Chapter 7 - THE CONFESSIONCeleste backed up until her spine pressed flat against the cold iron of the bulkhead door. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps, her manicured fingers clawing instinctively at the metal behind her as if she could somehow phase right through it. The high-end designer makeup was streaked with sweat and tears; the illusion of sophisticated elegance was entirely shattered.
"You don't understand, Ethan," Celeste babbled, her voice pitching up into a frantic, desperate whine. "I didn't mean to kill her! It wasn't supposed to go that far!"
Ethan froze mid-step. The words hit the damp air of the cellar like a physical shockwave.
"What did you just say?" Ethan’s voice dropped to a terrifying whisper. He stopped advancing, his eyes locked onto her face.
Celeste realized too late what she had blurted out. She clamped her mouth shut, her eyes darting frantically toward the unconscious form of Richard sprawled a few feet away.
"You just admitted it," Ethan said, taking a slow, deliberate step closer. "You said you didn't mean to kill her. You told the police and everyone else that Clara died of a natural neurological collapse. But you just confessed to murder."
"No! I didn't mean—I misspoke!" Celeste shook her head violently, her hands coming up in a defensive gesture. "The stress... this whole nightmare... I'm not thinking straight!"
"You killed my wife," Ethan repeated, the words tasting like ash and iron in his mouth. He felt a cold, blinding rage eclipsing every other emotion. "You administered the poison, didn't you? You used her trust, her vulnerability, and you slowly drained the life out of her while pretending to be her caretaker."
Celeste let out a hysterical, jagged laugh, sliding down the iron door until she was sitting on the cold concrete floor, pulling her knees up to her chest. The facade was completely gone now, replaced by a bitter, unhinged defiance.
"And what if I did?" Celeste sneered, her voice dripping with venom. "Do you have any idea what it’s like to spend twenty-four hours a day tending to a woman who already had one foot in the grave, while her brilliant, wealthy husband sat downstairs ignoring her existence to code his little algorithms? She was miserable, Ethan! She wanted it to end!"
"She loved Sophie more than life itself!" Ethan roared, lunging forward and grabbing the front of her blouse, hauling her up to her feet with one arm until her toes barely touched the floor. "She would never have left our daughter willingly!"
"She didn't leave willingly," Celeste hissed right back into his face, a sick, triumphant smile twisting her lips. "She figured it out on the very last day. She saw the pharmacy records I altered. She saw the transfer requests. That’s why she wrote that stupid note behind the photograph and hid it where she thought only you would find it. But she was too weak to stop me. I watched her take her last breath, Ethan. And do you know what her last words were?"
Ethan’s grip tightened until his knuckles turned white. "What?"
"She looked right at me," Celeste whispered, her eyes shining with malicious glee, "and she said: 'Ethan will never forgive you.'"
Ethan’s arm trembled. For a split second, the urge to end her right there on the concrete floor—to squeeze until the darkness took her just like it took Clara—was almost overwhelming.
“Daddy… open it before she comes back.”
Sophie’s innocent, terrified voice echoed softly in his mind, pulling him back from the edge of the abyss. He looked over his shoulder. Sophie was standing a few feet away, watching him with wide, frightened eyes, clutching her mother’s photograph against her chest.
He couldn't become a monster just to punish one.
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With a disgusted grunt, Ethan shoved Celeste backward. She crashed hard against the iron door once more, sliding back down to the floor in a heap, sobbing hysterically.
Sirens began to wail in the distance, growing louder by the second as they tore up the long, winding driveway of the Connecticut estate. Federal marshals and local state troopers were finally arriving.
