Chapter 6 - The Woman Below
Adrian wanted to go over the edge.
Maren grabbed his jacket.
“No.”
“My sister is down there!”
“And your daughter is standing right here.”
The word daughter hit him.
Adrian turned.
Elodie was shaking against Maren.
A bruise was already forming on her upper arm where Celestine had gripped her.
Adrian looked sick.
Emergency crews arrived within minutes.
The wedding collapsed into chaos.
Guests gathered behind barriers.
Daphne stood in her bridal gown, demanding answers nobody had.
Then a firefighter shouted.
“We have visual!”
Celestine was alive.
Twenty-seven feet below the main cliff edge, her fall had been broken by a narrow shelf covered in thick coastal brush.
She had a fractured leg and shoulder, but she was conscious.
Maren felt no satisfaction.
Only relief that Elodie would never have to carry the knowledge that her mother’s shove had killed someone.
Celestine was lifted by rescue harness nearly forty minutes later.
As medics rolled her past, she saw Maren.
“You pushed me.”
Maren didn’t answer.
Celestine turned toward a police officer.
“She tried to kill me.”
Adrian stared.
Celestine pointed a trembling finger.
“She attacked me because I confronted her about crashing your wedding.”
“Elodie was over the cliff,” Maren said.
“She’s lying.”
Then the wedding videographer came running.
His name was Connor.
He was twenty-four, pale, and visibly terrified.
“Sir?”
The officer turned.
Connor held a tablet.
“My drone was filming establishing shots of the coastline.”
Celestine’s face changed.
Connor swallowed.
“It caught part of what happened.”
The police separated everyone.
The footage did not capture the entire encounter because trees blocked the first seconds.
But it captured enough.
Celestine backing toward the edge with Elodie suspended in front of her.
Maren charging.
Elodie being pulled to safety.
Celestine lunging again.
Maren pushing her away while shielding the child.
There was no audio.
But there did not need to be.
Adrian watched the clip twice.
The second time, his knees nearly gave out.
“That’s my daughter.”
Maren said nothing.
Adrian covered his mouth.
For three years he had trusted Celestine.
Now a screen showed his sister holding a little girl over a cliff.
Detective Rachel Monroe approached Maren.
“We’ll need a formal statement.”
“You’ll get one.”
“And whatever happened before today.”
Maren looked toward Harold.
He was standing beside the library doors holding Elias Vale’s sealed envelope.
“All of it?”
Detective Monroe nodded.
“All of it.”
Maren glanced at Celestine as paramedics loaded her into the ambulance.
Celestine was no longer looking angry.
She was looking terrified.
May you like
Because attempted murder was only what the police had seen today.
Harold was about to show them what she had done three years earlier.
