Chapter 8: Celeste Vandermark's Last Move
She hadn't gone far.
My attorney located her through the car registration by mid-afternoon — a hotel forty minutes outside the city, the kind of place that takes cash and doesn't ask questions.
He had the address to me by three o'clock.
I was there by four, with the folder under my arm and two men from the organization waiting in the lobby.
She opened the door on the second knock.
She was still in the clothes she'd left in — the same coat, the same shoes — but her hair was down now and the composure she had worn all night had been replaced by something colder and more deliberate.
She looked at the folder.
Then at me.
"I expected you sooner," she said.
"I had somewhere else to be first." I walked in.
She stepped back to let me, which told me she had already decided how this conversation was going to go.
"Sit down, Celeste."
She sat on the edge of the bed.
I took the chair by the window.
"The box is empty," I said.
"I know.
You have the folder." She folded her hands in her lap.
"I assume you've read it."
"I have.
My attorney has a copy.
The fraud examiner has a copy.
The handwriting analyst confirmed the signature on the power-of-attorney amendment is not mine." I set the folder on the table between us.
"I want to understand one thing.
The clause — the power of attorney over my mother.
What were you going to do with it?"
For the first time, something in her face moved that wasn't performance.
A small tightening around the eyes.
"I wasn't going to hurt her," she said.
"That's not an answer."
"I needed access to the estate accounts.
The medical decisions were — collateral.
I wasn't going to exercise them." She said it with the calm of someone who has convinced themselves this is true.
"I needed the money.
My family has been in debt since my father's second bankruptcy.
I needed enough to clear it and have something left.
That's all."
"That's all," I said.
"I know how it sounds."
"Do you." I leaned forward slightly.
"You had my brother hidden for four years.
You paid a man to tell him I wanted him d*ad.
You forged my signature on a legal document that would have given you control over a woman who cannot speak or defend herself.
And you put your hands on the woman who was keeping her alive." I waited.
"Tell me which part I'm supposed to find understandable."
She looked at the folder.
"I didn't know Garrett was going to tell Ewan that story.
I told him to keep Ewan away — I didn't specify how."
"You paid him to keep Ewan away for four years and you didn't ask how he was doing it."
"No." A pause.
"I didn't want to know."
I stood up.
"The fraud complaint has been filed.
The forged document has been submitted as evidence.
My attorney will be in contact with yours regarding the full scope of the civil action." I picked up the folder.
"The wedding is cancelled.
The estate will not be releasing any funds associated with the Vandermark family.
And if you come within a mile of my mother's house, I will stop being polite about any of this."
She looked up at me.
The composure was back — thinner now, more effortful, but back.
"You always needed everything to be clean," she said.
"Ordered.
Justified.
That's why you were so easy.
You needed to believe you were the reasonable one in every room."
"I probably was," I said.
"That's not the same as being naive."
I walked to the door.
My hand was on the frame when she spoke again.
"For what it's worth," she said, "I did think you were a good man.
At the beginning.
Before I decided it was more useful than it was interesting."
I looked back at her once.
She was sitting straight on the edge of the bed, hands folded, already somewhere else in her mind.
"Goodbye, Celeste," I said.
May you like
She didn't answer.
I closed the door.
