Chapter 5 - Celeste’s company
Celeste was not an insurance adjuster.
She was the owner of Morgan Residential Advisory, a boutique home-management and design firm.
High-end clients.
Renovation coordination.
Art placement.
Estate inventories.
Vendor management.
She had built a good business.
Her income the prior year, based on what she had once bragged about at Thanksgiving:
Around $260,000.
She was not desperate.
But Morgan Residential had a business relationship with Weston Restoration.
Referral arrangement.
Not necessarily illegal.
For clients Celeste referred, Weston paid her company a documented marketing/coordination fee on projects where she performed project administration.
My project:
Morgan Residential received:
$18,750.
I had never known.
Did that automatically make the fee improper?
No.
Could Celeste legitimately charge for dozens of hours managing my claim and restoration while I traveled?
Yes.
But she had told me:
“I’m doing it because Audrey would have.”
That implied family help.
Not a paid vendor arrangement.
Weston had included Celeste’s fee inside project overhead.
Ultimately insurer money funded part.
Disclosure mattered.
Then another payment:
$7,500
from Weston to Morgan Residential two weeks after Hartwell issued final major payment.
Memo:
Client completion bonus
That was not in my paperwork.
Nathan said:
“Again, suspicious is not proof.”
Then state licensing.
Morgan Residential did not hold a public-adjuster license.
Could Celeste help her brother-in-law document property damage?
Yes.
Could she negotiate claim terms for compensation in ways requiring a license?
Potentially.
Hartwell’s special investigations unit would examine.
Then I called Andrew Parker.
I told him Jenna contacted me.
He had not known.
“Did you pressure her?”
“No.”
“I believe you.”
Then:
“She told me something last night.”
“What?”
“Celeste has been asking her to remember where Piper went at your house.”
“For how long?”
“A few weeks.”
“What does remember mean?”
“She asks: Did you see Piper by the study? Did you see Piper in the guest room? Did you see Piper touch the cabinet?”
I closed my eyes.
Not a formal dossier.
Worse in a different way.
An adult repeatedly feeding a child prompts about another child’s movements.
Andrew said:
“I told Jenna not to answer anymore.”
“Thank you.”
Then:
“Celeste thinks something is missing.”
“What?”
“She told me a silver bowl.”
From my house?
“She said family silver from Audrey’s mother.”
I walked to the dining-room cabinet.
Opened it.
There were silver pieces Audrey inherited.
I rarely used them.
One bowl?
I could not tell.
That was another failure.
I did not know my own inventory.
Then I remembered the insurance claim.
Three decorative silver pieces.
Claimed water damaged beyond restoration.
Paid.
May you like
If one had reappeared, the problem was not Piper stealing it.
The problem was that it should not have existed.
