Chapter 18 - The Name on the Order
Gideon sat with the letter for an hour. The signature was authentic. He remembered signing it after the funeral while medication blurred his thoughts and Celeste told him continued investigation would only make his grief worse.
“I didn't ask what was being closed,” he admitted to Ortiz. “I wanted somebody to make the questions stop.”
That confession didn't prove he'd known a crime had occurred. It did prove how easily he'd abandoned Lydia's last chance to be heard.
“Will you say that under oath?” Ortiz asked.
“Yes.”
The investigation accelerated after Malcolm's attorney requested a meeting with prosecutors. Facing extensive financial evidence, Malcolm offered information about the second vehicle in return for consideration in his own case.
According to his statement, he'd been behind the wheel when Lydia's car was forced from the road. Celeste had told him to stop her from reaching Gideon with a satchel of documents. He insisted he hadn't intended the collision to be deadly.
“Convenient,” Nora said when Ortiz summarized it.
“That's why we corroborate,” the detective replied.
Telephone location records, recovered accounting entries, and David's dashcam supported important parts of the account. Investigators were still determining which charges the evidence justified.
Celeste tried to leave the country on a chartered flight from New Jersey. Authorities detained her at the airport on a warrant tied to the financial conspiracy and witness-intimidation investigation. The crash allegations remained under active review.
When Gideon learned she'd been taken into custody, he was standing inside the empty ballroom where Ivy had played.
“Are you relieved?” Nora asked.
“Some.” He looked at the piano. “I spent years protecting the foundation's reputation while children lost their lessons. I don't know if relief is what I deserve.”
“Then do something useful.”
He nodded.
That evening he called an emergency trustee meeting and proposed repaying victims, replacing the compromised board members, and opening an independent review of every scholarship denial from the past decade.
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To fund immediate restitution, Briar House and its contents might have to be sold.
Including Lydia's piano.
