Chapter 5
Celeste asked to speak after learning Peter had been found.
Claire insisted attorneys be present.
Raffaele agreed.
Celeste sat across from him without her wedding ring.
She had removed it herself.
“I knew Anna was suspicious of Marcus.”
Raffaele did not react.
“How suspicious?”
“She thought he was moving money through transportation vendors.”
“Did she tell you?”
“Yes.”
“And you said nothing.”
“He’s my brother.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Celeste looked down.
“It was my answer then.”
Anna had approached Celeste about six weeks before the crash.
She believed several Corsini logistics vendors existed mostly on paper.
She suspected Marcus was using inflated fleet invoices to move company money into outside accounts.
Anna had not yet told Raffaele.
“Why?”
Celeste hesitated.
“She thought you’d confront Marcus immediately.”
“She was right.”
“She wanted proof first.”
That sounded like Anna.
Raffaele hated how clearly he could hear his late wife saying it.
Celeste continued.
“Anna asked me whether Marcus had ever mentioned a company called Northbridge Fleet.”
Raffaele recognized the name.
The replacement steering part Peter installed had come through Northbridge.
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“What did you tell Anna?”
“That I didn’t know anything.”
“Was that true?”
Celeste shook her head.
Marcus had once asked her to receive business mail at an apartment she owned in Queens.
Northbridge documents had arrived there.
She never opened them.
She told herself it was ordinary family business.
After Anna began asking questions, Celeste confronted Marcus privately.
“He told me Anna was trying to destroy him because she never trusted outsiders.”
“Did you believe that?”
“I wanted to.”
Raffaele leaned forward.
“What happened after Anna died?”
Celeste’s face changed.
“Marcus told me to forget Northbridge.”
“And you did.”
“Yes.”
“For eighteen months.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Raffaele felt something ugly move through him.
“You married me knowing Anna had investigated your brother.”
“I didn’t know he killed her.”
Raffaele’s gaze sharpened.
Celeste realized what she had said.
“I didn’t mean—”
“You said killed.”
“I meant if somebody did something to the car—”
“No.”
Raffaele’s voice stayed quiet.
“You’ve spent eighteen months saying accident.”
Celeste looked toward her attorney.
Then toward the door.
Exactly as she had looked toward Marcus in the departure hall.
Raffaele saw it again.
“What happened recently?”
Celeste pressed her lips together.
Finally:
“Lucy heard us arguing.”
“You and Marcus.”
“Yes.”
“About Anna.”
“Yes.”
Raffaele waited.
May you like
Celeste whispered:
“Marcus said the wrong person died that night.”
