coat, guarded by two officers. Rain tapped against the windows behind her. The storm had softened, but the night felt no less dangerous.
Richard stood beside Elaine’s desk.
Celeste’s eyes flicked toward the hidden safe room door.
“Is Sophie in there?”
Richard did not answer.
“She must be terrified.”
His expression hardened.
“Do not pretend concern now.”
Celeste’s mouth tightened.
“I know what Robert does to children.”
The sentence stopped him.
For once, her voice carried no performance.
Richard studied her.
“What did he do to you?”
Celeste looked away.
“I was not a child.”
“That is not an answer.”
She laughed bitterly.
“No. But it is the one I can survive saying.”
Richard said nothing.
Celeste wrapped her arms around herself.
“Robert finds the crack in you. Need. Ambition. Loneliness. Shame. Then he widens it until you believe he is the only person holding you together.”
“And you helped him do that to Sophie.”
Celeste flinched.
“Yes.”
The admission hung between them.
“I won’t insult you by saying I am sorry,” she whispered. “Sorry is what people say when consequences arrive.”
Richard watched her carefully.
“Then say something useful.”
Celeste looked toward the safe room again.
“Robert does not want Sophie tonight.”
“He demanded I bring her.”
“He demanded you refuse.”
Richard’s eyes narrowed.
Celeste continued. “Grayhaven will be empty by morning. He wants you chasing him. Angry. Public. Desperate. He wants you to look unstable.”
“Where is he really?”
“I don’t know.”
Richard turned away.
“But I know who does,” she said quickly.
He stopped.
“Nora.”
“Your assistant who vanished?”
“She is not my assistant,” Celeste said. “She belongs to him.”
“Meaning?”
“Nora was placed with me six months ago. Robert said I was getting sentimental.”
Richard’s eyes sharpened.
“Were you?”
Celeste gave a humorless smile.
“Sophie cried in her sleep. She called for Elaine. Sometimes I stood outside her door and remembered what it felt like to want someone who never came.”
Richard said nothing.
“I hated her for making me feel that.”
“So you punished her.”
“Yes.”
The honesty was ugly.
But useful.
“Where would Nora go?” Richard asked.
Celeste wiped beneath one eye.
“There is a clinic north of the city. Private. No signage. Robert uses it for people who need to disappear without officially dying.”
Richard’s pulse changed.
“Name.”
“Halcyon Ridge.”
Miles, standing near the door, typed quickly.
“Found it,” he said. “Wellness and neurological recovery center. Owned by a shell company.”
Richard looked at Celeste.
“Is Robert there?”
“I don’t know. But Nora would take injured people there.”
“Injured people like herself?”
Celeste shook her head.
“The blood in the car may not be hers.”
Richard’s face darkened.
“Whose?”
Celeste hesitated.
“Paul Renner has a daughter.”
Richard waited.
“Robert uses family when money stops working.”
Miles looked up from the tablet.
“There’s a missing person alert from Connecticut. Seventeen-year-old Ava Renner. Reported missing last week by her mother.”
Richard understood.
Renner had come to the mansion tonight because Robert had leverage.
His daughter.
Richard looked toward the safe room.
Sophie had fallen asleep against Mrs. Alvarez, Bruno still pressed to her knees. She looked impossibly small.
This was Robert’s world.
Children as pressure points.
Love as a weapon.
Not anymore.
Richard turned to Miles.
“Prepare vehicles. Quiet team only.”
Miles nodded.
Celeste stepped forward.
“I’m going with you.”
“No.”
“You need me.”
“I need information. Not company.”
“You won’t get inside Halcyon without me. Robert uses rotating codes. I know the staff entrance.”
Richard stared at her.
“And why would I trust you?”
Celeste swallowed.
“Because Robert will kill me slower than you will.”
“Fear is not loyalty.”
“No,” she said. “But it is reliable.”
Richard almost refused.
Then Dr. Sen opened the safe room door.
“Sophie is asking for you.”
Richard went in immediately.
Sophie was half-asleep, eyes heavy.
“Daddy?”
“I’m here.”
“Are you leaving?”
The question hurt.
Richard sat beside her.
“For a little while.”
Fear flashed across her face.
He took her hand.
“I need to make sure the bad people cannot come back.”
She looked toward the hidden door.
“Miss Celeste?”
“And others.”
Sophie’s eyes filled.
“What if you don’t come home?”
Richard thought of Elaine’s final line.
There is not always another flight.
He would not lie to his daughter.
So he said, “I am going to do everything in my power to come back to you.”
Her small fingers tightened around his.
“Promise?”
“Yes.”
“You promised Mommy too?”
The words struck deep.
Richard bowed his head.
“Yes,” he whispered. “And I failed her.”
Sophie touched his cheek.
“Mommy said you were good at fixing things.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Then he kissed her hand.
“Then I better start fixing.”
Before he left, Sophie reached for Bunny and pulled something from the torn seam.
A folded scrap of paper.
“I forgot,” she whispered. “Mommy put this in too.”
Richard unfolded it.
Elaine’s handwriting.
Only one line.
Robert’s weakness is not money. It is being seen.
Richard stared at it.
Then he understood.
Robert had survived by becoming a ghost.
No public records. No current photographs. No living legal identity. No accountability.
Expose him, and the system he built would begin eating itself to survive.
Richard looked at Miles.
“Change of plan.”
Miles waited.
“We are not just going to Halcyon.”
Richard folded Elaine’s note and placed it in his pocket.
“We are bringing cameras.”
Celeste stared at him.
“You want to make this public?”
May you like
Richard looked through the safe room glass at Sophie.
“No,” he said. “I want to make it impossible to bury.”
