CHAPTER 2: Celeste Drinks to Her Victory

Celeste descended the last step with the slow confidence of a woman who had practiced being photographed from above.
“He fell,” she said, before Lena asked.
Charles lifted his head just enough to look at his daughter. His face carried pain, but his eyes carried warning.
Do not react.
Lena understood him instantly.
Mason moved closer to Celeste. “He got confused again. Mother told him to wait for help, but he insisted on making a scene.”
Mother.
The word landed strangely in the hall. Mason was not Charles’s son, but he had started using the house like blood could be rewritten by posture.
Celeste turned her glass between her fingers.
“You should be grateful I called you,” she said. “I could have had security keep you outside.”
Lena knelt beside Charles instead of answering.
Her father’s hand found her sleeve with surprising strength.
“Don’t sign anything,” he breathed.
Lena looked up.
On the console table near the stairs sat a silver pen, a stack of documents, and Charles’s reading glasses.
Celeste had not called her to say goodbye.
She had called her to watch the last theft happen.