Chapter 4 - The Poison in the Parlor
While the rain continued to lash against Charleston, Celeste Monroe stood in the high-ceilinged drawing room of her family's historic estate on South Battery Street. She paced across the plush Persian rug, an empty crystal glass of bourbon clutched tightly in her hand.
Her phone on the mahogany side table vibrated violently. She snatched it up instantly.
"Did you handle it?" Celeste demanded into the receiver, her voice sharp and devoid of its usual sweet charm.
"Miss Monroe, we have a major problem," a nervous male voice responded on the other end. It was Arthur Pendelton, the private investigator Celeste had hired three months ago to keep tabs on Graham’s estate trustees. "Graham just obtained the raw surveillance footage from the Waterfront Park security hub. The camera on the pier had a direct line of sight to the pineapple fountain."
Celeste dropped her glass. It shattered against the hardwood floor, dark liquid soaking into the antique rug.
"What does it show?" she hissed, her face contorting into a mask of pure fury.
"Everything," Pendelton whispered. "It clearly shows you feeding the child the chocolate, stepping on his inhaler, and leaving him on the bench while you walked to your car. Furthermore, Graham’s legal team just filed an emergency petition with the county sheriff to review your personal bank accounts."
"They can't touch my accounts!" Celeste screamed into the phone, her hands shaking violently.
"They already have, Miss Monroe," Pendelton replied grimly. "Graham's chief financial officer traced the three hundred thousand dollars you siphoned from the Whitlock Children's Charitable Foundation over the last four months. They know you were broke before you met him. They know your family estate is facing foreclosure."
Celeste sank onto the velvet sofa, her breathing coming in shallow, frantic gasps.
It had been so close. So incredibly close.
When Eleanor Whitlock died three years ago, she had left her entire personal estate—a eighty-million-dollar fortune separate from Graham’s development empire—in a blind trust exclusively for Leo, with a clause stating that if Leo passed away before reaching eighteen without heirs, the trust would liquidate into a foundation managed by Graham’s surviving spouse.
Celeste hadn't wanted to kill the boy immediately. She had simply wanted to make him appear chronically ill, fragile, and ultimately unmanageable, convincing Graham to send him away to a private medical boarding school in Switzerland so she could claim the Whitlock name, the fortune, and the social standing she craved. But the little boy had been resilient. He kept recovering. And today, in a moment of pure, blinding irritation at the boy's refusal to accept her as his new mother, she had pushed it too far.
And it had all been undone by a nameless, worthless street child.
"Where is Graham now?" Celeste demanded, her voice dropping into a desperate, razor-thin whisper.
"He left the hospital an hour ago," Pendelton said. "He’s at the central police station right now with his legal team, filing a formal criminal complaint against you for attempted murder and child endangerment. The deputies are drafting an arrest warrant as we speak."
Celeste threw her phone against the wall. It cracked into pieces, falling silent onto the ruined rug.
Panic, cold and suffocating, seized her chest. She looked around the grand room—the gilded mirrors, the oil paintings of her ancestors, the crystal chandeliers. Everything she had fought to preserve was about to be stripped away in a single evening.
She walked briskly to her desk, pulled out a small leather suitcase from the bottom cabinet, and began stuffing it with her mother's heirloom jewelry, her passport, and stacks of emergency cash she had hidden away.
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"I won't go to prison," Celeste muttered to herself, her eyes wild, her blonde hair falling out of its neat bun. "I am a Monroe. I won't let some street brat ruin my life."
She grabbed her coat, locked her suitcase, and hurried out toward the side entrance of her estate, completely unaware that two unmarked police cruisers were already turning onto South Battery Street.
