Chapter 4 - Letters That Never Arrived
Adrian took Noah to a private hospital suite for examination.
Detective Quinn posted an officer outside the door.
Celeste was not arrested yet. The vial had to be tested, and the restaurant footage had to be secured.
But she was forbidden from approaching Noah.
Adrian sat beside the child’s bed while a doctor treated cuts on his feet.
“Did your mother ever speak about me?” Adrian asked.
Noah nodded.
“She said you were my grandpa.”
The word broke something inside Adrian.
He turned away, pressing a fist against his mouth.
Noah removed a crumpled envelope from beneath his shirt.
“She told me to give you this.”
The envelope was addressed in Lily’s handwriting.
Adrian recognized the looping L immediately.
The seal had never been broken.
Inside were six smaller letters, each dated months apart.
The first began:
Dad, I didn’t steal from you. Celeste told me you never wanted to see me again, but I still need you to know the truth.
Adrian’s vision blurred.
The next letter said Lily had tried to call him from three cities. Every number had been blocked.
Another said she was pregnant and frightened.
Another begged him to meet her at a train station.
Adrian had never received any of them.
The final letter had been written shortly before Lily’s death.
Dad, if Noah reaches you, it means I ran out of time. Protect him from Celeste. She knows what happened to the missing money, and she knows why I had to disappear.
Adrian read it twice.
Then a third time.
He remembered Celeste comforting him when Lily vanished.
She had held him while he grieved.
She had shown him bank records proving Lily transferred company funds.
She had persuaded him not to involve police publicly, claiming scandal would destroy the family.
Now Adrian understood that Celeste had controlled every piece of information he received.
Detective Quinn entered carrying a tablet.
“We recovered the restaurant surveillance.”
“Does it show the vial?”
“It shows Celeste giving Victor the pouch.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“But there’s more,” Quinn said. “Victor is ready to talk.”
Across town, Victor had realized Celeste could not protect him.
And the first name he gave investigators was not Adrian’s.
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It was Lily’s.
👉 Victor claimed the poisoning plot was only Celeste’s latest crime—and what he knew about Lily could turn an attempted murder case into something far darker.
