Chapter 16 - GRACE’S SONGFor three seconds, nobody moved.
Then Emma screamed her sisters’ names.
The live feed showed Lily sitting upright, Sophie asleep, Grace clutching her stuffed rabbit. The fake nurse stood close enough to touch them.
Celeste’s thumb hovered over the phone.
“One call,” she said, “and the nurse panics.”
Ava’s weapon stayed trained on Celeste, but her eyes flicked to me.
She needed time.
I needed a miracle.
I looked at the screen again.
Grace was awake.
Her eyes were not on the nurse.
They were on the corner of the hospital room.
The camera.
No.
Not the camera.
The baby monitor.
Claire’s old baby monitor, which Maria had refused to let out of her sight.
Grace slowly opened her mouth.
And began to sing.
Softly at first.
Then louder.
“You are my sunshine…”
Celeste frowned. “What is she doing?”
I almost collapsed from relief.
Grace sang when she was scared.
Maria knew that.
Dr. Reeves knew that.
And Lily knew exactly what it meant.
On the screen, Lily reached for her cup and knocked it off the bed.
Water splashed across the floor.
The fake nurse turned.
Sophie woke and began crying.
Grace sang louder.
Then Maria appeared on screen, entering fast from the bathroom doorway with a metal IV pole in both hands.
The video jolted.
The nurse stumbled back.
Hospital security rushed in.
The phone feed cut to black.
Celeste stared at the screen.
Ava moved first.
“Now.”
Officers seized Celeste’s men. Ramirez took Celeste’s phone. I grabbed Emma and pulled her behind me.
Celeste did not fight.
She looked almost amused.
“You think that ends this?”
“No,” I said. “But it ends you taking my children.”
She laughed quietly.
“My dear Nathan, you still don’t understand. I never needed to keep them. I needed you emotional. Reckless. Publicly unstable.”
The lodge door opened again.
Richard Sterling walked in with two attorneys and a camera crew from a private media outlet.
He stopped when he saw the police.
Then he saw Celeste in custody.
His expression changed from control to fury.
Not at me.
At her.
“What did you do?” he hissed.
Celeste smiled. “What you were too weak to finish.”
The camera crew kept filming.
Richard realized it too late.
Ava stepped forward. “Mr. Sterling, you are being detained for questioning regarding conspiracy, custodial interference, and financial crimes connected to the Caldwell minors.”
Richard’s attorney objected loudly.
Ramirez ignored him.
I held Emma against my side as Richard turned to me.
“This will ruin all of us.”
“No,” I said. “It will reveal all of you.”
Celeste laughed again.
Then she looked at Emma.
“You have Whitcomb eyes.”
Emma hid against me.
I bent and lifted her into my arms.
“She has her mother’s heart.”
Outside, snow fell harder.
Inside, generations of greed finally began collapsing under the weight of one frightened child’s song.
But as police led Celeste away, she looked back at me and said one last thing.
“Claire’s death was convenient, wasn’t it?”
The lodge went silent.
I stared at her.
“What did you say?”
May you like
Celeste smiled.
Then the officers pushed her into the storm.
