Chapter 6 - CELESTINE FIGHTS BACK
Celestine stopped behaving frightened.
She became strategic.
Her lawyer issued a public statement.
Mara had suffered severe anxiety before her death.
Mara became suspicious of colleagues.
Mara secretly recorded private conversations.
Mara’s allegations regarding Bellbird were reviewed internally and found unsubstantiated.
I was “weaponizing grief” after assaulting Celestine.
Some of that was clever.
Some possibly true.
Mara had anxiety.
Especially after Poppy was born.
She took medication for a year.
She had therapy.
None of that made her financial records false.
But neither could I respond by pretending mental health history was irrelevant if Celestine claimed Mara misinterpreted events.
We needed corroboration.
The Lark & Thread board minutes became important.
Three weeks before Mara’s death:
Mara requested independent vendor audit.
Celestine opposed immediate audit, arguing seasonal launch timing.
Board postponed by four weeks.
Mara died before it happened.
After her death, Celestine presented a short internal review saying Bellbird pricing was high but within emergency-market range.
Who performed review?
Lark & Thread controller, Mark Feld.
He now told investigators he had relied on documents Celestine supplied.
Was that fraud?
Not yet.
A deeper audit showed several Bellbird freight invoices duplicated shipping charges already paid to another carrier.
That looked worse.
Potential overbilling:
At least $418,000.
How much Celestine benefited?
Still under tracing.
Then she made a claim that frightened me.
The rag doll was hers.
“What?”
Her lawyer said Mara had made it for Celestine during college, later gave it to Poppy temporarily, making the hidden USB stolen property.
Ridiculous.
Maybe.
We found photographs.
Poppy at age one holding the doll.
Mara’s caption:
Finished Pop’s ugly little queen.
Enough.
The doll was Poppy’s.
The USB?
Mara’s data copied onto a drive hidden inside property given to Poppy.
Ownership issues could be argued, but police evidence status mattered more now.
Celestine could not retrieve it.
Then she attacked my credibility.
I had sold Lark & Thread after Mara died.
Maybe I had incentive to blame Celestine for post-sale indemnity claims.
No.
My sale documents showed I disclosed known vendor issues generally.
Still.
The new owners reserved rights.
Money hovered over everything.
I hated it.
Then my own costly mistake.
I accessed Mara’s old email account using a password we had shared years earlier.
I found messages.
I forwarded several to myself.
Daniel nearly exploded.
“You should have called me.”
“It was my wife’s email.”
“Maybe. Maybe company. Maybe estate. Maybe privileged. Now we have an evidence-authentication problem.”
He was right.
I had acted from panic.
Not malice.
Still dumb.
We turned over exactly what I accessed and documented it.
No deletion.
No hiding.
Some emails could still be independently subpoenaed from the provider.
Good.
But Celestine’s lawyer used my access to argue evidence contamination.
That delayed things.
My mistake had cost time.
Then the provider produced the original server copies.
One email from Mara to herself.
Subject:
IF I’M WRONG, DELETE THIS.
Body:
Celestine knows I found Silver Row.
She came to the house.
She said if I take this to Gage before she can “fix it,” I will destroy everyone.
That was a threat.
Vague.
Not murder.
Then:
She asked where Poppy’s doll was.
I don’t know why she thinks I’d hide paper evidence in a toy.
Mara had lied to Celestine.
She had already hidden the USB there.
Celestine knew there was evidence.
But maybe not where.
Until now.
Why burn the doll?
Because she had finally figured it out.
Then the lab found an audio file hidden inside the CAR folder.
Encrypted separately.
Filename:
DON’T PLAY AROUND POPPY.
We were still in Chapter 6.
We did not listen yet.
May you like
Not until authentication review.
And that restraint nearly drove me insane.
