Chapter 12 - Three Sisters and One Lie
The bedroom door unlocked.
Grant and Emma ran upstairs with Detective Ortiz and two officers behind them.
When they entered Lily’s room, the hidden panel beside the dollhouse stood open.
Celeste remained near the window, one arm around Lily.
For several seconds, no one spoke.
Grant looked at the wife he had mourned for almost a year.
Celeste looked back at the husband who had buried an empty coffin.
Then Lily took her mother’s hand and led her forward.
Grant’s voice broke.
“Is it really you?”
Celeste touched his face.
He closed his eyes.
She whispered, “I’m sorry.”
It was enough.
Grant pulled her into his arms.
Lily pressed between them, and for the first time since Emma entered the Callahan home, the little girl cried out loud.
Not silently.
Not carefully.
She sobbed against both parents while Grant and Celeste held her.
Emma turned away, giving them what little privacy the room allowed.
Detective Ortiz summoned paramedics.
Celeste was weak, underweight, and disoriented. Scars covered the back of her neck and one wrist. She could answer only simple questions before exhaustion overwhelmed her.
Grant refused to leave her side.
Before the paramedics carried her downstairs, Celeste reached for Emma.
“You came,” she whispered.
Emma held her hand.
“You knew me?”
Celeste nodded faintly.
“We were children.”
“I don’t remember.”
“They made sure of that.”
“Who?”
Celeste’s eyes shifted toward the ceiling camera.
“Not here.”
At the hospital, the Callahan family occupied a secure private floor.
Police guarded every entrance.
News organizations reported that an unidentified woman had been removed from the estate, but Grant’s legal team prevented confirmation of Celeste’s identity.
Renata remained in custody on charges related to Lily’s assault, evidence destruction, unlawful surveillance, and suspected involvement in Celeste’s disappearance.
The bathroom recording proved Renata had threatened Lily.
The balcony footage proved she had pursued Celeste on the night of the supposed death.
The bloodstained fabric and broken bracelet placed her at the scene.
For the first time, Renata could not manipulate the evidence away.
Yet Celeste refused to accuse her of attempted murder.
“She didn’t push me,” Celeste told Detective Ortiz the next morning.
Grant sat beside the hospital bed.
“Then what happened?”
Celeste looked at him.
“She tried to take the drive. We fought. But someone else came through the service passage.”
“Who?”
“I never saw the face.”
“You must have seen something.”
“A black glove. A silver ring. Then something struck me.”
“How did you survive?”
“I woke in a medical room. There were no windows. A voice spoke through the wall and told me Lily was safe.”
“Orpheus?”
Celeste nodded.
“How did you return to the mansion?”
“It moved me three days ago.”
“A computer did not move you.”
“No. Someone obeyed it.”
Detective Ortiz asked, “Who?”
Celeste closed her eyes.
“I don’t know.”
Emma stood near the door, holding the photograph from the control room.
“Do you remember this?”
Celeste opened her eyes.
The photograph shook in Emma’s hand.
Celeste stared at the three girls.
“Yes.”
“Were we sisters?”
“Not by birth.”
Emma frowned.
“The system said maternal half-sibling.”
“The system knows only what it was taught.”
“Then who was Evelyn?”
Celeste looked toward Grant.
“My mother operated a private clinic before she married my father. She specialized in memory research and childhood conditioning.”
Grant’s face hardened.
“What does that have to do with Emma and Renata?”
Celeste’s voice was barely audible.
“We were not her daughters.”
May you like
She looked at the photograph.
“We were her subjects.”
