Chapter 5 - CELESTE’S RED WINE
Celeste requested a proffer meeting through her attorney.
She wanted to explain her role before prosecutors charged her with attempted murder.
No immunity was offered.
She entered the room wearing county-issued clothing because she had been arrested for evidence tampering after trying to delete household camera files.
Her confidence looked thinner without the silk robe.
“Reed planned to frighten Maren,” she said. “Not kill her.”
Detective Ortiz placed the handwritten note on the table.
No epinephrine until transfers clear.
Celeste stared at it.
“I never saw that.”
“Your fingerprints were on the cashew mixture.”
“He made it.”
“You carried Maren’s emergency pouch.”
“He told me to move it.”
“Why?”
“He said Maren used the injector to dramatize mild reactions.”
My medical records documented two prior life-threatening episodes.
Celeste knew.
She had accompanied us to a restaurant where I required emergency treatment.
“Why were you smiling?” Ortiz asked.
“Because Reed said she was about to lose control of everything.”
“What did that mean?”
“The company. The house. The trust.”
“Did you know Alexandra Vale was alive?”
Celeste’s face became genuinely frightened.
“No.”
“Did Reed?”
“He talked about her like she was dead.”
“Did he ever say he caused her death?”
“He said he buried her.”
The phrase could mean legal burial.
It could mean more.
Celeste described the financial plan partially.
Whitaker Family Capital faced a liquidity crisis.
Two failed hotel projects and a medical-device investment had created hidden debt.
Reed planned to use Vale trust money to stabilize the companies.
He claimed the transfers were repayment for decades of management.
Celeste believed the Vale family owed the Whitakers.
“Why?”
“My father spent his life preserving their assets after Alexandra disappeared.”
Their father, Graham Whitaker, had died eight years earlier.
He had been the senior estate partner when my mother vanished.
The same man who trained Reed.
Celeste said Graham kept a locked archive called the burial room.
After his death, Reed moved the files to our house.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Police had searched the office, basement, and secure storage.
No burial room appeared.
Celeste insisted Reed had hidden access somewhere near the old wine cellar.
The Whitaker house belonged originally to Graham.
I had moved there after marriage.
Reed told me the cellar was structurally unsafe and kept it locked.
The search warrant expanded.
Behind a false wine rack, investigators found a narrow steel door.
The room beyond contained shelves of files, outdated recording equipment, and two fireproof cabinets.
One cabinet held records concerning Alexandra.
The other held records concerning me.
My file began when I was thirteen.
School reports.
Medical records.
Financial statements.
Photographs.
A copy of every relationship questionnaire I completed with therapists after my mother’s death.
Reed had studied my fears before courting me.
Inside Alexandra’s cabinet, detectives found no original continuity file.
They found a photograph of my mother lying injured beside the coastal wreck fifteen years earlier.
The image had been taken after the time listed on her death certificate.
On the back, Graham Whitaker had written:
SUBJECT SURVIVED. REED HAS BEEN INSTRUCTED TO COMPLETE THE BURIAL.
May you like
Reed was not merely the attorney who processed paperwork.
He had known my mother survived.
