by Lisa Regan
“True,” Noah said. “I’m not sure about the kid, but the dad seems to have a lot of pent-up anger. You think he was mad enough with Lorelei interfering with his son to kill her?”
“I don’t know, but his son sure is terrified of him.”
Sixteen
With the paperwork Josie had printed out under her arm, she strode into Griffin Hall in search of Celeste Harper. Noah jogged to keep up with her. Celeste was dressed in a skirt suit, her hair pulled up in a French twist. Heavy make-up covered her pallor but not the bags beneath her eyes. She smiled wanly as Josie approached, but the corners of her mouth turned down when Josie slid one of the documents across the counter toward her. Tom, who had been standing behind her, tapping away on his iPad, leaned forward to pick up the document. Celeste grasped his forearm, stopping him from touching the pages. “Not here, Tom,” she said.
His brows shot up in surprise, but he withdrew his hand, keeping his eyes glued to her face. Several emotions flashed across his own face: confusion, irritation, anxiety. Clearly, he was used to taking charge and giving orders, even though Celeste was his boss.
He continued to stare at her, not moving a muscle. Celeste kept her eyes on Josie, drew herself up straight, cleared her throat, and said, “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d prefer to discuss this matter at our private residence.”
“Lead the way,” said Josie.
They walked single file with Celeste in the lead, then Tom, and Josie and Noah bringing up the rear. Celeste was surprisingly agile on her six-inch heels, even in the grassy areas. The private residence she shared with her husband, which was the original stone Harper house, was a fifteen-minute walk from Griffin Hall. There was a wide path for resort cars to travel back and forth. Josie knew that Celeste could have had Tom or any member of the staff retrieve one for them to drive to the residence, but she chose to make them walk. The house was surrounded by forest on three sides, but from the front door, they were able to see all of the other buildings that comprised Harper’s Peak. Josie imagined Celeste’s father, Griffin Harper, standing here and surveying his little empire. Celeste likely did the same each morning as she emerged to go to work. Inside, it looked like little had changed since the house was originally built. Everything was rustic wood and antique furniture. Fresh flowers sat on a round white oak table in the center of the foyer.
Celeste held an arm out to the right, indicating a parlor. Inside, two large gray upholstered Chesterfield sofas faced one another, a large oval cherry coffee table between them. Adam sat on one of the couches, a mug of coffee in one hand and a newspaper in the other. As Josie, Noah, and Tom walked in, he stood, setting his things onto the table. His smile seemed forced. He looked beyond them to Celeste. “What’s going on? Have you found something out about the girl at the church?”
Celeste strode over to him. “They found something out, all right, but not about that girl.” Glaring at them, she said, “Go ahead, say whatever it is you’ve got to say.”
“I don’t understand what’s going on,” said Adam. He glanced at Tom, who stood just behind Celeste, always at her heels. “Does he need to be here?”
Celeste didn’t answer.
Tension filled the room like a thick, noxious gas. Adam looked from Celeste to Tom and back. Tom stood perfectly still, hands holding his iPad at his waist.
Adam said, “Celeste, what happens in this house doesn’t concern him.”
Celeste narrowed her eyes at her husband. “But what happens on the resort does. He’s the manager. He needs to know everything that might be of concern to the business.”
“It’s our business, not his,” Adam said.
Celeste sighed. “Tom has been with me almost as long as you have, don’t forget.”
Adam pressed an index finger to his own chest. “But I’m your husband. He’s an employee.”
Celeste gave him a cool glare. “This is my business. Mine. I decide what’s ultimately best for it. Tom needs to hear this.”
Adam opened his mouth, as if he were going to argue more, then clamped it shut, shook his head and gestured toward Josie and Noah. “What is it?”
Noah said, “Yesterday, Lorelei Mitchell was shot and killed in her home.”
Josie saw the tremor in Celeste’s lower lip even as she fought to control her emotions. “What did you say?”
