Chapter 4: The Olive Branch Pin
Nora stared at the photograph.
Her bedroom lamp was still on. A book lay open beside her pillow. The angle suggested the camera had been positioned near the closet.
The next image showed her leaving her apartment building.
The next showed her buying coffee.
The next showed her standing at her mother’s grave in Providence.
There were more than two hundred files.
“This has been happening for months,” Denise whispered.
Grant looked toward Peter.
“Disconnect the drive.”
“No,” Evelyn said.
Peter opened a video dated six nights earlier.
A hooded figure entered Nora’s apartment and moved directly toward her desk. The intruder wore gloves and kept their face turned from the camera.
The figure searched the drawers, removed several documents, and opened the hall closet.
As the person reached upward, the hood slipped slightly.
A jeweled olive branch pin flashed at the collar.
Everyone looked at Celeste.
Her hand rose instinctively to the identical pin on her gown.
Celeste’s voice sharpened.
“That proves nothing. Hundreds of those pins were made for the foundation’s anniversary.”
“Twenty-five,” Evelyn said. “Only twenty-five.”
Celeste lowered her hand.
Grant stepped toward the laptop.
“This is manufactured.”
Nora looked at him.
“By whom?”
“By you, perhaps. Or someone helping you.”
“To accomplish what?”
“Extortion.”
Nora laughed once, without humor.
“You put me on my knees in front of two hundred people. What exactly was I supposed to gain from that?”
Grant’s gaze moved toward the glass wall.
Outside, several guests held phones beneath the tables.
The incident was already spreading.
Evelyn walked closer to Celeste and studied the pin.
“I remember that piece,” she said.
Celeste lifted her chin.
“You should. You gave it to me.”
“I gave it to you the night Claire Hayes disappeared.”
Nora turned toward Evelyn.
“My mother died in a highway accident.”
Evelyn’s eyes remained on Celeste.
“That is what we were told.”
The room became still.
Nora pulled the tablecloth tighter around herself.
“What does that mean?”
Evelyn finally faced her.
“Claire worked for the foundation before you did. She was not an event coordinator. She was a forensic accountant.”
Nora felt the floor tilt beneath her.
“My mother worked for an insurance company.”
“For a little while. Before that, she worked here.”
Grant interrupted.
“This conversation is irresponsible.”
Evelyn continued.
“Your mother found irregularities in accounts controlled by Mercer Holdings. She requested a private meeting with me.”
“When?”
“Fourteen years ago.”
Nora had been ten.
“She died fourteen years ago.”
“Yes.”
Evelyn’s voice softened.
“She disappeared the night before our meeting.”
Nora remembered her mother leaving their apartment in a navy coat. She remembered the smell of rain and the sound of the door closing.
She remembered being told the next morning that Claire’s car had gone off an embankment.
No body had been shown to her.
Only a sealed casket.
Peter opened another video file.
The footage was grainy and dark. Two voices could be heard inside Nora’s apartment.
One belonged to Celeste.
The second belonged to Grant.
“Find the ledger,” Celeste said.
May you like
Grant’s reply came clearly through the speakers.
“Before the girl remembers where her mother hid it.”
