Chapter 5 - Eleven Minutes Were Missing From Every Sick DayThe pattern became obvious once police stopped looking at each event separately.
Kai became strangely sleepy on June 7.
Celeste took him to urgent care.
Opal spent fifty-two minutes inside Nolan’s office.
Kai refused food on June 16.
Celeste called the pediatrician and drove him across Albuquerque for testing.
Opal entered the office fourteen minutes after Celeste left.
June 24.
Kai vomited after breakfast and slept nearly five hours.
Another appointment.
Another search.
July 2.
July 11.
July 19.
Every time Kai showed the symptoms Celeste feared, Opal gained access to an empty house.
“Why didn’t I see this?”
Celeste whispered.
Detective Keene sat across from her in the hospital family room.
“Because you were taking care of your sick child.”
“No. I mean Opal.”
Celeste stared at the printed timeline.
“She lived with us.”
“She made breakfast.”
“She took Tessa to school.”
“She sat beside me at Nolan’s funeral.”
Her voice cracked.
“She held Kai while I cried.”
Keene looked at her.
“People can provide real comfort and still exploit trust.”
That was somehow harder to accept.
Celeste wanted Opal to have been fake every second.
A villain in every memory.
But life didn’t work that way.
Opal had probably loved some parts of the family.
That did not erase what she had done.
Tessa entered carrying two vending-machine cookies.
She handed one to Celeste.
“Eat.”
Celeste almost laughed.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Tessa sat.
“What are those papers?”
“Dates.”
“Of what?”
“Times Kai got sick.”
Tessa looked at them.
Then pointed.
“That one.”
“July nineteenth?”
“Ms. Opal made me stay upstairs.”
Celeste’s chest tightened.
“Why?”
“She said she was cleaning Dad’s office.”
“You remember that?”
“Because she never cleans his office.”
That was true.
Nolan’s office had remained mostly untouched after his death.
Celeste could barely enter it.
Opal always said:
“When you’re ready.”
Now Celeste understood.
The untouched office gave Opal privacy whenever she chose to “organize.”
“What did she do?” Celeste asked.
Tessa shrugged.
“I heard drawers.”
“Anything else?”
“She got mad.”
“At who?”
“Some man.”
Celeste glanced at Keene.
“What did she say?”
Tessa thought carefully.
“She said, ‘You told me he kept it in the house.’”
Keene wrote.
“Did she say a name?”
“No.”
“Did you hear the man?”
“No.”
Tessa ate half her cookie.
Then stopped.
“She said red.”
Celeste looked up.
“What?”
“She said, ‘The red one is gone.’”
Red.
Nothing came immediately.
Then Celeste remembered Nolan’s desk.
He kept notebooks.
Black ones for normal business.
Blue for household projects.
One red leather ledger he carried between home and the office.
She had not seen it since before his death.
“What was in the red book?” Keene asked.
“I don’t know.”
“What did Nolan do?”
“He ran Mercer Hospitality with his brother.”
A regional restaurant and hotel group.
Not enormous.
Big enough for complicated finances.
“Was Opal employed by the company?”
“Originally.”
That detail mattered.
Opal had started as house manager for Nolan’s parents nearly twenty years earlier.
After his mother died, Nolan kept her on.
She handled household accounts.
Event planning.
Some vendor payments.
She knew the family’s financial structure intimately.
“Could she access company money?”
“Small accounts, maybe.”
“Could she be looking for evidence?”
Celeste stared at the timeline.
“I don’t know.”
Then her phone buzzed.
Her attorney.
“Celeste, I found something.”
“What?”
“Your husband changed his estate documents four months before he died.”
Celeste sat straighter.
“I know.”
“No.”
The attorney continued.
“You know about the will.”
“There was another amendment.”
“What amendment?”
“Nolan removed Opal Reed as an authorized household fiduciary.”
Celeste frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“She had previously been allowed to manage several property and family-service accounts.”
“How much money?”
“Potentially hundreds of thousands annually.”
Celeste’s stomach tightened.
“Why did he remove her?”
“The document doesn’t say.”
“But?”
“There’s a handwritten note in the attorney file.”
“What note?”
The lawyer read:
Pending internal review. Do not alert O.R. until discrepancy confirmed.
O.R.
Opal Reed.
Celeste looked at Detective Keene.
“She was stealing.”
“Possibly.”
The lawyer continued.
“There’s something else.”
“What?”
“Nolan requested copies of bank statements going back seven years.”
“When?”
“Six days before his accident.”
Celeste’s breath caught.
Nolan had died suddenly when another vehicle crossed the median during a storm.
The police investigation found no foul play.
Celeste knew that.
She forced herself not to invent a murder because everything else now felt sinister.
Keene saw her expression.
“Don’t jump.”
“I know.”
“The accident report was clear.”
“I know.”
But Opal had exploited his death.
That much was already obvious.
Her husband had begun investigating missing money.
Then he died.
The investigation stopped.
Celeste collapsed into grief.
Opal moved into the house.
And months later, Kai started getting sick.
A nurse entered.
“Kai can go home this afternoon if his next labs stay stable.”
Celeste almost cried with relief.
Then Keene’s phone rang.
She answered.
Listened.
Her expression changed.
“What?”
She put the phone down.
“Forensics recovered the audio from one of the office videos.”
“And?”
“Opal mentions a name.”
Celeste waited.
“Graham Vale.”
She knew it.
Nolan’s family accountant.
A man who had sat in their living room after the funeral and promised Celeste:
“I’ll make sure nothing falls through the cracks.”
Keene continued.
“Opal tells him, ‘If Nolan left the red ledger for Celeste, we’re both finished.’”
Celeste stared.
Not Opal alone.
May you like
The person helping erase the camera footage had a name.
And he had been handling Celeste’s finances for nearly a year.
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