Adam looked at Celeste. “Did you know about this?”
“Know about it? How the hell would I know about it?”
Josie said, “We looked into the property records. Her home is so remote, and we haven’t been able to find a single close relative. That’s when we found out that the house she lived in, the land she lived on, was given to her nineteen years ago by Harper’s Peak Industries.”
Celeste narrowed her eyes. “So?”
“So,” said Noah. “She paid one dollar for twenty acres of land. That’s pretty unusual.”
“Very unusual,” Josie said. “Which made us wonder why Harper’s Peak Industries would give a woman twenty acres of land for one dollar.”
“Get to the point,” Celeste snapped.
“We checked court records. They’re a matter of public record, but they’re also extremely old and some of the pleadings were sealed for privacy, but there was enough information for us to figure out the relationship between the two of you,” Josie said.
Celeste rolled her eyes. “There is no relationship.”
“Really?” Noah said as Josie handed him a legal pleading from the stack of documents she had brought with her. He made a show of studying it before holding it out to Celeste. She refused to take it. “It says here that she was your sister.”
“She was not my sister.”
Tom surged forward and tried to get a look at the document, but Adam snatched it from Noah’s hand and made a sound of exasperation. “Celeste, that’s enough.”
She shot him a glare but kept silent.
He said, “Lorelei Mitchell is—was—Celeste’s half-sister, but she’s right. They didn’t have a relationship.”
Tom said, “Adam, let me see that.”
Adam ignored him.
“Did you?” Josie asked Adam. “Have a relationship with Lorelei?”
Adam shook his head. “I never met her.” He pointed to the date on the document, which was a property deed. “This was all arranged the year before we married. My wife is correct in one sense: she and Lorelei did not have a relationship of any kind, even though they were technically half-sisters.”
“All these years she lived just down the road,” Josie said, “you never had any contact with her at all?”
Tom said, “No one on this resort had contact with her.”
Finally, Adam looked at him. “What did you say?”
When Tom didn’t answer, Adam looked at Celeste. “You told him?”
Tom took a step toward Adam, his face impassive. “Of course she did. I am the managing director of this resort. I need to know about anything that could negatively impact the business.”
“This has nothing to do with the business,” Adam growled, poking Tom’s chest hard, sending him stumbling back a step. “My wife’s personal life is none of your concern.”
Tom held his ground. “This has everything to do with the business,” he said, brushing his jacket where Adam had pushed him. “What will happen when the press finds out that Celeste Harper had a secret half-sister who was murdered? If the police found this out just by searching public records, the press will be right behind. The resort doesn’t need this type of scandal, Adam.”
“There is no scandal,” Adam spat.
“I’ll be the judge of that,” Tom said. “You stick to cooking.”
Adam lunged for Tom, a fist flying. The property deed sailed through the air, fluttering to the floor. Noah launched himself between the two men. Adam’s blow glanced off Noah’s shoulder. Tom staggered backward, nearly falling. His hand shot out and grasped the arm of one of the couches, regaining his balance. His face went white with shock. “How dare
you?” he spluttered.
“Me?” Adam said, still straining to reach Tom, chest to chest with Noah. Over Noah’s shoulder, he pointed an accusing finger at Tom’s face. “You have some nerve. Did you hear what they said? A woman is dead. All you care about is public relations. How dare you?”
Every head turned when Celeste spoke, her voice high and reedy. “Lorelei Mitchell is—was—a horrible person.”
“Celeste,” admonished Adam, brushing himself off as Noah released him.
He stepped toward her and reached out to touch her shoulder, but she slapped his hand away. “No, I won’t lie and pretend that she was some wonderful person just because she’s dead. I’ve had to lie my entire life because of her. I’m finished.”
“No one is asking you to lie, Celeste,” Tom said.
