Chapter 3
Celeste had not invited Ellie personally.
That was her first defense.
Technically, it was true.
Ellie came with a small group of foster children invited by the Marcelli Family Outreach Program.
The program was supposed to let foster children attend holiday events, sports games, and school-supply drives funded by wealthy donors.
The banquet invitation had been arranged by a longtime family employee named Lorraine Peck.
Lorraine told Detective Vale:
“I thought the children would eat cake, meet the therapy dogs, and leave with gift bags. I didn’t know who Ellie was.”
“Did Celeste know?”
Lorraine hesitated.
“That’s complicated.”
“How?”
“Ellie’s file was marked restricted.”
“By whom?”
“Celeste’s office.”
The file did not say:
Victor’s daughter.
It said:
No personal artifacts. No direct photography. Seat away from principal family table.
Principal family table.
Victor.
Ellie had ignored the artifact rule because the music box went everywhere with her.
Her foster mother, Angela Ruiz, said:
“She sleeps with it under her pillow. I wasn’t going to take it from her so rich people could feel tidy.”
That sentence made Hannah Vale like Angela immediately.
Celeste’s second defense was that she had never seen the music box before.
Then investigators found a photograph in her office files.
The same music box.
Closed.
Scratched.
Sitting on a caseworker’s desk.
The image was two years old.
Under it, Celeste had written:
A.B. legacy item — monitor.
A.B.
Audrey Brooks.
Monitor.
Not preserve.
Not return.
Monitor.
When Detective Vale confronted her, Celeste said:
“I run a charity. I see hundreds of sad little objects.”
Hannah answered:
“You reached for that sad little object’s hidden note before anyone told you it existed.”
May you like
Celeste stopped talking.
That was the first real crack.
