Chapter 9 - The Initial Beside Lydia’s Name
Claire denied everything.
She stood beside the warehouse entrance while police lights flashed across the river and read the microfilm strip three times.
“That is not my signature.”
“It only shows initials,” Nora said.
“Someone wants you to believe they belong to me.”
“Lydia said you helped conceal what happened.”
“Lydia lies.”
“So did you.”
The words landed between them.
Claire looked away.
Nora wanted to trust her aunt. Claire had raised her, worked exhausting shifts to pay their bills, attended every school exhibition, and taught her never to judge people by the stories told about them.
But Claire had also hidden the truth about Evelyn.
She had kept the Crownfire lens.
She had known about the Celestine accusation.
And her initials now appeared beside Lydia’s on a payment record concealed for eighteen years.
Adrian placed the torn microfilm inside an evidence sleeve.
“The full ledger will show dates, accounts, and recipients. This fragment proves nothing by itself.”
“It proves someone expected Nora to find it,” Claire replied.
Mateo leaned against the ambulance while a paramedic checked his wrists.
“The masked woman knew about the ledger,” he said. “She wanted to keep it away from Lydia.”
Nora turned toward him.
“Who was she?”
“I didn’t see her face clearly.”
“You said you knew.”
“I know where I saw her before.”
He opened the gallery’s public staff page on his phone and selected a photograph.
Camille North.
The retired designer who had served on Nora’s scholarship panel.
In the photograph, Camille’s hair was silver and cut to her shoulders. At the gallery, she had used a cane and moved slowly.
The masked woman in the warehouse had moved quickly.
“It could still be her,” Mateo said. “The person in the parking structure had the same ring. Black stone, square setting.”
Adrian looked at the image.
“Camille was the fourth Crownfire member.”
“The person scratched out of my mother’s photograph,” Nora said.
“Yes.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“She was Evelyn’s closest friend.”
“Then why hide her identity?”
“Because Lydia accused Camille of helping Evelyn escape. Camille testified that she knew nothing. Afterward, she left the city.”
Adrian’s phone rang.
The independent laboratory had completed an additional scan of the Witness Necklace before Grant took it.
The metal beneath the blue imitation stone contained a pattern of microscopic holes.
When translated through Crownfire notation, the pattern formed an account number.
The account belonged to Meridian Holdings.
The same company Evelyn had named in her notebook.
Adrian searched corporate records.
Meridian Holdings was officially dissolved seventeen years earlier, but one associated account remained active. Over the years, it had paid consultants, storage companies, private investigators, and several law-enforcement officers.
The latest payment had been made two days earlier.
The recipient was Simon Grant.
Nora asked the laboratory to trace the payment authorization.
Twenty minutes later, they received the answer.
The transaction had been approved from an Aurelia Foundation account using Lydia Cross’s credentials.
“That proves Lydia hired Grant,” Mateo said.
“No,” Adrian replied. “It proves someone used her credentials.”
Nora looked at Claire.
“Could Camille have access?”
“Not unless Lydia gave it to her.”
Marcus returned from speaking with the river patrol.
They had found Grant’s abandoned boat downstream. Blood marked the steering wheel, but Grant was gone.
Inside the boat was the microfilm capsule.
It was empty.
“Someone took the ledger,” Marcus said.
“Grant?” Nora asked.
“Or whoever met him after he escaped.”
Aurelia’s board scheduled an emergency press conference for the following evening. Lydia intended to announce that Nora and Claire were under investigation for producing counterfeit jewelry.
Adrian showed them a draft of her statement.
It claimed that Evelyn had created an illegal network of replicas and that her family had revived the operation.
“She’s going to blame all three of us,” Claire said.
“Unless we produce stronger evidence first,” Adrian replied.
Mateo enlarged the microfilm fragment.
“Maybe we already have it.”
He pointed toward the letters C. HALE.
The first initial contained a tiny horizontal line through the center.
“It isn’t a C,” he said. “It’s an old Crownfire symbol.”
Adrian examined it.
The symbol represented a title.
Custodian.
The line did not read L. Cross and C. Hale.
It read L. Cross and Custodian Hale.
Nora looked at Claire.
“What were you custodian of?”
Claire remained silent.
Adrian understood first.
“The original Celestine.”
Claire’s face collapsed.
Nora stepped back.
“You had it?”
“Only for one night.”
“You told me Mom disappeared with it.”
“That was what Evelyn wanted everyone to believe.”
“Where did you take it?”
Claire looked toward the dark river.
“To the one place Lydia would never search.”
“Where?”
May you like
Claire’s answer came in a whisper.
“Your crib.”
