Chapter 5: The Woman in the Photograph
Mara opened the saved vendor record in the ICU family room, where the coffee had gone cold and the fluorescent lights made everyone look a little ill.
“The caterer’s payment didn’t just pass through the yacht account,” she said. “I checked the vendor details. The company is called Larkspur Table. Celeste Wynn owns it.”
For a moment, I could hear only the soft rush of the ventilation system beyond the door. The woman in the photograph had a name, a company, and a place in the same trail of money that had led to Chloe’s lunch.
“Can you confirm it supplied the order?”
Mara turned her screen toward me. The vendor record carried the same order number as the caterer’s receipt.
“It’s a match,” she said. “That’s what we can say for now. The payment record doesn’t tell us why the charge was routed through the yacht account.”
I stared at the line item. It was so small on the screen, barely more than a string of numbers and a business name. It seemed impossible that something so ordinary could sit at the intersection of a child’s hospital bed and invoices for work no one had done.
My phone rang.
Mara glanced at the unfamiliar number. “Do you want me to—”
“No. I’ll answer.”
I kept my eyes on the screen as I picked up. “Evelyn Vance.”
A brief silence followed. Then a woman said, “Mrs. Vance, my name is Celeste Wynn.”
I did not look at Mara. “I know.”
“I assumed you might.”
Celeste’s voice was low and controlled, but there was a strain beneath it, as if she had practiced sounding calm and hadn’t quite managed. Behind her, I heard a faint clatter of dishes, then a door shutting.
“Grant has lied to both of us,” she said. “I need to talk to you.”
“About what?”
“I don’t want to do this over the phone.”
“That’s convenient.”
“I know how this looks,” she said. “But it’s worse than you think.”
My hand tightened around the phone. A glance at the vendor record brought my attention back to the name on the screen. Whatever else this woman was to Grant, her company had supplied the food that brought my daughter to the edge of death.
“Then tell me what you know.”
“Not like this. Not with people listening.”
Mara’s gaze lifted from her laptop. I could feel the old reflex in me—the one that wanted to ask about the photograph, demand an explanation, make the other woman answer for the hurt I could not put anywhere useful. It rose, then fell away. Chloe was still behind a closed door with a machine helping her breathe. Celeste’s relationship with Grant could wait. The order could not.
“I’m not meeting you alone,” I said. “If you have information about the lunch or the yacht payments, you can send it in writing. Or you can speak with me on a recorded call, with my chief of staff present.”
“I’m not trying to hurt you.”
“You don’t get to decide what this is about.”
“I’m trying to help.”
“Then help without asking me to trust you first.”
Silence again. This time I heard her take a breath.
“Grant told me you knew about the yacht charges,” she said. “He said there was a family arrangement. He said the order was approved.”
“Did you believe him?”
“I believed what he told me.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
A small sound came through the line, almost a laugh but without any humor in it. “No. I suppose it wasn’t.”
She had admitted nothing concrete, and yet she had managed to make the space between us feel crowded—with Grant’s lies, his explanations, and the things she might be choosing not to say.
“Send me what you have,” I said. “Don’t call Rosa. Don’t contact Chloe. And don’t come to the hospital.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
The call ended. Mara watched me set the phone down.
“She knew we’d found the company,” she said.
“Or she guessed.”
“Do you believe she wants to help?”
“I believe she wants something.”
Mara didn’t argue. She saved the vendor record again, adding the call time and Celeste’s name to the file. The small, deliberate click of her keyboard sounded almost gentle in the hush.
A few minutes later, Rosa called from the house. Her voice was tired, but steadier than it had been when she first told me Grant had left Chloe alone.
“I found the lunch message you asked about,” she said. “It was on Chloe’s phone. She showed it to me that morning, before everything happened.”
My grip tightened. “What did it say?”
“I don’t know. She just asked if I thought the lunch looked good. I saw the name on top, that’s all.”
“Larkspur Table?”
“Yes. That’s it. I remember because of the little bird logo beside it.”
I looked at Mara. She had stopped typing.
“Did Chloe say who sent it?”
“No. I didn’t read over her shoulder. I thought it was just the menu or a delivery notice.” Rosa’s voice caught. “I should have paid more attention.”
“No,” I said, more sharply than I intended. I closed my eyes, then tried again. “Rosa, you did what you could with what you knew. This is not yours to carry.”
She let out a shaky breath. Neither of us said anything for a moment.
Then she asked, “Has Grant called you?”
“He’s called and messaged.”
“Has he asked about Chloe?”
I looked toward the ICU doors. “He knows where she is.”
Rosa did not ask what that meant. She didn’t need me to explain the difference between knowing and caring.
After we hung up, I went back to Chloe’s bedside. Her face was half-hidden by the white tape holding the breathing tube in place. One of her hands rested on top of the blanket, her fingers loose and pale. I tucked the edge of the blanket beneath her wrist, careful not to disturb the lines.
“You don’t have to figure anything out right now,” I whispered.
The monitor continued its steady rhythm. I stayed beside her until the vibration of my phone pulled me back to the family room.
A message from Celeste had arrived.
No greeting. No request to meet. Just a short sentence: “This is from Grant. I thought you should see it.”
An image appeared beneath it, showing a message thread with his name at the top. I opened it.
Grant’s reply was brief.
May you like
“I saw it. I approved the order. Please let the driver in.”
I read it once, then again. Celeste had sent me Grant’s own words—proof he had acknowledged the warning directly to her. And now I had to decide what her silence before today was worth.