Josie expected Adam to lash out at the younger man once more, but he kept his attention on Celeste. “I love you dearly, Celeste, you know that, but how can you say such a thing about a complete stranger? I know you two had issues when you were young women, but this deed is nineteen years old. You haven’t talked to her since this was signed. How do you know what kind of person she was?”
Celeste plopped onto the couch and rested her head in her hands. Tom started to move toward her but then thought better of it, staying where he was beside the couch. Adam stooped to pick up the deed, leaving it on the coffee table, and then lowered himself next to her. He started to rub her back, but she shrugged him off and scooted away from him. Josie and Noah gave her a moment. Adam looked on helplessly. Finally, she lifted her head. Her eyes were dry. She looked at Josie and Noah and then to her husband. “I knew her well enough. She tried to take everything from me. My parents. This place. Everything.”
Josie said, “She sued you for a share of Harper’s Peak Industries.”
Celeste nodded. “She thought she deserved it.”
Adam said, “Celeste, I think you’re forgetting your father’s role in all of this.”
“All of what?” Noah prodded.
Celeste took in several deep breaths, as if she was trying to maintain her composure. Josie could see her mentally erecting walls around her most vulnerable places so that she would be able to talk about what came next in a matter-of-fact way. Emotionless. Detached. Josie recognized the trick because she had spent a lifetime doing it herself. Like Celeste was doing this very moment, Josie knew what it felt like to systematically push the trauma down so deep inside yourself that you couldn’t even reach it yourself anymore. You had to do it in order to survive, to keep functioning, but Josie also knew that, as much mental strength as it took to compartmentalize that trauma and lock it away, something as simple as a word or image, an errant memory or phrase, could spring open that lock and unleash the trauma in a split second, causing a roaring tidal wave of hurt.
Josie said, “Take your time, Celeste.”
Celeste’s eyes traveled to the ceiling. Adam shifted closer to her and she edged away until she was pinned up against one of the arms of the couch. The side where Tom stood, a silent sentry. One of his hands touched her shoulder lightly. She didn’t shrug it off. In a clipped tone, she said, “We were happy. My mother, my father, me. We lived here. My father had opened the larger resort just before I was born. As soon as I was old enough to walk, I went with him everywhere. All over this property. He showed me everything, all the inner workings of this place. When I got old enough to go to school, my mother would pick me up at the bus stop and bring me home, and I’d be off, searching for him. Every day was an adventure. My mother often worked alongside him. She was happy. So happy.”
Celeste’s voice lowered to a whisper. She blinked rapidly, and Josie knew she was trying hard not to let her feelings bubble to the surface.
Noah said, “We were able to find your mother’s obituary. She passed when you were ten years old. I’m sorry. That must have been horrible.”
Celeste nodded. Swallowing, she tried again to speak. “My mother killed herself.”
This time, when Adam placed one of his hands over hers, Celeste made no move to push him away.
Josie said, “I’m very sorry, Celeste.”
Celeste’s face hardened. “It was because of Lorelei. You see, my father had a second family in town. He’d been seeing Lorelei’s mother at least as long as he was married to my mother. He impregnated the woman. Funneled money from the resort to her. Then she died of cancer. He could have, and should have, let her offspring go into foster care, but he didn’t. He brought her home.”
As she talked, Celeste’s eyes glowed with barely concealed rage. “That’s how my mother found out about his infidelity, his betrayal, when little Lorelei Mitchell showed up on her doorstep. My father expected her to take care of Lorelei like she was her own. My mother should have left, but she didn’t. Instead, she hung herself.”
Celeste motioned toward the large front windows. “From a tree out there. Right in the front yard. I had it taken down after my father died. Even after my mother’s suicide, my father insisted on keeping Lorelei. He wanted her to be an equal part of this family. As she got older, she expected it, too.”
It seemed to Josie that none of what had happened in the Harper family was Lorelei’s fault, but she sensed that Celeste wouldn’t accept that. Perhaps it was easier to blame Lorelei as an outsider than to lay the fault where it really belonged—at her beloved father’s feet.
