Chapter 10 - What Happened to Elias
Elias Vale had died after falling down the main staircase of his Boston townhouse.
Officially, it was an accident.
He was seventy-nine.
He had blood pressure problems.
No one had questioned it.
Until now.
Detective Monroe listened to the recording twice.
“Who knew he was investigating Celestine?”
Harold answered.
“I did. His accountant. Possibly Celestine.”
Adrian went pale.
“You think she killed Grandfather?”
“No one said that,” Monroe replied. “We investigate evidence, not fear.”
The police reopened the timeline.
Elias had fallen at approximately 10:40 p.m.
Celestine told investigators she had left his townhouse at nine.
But archived parking-garage records showed her car exiting at 10:58.
Adrian stared at the report.
“She lied.”
“Yes.”
The townhouse had no indoor security footage.
But a smart-home backup had preserved something else.
Motion logs.
The staircase sensor activated at 10:36.
Then again at 10:41.
The front door opened at 10:52.
Someone had remained inside for eleven minutes after Elias fell.
Maren felt cold.
“What was Celestine doing?”
Monroe did not speculate.
Instead, police searched Celestine’s office under warrant.
They found shredded accounting documents.
A second phone.
Encrypted messages with the medical courier.
And a photograph of Elias’s revised codicil taken before his death.
Celestine had known.
Not every detail.
But enough.
She knew Elias planned to recognize Elodie.
She knew Maren would gain audit rights.
She knew millions of dollars were about to be examined.
Then investigators found an audio memo Elias had recorded on his phone the night he died.
His voice was strained.
“Celestine came here demanding I destroy the codicil.”
A pause.
“She says I’m choosing a stranger’s child over my own family.”
Another pause.
“She doesn’t understand. Elodie is the family.”
The memo ended there.
It did not prove murder.
But combined with Celestine’s false statement about when she left, it gave police probable cause to dig deeper.
At the hospital, Celestine demanded an attorney.
She stopped talking.
That evening, Maren sat on the estate’s back steps while Elodie slept upstairs.
Adrian joined her.
“Did you ever hate me?”
Maren looked toward the dark ocean.
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“I deserved that.”
“For a while I wanted you to suffer exactly the way I did.”
“What changed?”
“Elodie.”
Maren pulled her sweater tighter.
“I realized if I built my life around hating you, Celestine would still be controlling us.”
Adrian stared at the lawn.
“I don’t know how to fix this.”
“You don’t.”
He looked up.
“You show up. Then you show up again. Then again. And maybe one day she decides you’re safe.”
He understood who she meant.
Elodie.
Not Maren.
The next morning, Detective Monroe arrived with news.
A forensic technician had recovered deleted data from Celestine’s second phone.
One message had been sent to a private investigator four days before Elias died.
It contained only six words.
Find another way to stop him.
May you like
The investigator had replied:
Stairs are easier than court.
