Chapter 9 - THE HOUSEKEEPER
Her name was Rosa Bell.
Sixty-two.
Worked at Blackthorn for eighteen years.
She had testified about Celeste.
Now she was gone.
Her car sat at home.
Phone on the kitchen table.
Door unlocked.
Police treated it seriously.
Adrian treated it like a personal failure.
“She trusted us.”
I did not comfort him.
He did not ask me to.
Then Rosa’s granddaughter received a video.
Rosa sat in a chair.
Unhurt.
Terrified.
A distorted voice said.
WITHDRAW THE STATEMENT.
The video ended.
Celeste’s lawyer claimed she had nothing to do with it.
Then Victor did something unexpected.
He came to Dad’s hospital room.
Alone.
He looked twenty years older.
“I know where she may be.”
Dad said nothing.
Victor handed police an address.
A hunting lodge in Vermont.
Owned through a Harrow family trust.
Police raided it.
Empty.
Warm coffee.
Fresh tire tracks.
Rosa’s scarf.
Celeste was one step ahead.
Then investigators found a second room.
Boxes.
Employee files.
Settlement records.
Original complaints Victor claimed had been destroyed.
He had stored them there.
Dad stared at him.
“Why?”
Victor whispered.
“Insurance.”
Against his own daughter.
Against his own board.
Against everyone.
He had kept evidence of the people he silenced.
The lodge became a crime scene.
Then Rosa called 911 from a gas station forty miles away.
She had escaped.
Celeste had not kidnapped her.
Ross Dane’s brother had.
Celeste paid him.
But Rosa had heard something in the car.
Celeste was not running from police.
She was heading back to Blackthorn.
For the wedding.
Adrian stared.
“What wedding?”
Rosa looked at him.
“Yours.”
We all thought she was confused.
She wasn’t.
Celeste had sent invitations.
Two hundred of them.
For Saturday.
Same estate.
Same guests.
Same dress code.
She intended to stage the wedding anyway.
May you like
And according to the side agreement, if Adrian failed to appear, she planned to claim abandonment and seize the estate.
