Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN JULIAN THOUGHT HAD STOLEN FROM HIS FAMILY
Nobody called the police.
Celeste hated that.
I could tell.
Julian ordered the engagement necklace placed in the security safe and told Marcus that no one—not guests, staff, not even Celeste—was leaving until the surveillance timeline was complete.
“Julian, this is insane.”
Celeste stood near the security-room door.
“You’re holding forty guests because you recognized jewelry on a maid?”
Julian looked at her.
“On Mara.”
Same woman.
Different meaning.
Celeste heard it too.
“What is she to you?”
I almost laughed.
Eleven years too late.
Julian answered without looking away from me.
“She was someone I loved.”
The room became painfully quiet.
Sophie’s eyes widened.
Marcus suddenly found the security console fascinating.
Celeste stared at Julian.
“You never told me that.”
“You never asked about Mara Ellison.”
“Why would I?”
I answered.
“Because we worked together.”
Celeste’s face tightened.
Julian turned.
“You knew her.”
Celeste laughed.
“We modeled at the same agency. Eleven years ago. Hundreds of girls passed through.”
“You told her to cover her face tonight.”
“She makes me uncomfortable.”
“Why?”
Celeste said nothing.
Julian stepped closer.
“Why?”
“Because she caused a scandal around your mother.”
There it was.
The old knife.
I crossed my arms.
“You mean the scandal you helped create?”
Celeste’s head snapped toward me.
“I did nothing.”
“Of course.”
Julian looked between us.
“What are you talking about?”
I stared at him.
Something bitter rose inside me.
“You still don’t know?”
His face changed.
“Know what?”
I laughed once.
Eleven years of assuming he had learned enough to understand.
Apparently not.
“Your mother’s North Star brooch.”
His expression closed immediately.
The diamond brooch had belonged to Eleanor Vale’s grandmother.
Three star-cut diamonds surrounded a blue sapphire.
Worth nearly eight hundred thousand dollars then.
Worth far more now.
The brooch disappeared during the Vale Foundation Fashion Benefit.
Security searched the models’ dressing rooms.
They found it inside my bag.
Celeste told investigators she had seen me near Eleanor’s private suite.
Julian believed her.
So did everyone.
“I did not steal it.”
Julian’s voice was quiet.
“The police dropped the charge.”
“Six months later.”
“You disappeared before then.”
“I was fired.”
“I tried calling.”
“My phone was disconnected because I couldn’t pay it.”
“I went to your apartment.”
“I had been evicted.”
His face changed.
We were beginning to sound less like former lovers and more like evidence being entered into court.
“I wrote to you.”
I froze.
“What?”
“Three letters.”
My anger stopped.
“I never received anything.”
Julian stared.
“I sent them through your agency.”
I slowly turned toward Celeste.
She had still been working there.
Celeste laughed.
“Do not look at me.”
Julian asked:
“Did you see letters addressed to Mara?”
“No.”
“Were you still represented by Bellmont Models?”
“Yes.”
“So was Mara.”
“She had already been terminated.”
I remembered the receptionist telling me there was “nothing for me” every time I returned begging for final checks and mail.
Julian stared at Celeste for another second.
Then looked at me.
“Why did you keep the locket?”
That question hurt.
“Because your mother gave it to me.”
“I know.”
“Then why wouldn’t I?”
“Because I thought…”
He stopped.
“You thought I pawned everything else?”
His face tightened.
Eleven years ago, the locket had been worth perhaps a few thousand dollars.
Far less than the brooch.
Still valuable enough that someone who stole jewelry for money might have sold it.
I had kept it.
Julian whispered:
“My mother said she gave it to someone she trusted.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Two weeks before the benefit.”
He stared.
“She never told me it was you.”
“She said she wanted to surprise you after the show.”
Eleanor Vale had liked me.
That fact had probably bothered Celeste as much as Julian loving me.
His mother had been elegant, sharp, impossible to impress.
For reasons I never fully understood, she had treated me kindly.
The week before the scandal she had told me:
“You make Julian less serious. I consider that public service.”
Three months after I was arrested, Eleanor suffered an aneurysm.
She died before I could ever speak to her again.
Julian looked older suddenly.
“What happened to you?”
I almost refused.
He did not deserve a biography simply because guilt had entered the room.
Then Sophie walked closer.
She touched my hand.
“Mara?”
I looked down.
“Yeah, sweetheart?”
“You can tell Dad if someone was mean to you.”
Children.
