Chapter 7
Brandon’s financial motive became clearer.
He had bought into a small chain of upscale restaurants four years earlier.
The investment worked at first.
Then two locations failed.
A third required expensive renovation.
Brandon personally guaranteed several loans.
His hidden estate consulting payments helped service the debt.
Celeste had co-signed one guarantee through her event company.
She was not merely protecting her brother.
Her own finances were exposed.
If Northstar’s overbilling stopped abruptly, both could face serious consequences.
That explained why Emma discovering the ghost staff mattered.
It still did not fully explain using Leo.
Rebecca reconstructed the timeline from emails.
Emma confronted Celeste about payroll discrepancies.
Celeste told Brandon.
Brandon wrote:
She’s going to Vincent.
Celeste replied:
He won’t believe her if the Leo issue surfaces first.
Vincent stared at the sentence.
“What Leo issue?”
The email was dated before the first documented bruising.
Rebecca’s expression changed.
That mattered enormously.
At that moment, there had been no established “Leo issue” in the records.
Yet Celeste already expected one to surface.
Another message from Brandon:
Don’t get ahead of ourselves. One clean incident is enough to remove her.
One clean incident.
Vincent remembered Emma’s schedule.
The preschool.
The concern reports.
The child crouching automatically.
Rebecca looked at him.
“This is getting close.”
“To what?”
“To proving the abuse wasn’t merely happening alongside the frame-up.”
Vincent’s eyes hardened.
“It was part of it.”
“Maybe.”
He hated the word.
Again.
The last evidence before the irreversible decision came from an estate laundress.
Her name was Teresa Bell.
She had worked downstairs for nine years.
Teresa remembered Celeste bringing Leo’s shirt to the laundry room one morning.
There was a faint spot of blood near the collar from a split lip.
Not serious.
Enough to frighten her.
Celeste told Teresa:
“Emma was too rough getting him dressed.”
Teresa asked if Vincent knew.
Celeste said she would handle it.
Teresa believed her.
Rebecca asked:
“Was Emma working that morning?”
“Yes.”
“Was she with Leo when the injury happened?”
Teresa frowned.
“I don’t know.”
Security logs answered.
Emma had been in the delivery basement receiving groceries.
Brandon had sent her there.
Celeste was upstairs with Leo.
Vincent stared at the timeline.
A child was injured.
The witness most likely to protect him had been deliberately sent away.
May you like
Then Celeste immediately named that witness as the cause.
This was no longer a theory Vincent could contain privately.