Noah said, “Your sister left Denton and became a psychologist. Obviously, she didn’t expect to have a future here at the resort.”
“She couldn’t even do that right, could she?” Celeste spat. “She came back here disgraced, her license revoked, her career over.”
Josie said, “She came back here with thirty-four stab wounds in her neck and back. She was attacked by a patient.”
Tom didn’t look surprised, but Adam gasped. “You never told me that, Celeste.”
Celeste turned toward her husband. “Who cares, Adam? I told you when we met that she was not a part of my life and never would be. I took care of all of this”—she flicked the pages that Adam had placed on the coffee table after he tried to attack Tom—“before we were married. I only told you what you needed to know. She was an illegitimate product of an affair my father had. She didn’t belong here. She failed in her career as a psychologist and then she came back here, begging for money.”
Noah said, “You didn’t give her any. That’s why she sued you for her share of the estate.”
Bristling, Celeste said, “Because she knew she had no right to a single dime my father made. We settled out of court.”
“Because you didn’t want bad press,” Noah asked, “or because you didn’t want your father’s reputation sullied?”
“Both,” Celeste admitted.
“What were the terms of the settlement?” Josie asked. “Was she still receiving payments from you at the time of her death?”
Celeste waved a hand in the air. “Goodness, no. She was given a cash settlement plus the land. Enough to build a house and live comfortably for many years. I never saw her again. We never spoke. I never went to her house. She never came here.”
Noah said, “You’re telling me in all the years that your sister—”
“Half-sister,” Celeste corrected.
“In all the years that your half-sister was only a few miles down the road, on property that used to be part of Harper’s Peak, you never once saw her?”
“That is correct,” Celeste said. “Neither of us had any desire to see or speak to one another.”
Josie eyed Tom. “What about you, Mr. Booth? Did you ever meet Lorelei Mitchell?”
“No,” he said. “I never had any cause to meet her.” He looked down his nose at Adam. “I only knew about her because when I first came on as managing director, Celeste and I talked about expanding the resort again, and the issue of property boundaries came up.”
Adam withdrew his hand from Celeste’s. “You were going to expand the resort? Again? Without discussing it with me?”
Celeste waved a dismissive hand and made a noise of exasperation in her throat. “We never got anywhere with it. There was no point in discussing it since we weren’t going through with it.” She looked at Josie and then Noah. “Now that you know my life story, can you tell me if there’s a point to all this besides the fact that Lorelei has been murdered? Surely, you don’t think I had anything to do with it.”
“We haven’t ruled anything out,” said Noah. “But the real reason we’re here is because one of Lorelei’s children is still alive, and unless her next of kin takes her in, she’ll go into the foster care system.”
At this point, the very last thing Josie wanted to do was hand Emily Mitchell over to this woman, but she didn’t get to decide. The laws of the Commonwealth dictated what would happen to Emily now that Lorelei was dead. Marcie Riebe would be in charge of placing her, whether it was with Celeste and Adam or someone in the foster care system.
Adam said, “Lorelei had children? Celeste, did you know that?”
Celeste shook her head. “Of course I didn’t know.”
He shot a glare at Tom but Tom only shrugged. “I never even met the woman. I didn’t know either.”
Celeste asked, “What does this have to do with us?”
“As Detective Fraley said, we’re here because you’re her next of kin,” Josie said.
“How many children did she have?” Adam asked.
Celeste shot him a dirty look. “Who cares, Adam?”
Noah said, “Two. Holly was the girl found on your property.”
“Wait, what?” Celeste said, springing up from her seat. “That girl was her—her daughter?”
“Your niece,” said Josie.
Celeste’s mouth clamped shut. Her lips pressed into a thin line. Josie could see her losing control of her emotions. “She was just a… just a kid.”
“Oh my God,” said Adam. His tears flowed freely down his face. “And she was—someone murdered her?”
“Yes,” said Josie. “I’m very sorry.”