They make complicated adults sound ridiculous.
I sat.
“My agency dropped me.”
Julian remained standing.
“No other agency would touch me because people believed I stole from Eleanor Vale.”
His jaw tightened.
“My father was sick.”
I swallowed.
“He had kidney failure.”
I worked retail.
Restaurants.
Cleaning jobs.
Anything.
My father died two years later.
Hannah had been ten.
I became her guardian.
Modeling turned into something that happened to another girl in photographs I eventually stopped keeping.
“And now you’re working here.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Vale House pays twenty-eight dollars an hour, provides health insurance after ninety days, and my sister’s tuition deposit is due in twelve days.”
Celeste smiled faintly.
“There. So this is about money.”
Julian’s head turned.
“Enough.”
She blinked.
“I’m only pointing out—”
“You accused a woman of theft fifteen minutes ago.”
“Because your necklace was found in her cart.”
“My necklace?” Julian asked.
Celeste stopped.
“The engagement necklace.”
“You just called it mine.”
Silence.
Small.
Important.
Julian looked toward Marcus.
“Keep reviewing footage.”
Celeste crossed her arms.
“You’re seriously treating me like a suspect.”
“I’m treating everyone with access like a suspect.”
“You believe her because you used to sleep with her.”
My face burned.
Sophie’s eyes widened.
Julian’s expression became lethal.
“My daughter is standing here.”
Celeste looked toward Sophie, annoyed rather than sorry.
That told me something.
Maybe Julian too.
He crouched beside his daughter.
“Sophie, Mrs. Reyes is waiting upstairs.”
“I want to stay.”
“I know.”
“Mara didn’t take it.”
Julian looked at her.
“How do you know?”
Sophie hesitated.
Then she whispered:
“Because Celeste was by Mara’s cart.”
Nobody moved.
Celeste went white.
“Sophie.”
Julian stood.
“When?”
“After dessert.”
“What was she doing?”
“She told me to go back to the dining room.”
Celeste’s voice sharpened.
“I was getting aspirin.”
Sophie frowned.
“You had the sparkly necklace in your hand.”
Silence.
A child had just placed the missing item in Celeste’s possession after the moment she claimed she had last seen it.
Celeste laughed too quickly.
“Of course I did. I removed it before dessert.”
Julian looked toward Marcus.
“Check.”
Marcus replayed dining-room footage.
At 8:31, Celeste still wore the necklace.
At 8:38, she left.
At 8:42, Sophie’s camera—one Julian had installed outside the family hallway after an attempted burglary months earlier—showed Celeste crossing toward the service wing.
No necklace.
At 8:44, Celeste returned.
At 8:46, she entered the dressing room.
At 8:48, she screamed.
Marcus said quietly:
“We’re missing the service corner because Camera Twelve was blocked by the floral arrangement.”
Celeste exhaled.
Relief.
Too visible.
Then Marcus frowned.
“What?”
Julian asked.
“There’s another camera.”
Celeste’s face changed.
Marcus typed.
“Kitchen loading vestibule. Reflective angle through the service door.”
The footage appeared.
Blurry.
Indirect.
But enough.
Celeste stood beside my unattended cart.
Her hand moved inside.
Then she walked away.
No necklace visible.
Julian stared at the screen.
I felt nothing.
Not triumph.
Not yet.
Celeste whispered:
“That proves nothing.”
Julian turned.
“You were beside the cart.”
“I dropped a napkin.”
“In a cleaning cart?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You remembered exactly where you left a two-million-dollar necklace.”
Her eyes filled suddenly.
Perfectly timed.
“Julian, I’m your fiancée.”
He stared.
“That is not evidence.”
The phrase hit me.
Eleven years ago, I had begged him to understand the same thing.
A relationship was not evidence of innocence.
Neither was a reputation.
Neither was wealth.
Julian looked at Marcus.
“Search the rest of the footage.”
Then his eyes dropped to my locket.
“Every camera.”
He paused.
“Tonight and eleven years ago.”
Celeste went still.
“What?”
Julian looked at her.
“The Vale Foundation benefit was held at my mother’s townhouse.”
“Yes.”
“It had security cameras.”
“Ancient ones.”
“Insurance required archival storage after the theft.”
My heartbeat changed.
Celeste’s did too.
Julian saw it.
For the first time, I realized he was not only trying to determine who planted a necklace tonight.
May you like
He was opening a grave eleven years old.
And Celeste Ashford suddenly looked like she knew exactly what might be buried inside it.
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