Chapter 4 - Celeste's Lie.
Grace expected Celeste to deny everything.
Instead, Celeste called Marcus's office the next morning and asked for a meeting.
She refused to speak by phone.
She also refused to meet at the mansion, Daniel's office, or any property connected to the Rhodes family.
Marcus chose a private conference room in a hotel near Copley Square.
Grace almost declined to attend.
She did not want to sit across from the woman whose face had filled Daniel's vacation photographs while Noah was in intensive care.
Then she remembered Daniel's final sentence at the supervised visit.
Ask Celeste who prepared the closing packet.
Grace went.
Celeste arrived ten minutes late wearing a gray coat over a black turtleneck and carrying no designer handbag.
Without the emerald dress and carefully styled vacation photographs, she looked younger than Grace expected.
She also looked exhausted.
Marcus began with rules.
"This is not a privileged conversation."
Celeste nodded.
"I know."
"We are not your attorneys."
"I know."
"If you are represented, we need to communicate through counsel."
"I'm not."
Marcus looked skeptical.
"You should consider getting one."
Celeste gave a short laugh.
"That's what everyone keeps telling me this week."
Grace remained silent.
Celeste finally looked at her.
"I didn't know."
Grace's expression did not change.
"Which part?"
"That you had just had a baby."
Grace folded her hands on the table.
"You knew he was married."
Celeste swallowed.
"He said you were separated."
"You posted 'Finally free.'"
Celeste's eyes dropped.
"Because he told me the divorce papers had been signed."
"They hadn't."
"I know that now."
Grace waited.
Celeste took a breath.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me."
"Good."
The word landed cleanly.
Celeste nodded as if she deserved it.
"I came because Daniel told me you asked about the refinancing documents."
Marcus spoke.
"He told you that?"
"He called me after the visit."
"Despite being represented?"
"He wasn't calling about litigation."
Marcus's expression suggested he disagreed.
Celeste opened a slim folder.
"Three months ago, Daniel asked me to help prepare materials for a bridge loan."
Grace leaned forward slightly.
"Why you?"
"Because my firm handles commercial acquisitions, and we already had lender relationships."
"The house is residential."
"It was being used as collateral for working capital."
Grace's eyes narrowed.
Celeste continued.
"I told him both LLC members would need to approve the pledge because of the operating agreement."
"And?"
"He said you had approved it."
Celeste slid a copy across the table.
It was an email from Daniel.
Grace has signed off.
Mom is coordinating execution while Grace is on bed rest.
Send the packet to her office and she will return it tonight.
Grace read the message twice.
"What office?"
"Vivian's foundation office in Back Bay."
Marcus leaned forward.
"You sent the signature pages to Vivian?"
"Yes."
"Did you personally receive them back?"
"Her assistant emailed scanned copies the next morning."
"Name?"
Celeste hesitated.
"Rebecca Sloan."
Marcus wrote it down.
Grace recognized the name.
Rebecca had worked for Vivian for nearly a decade.
She organized charity events, managed calendars, and seemed to know where every family document lived.
Celeste continued.
"The lender later requested wet signatures for the final package."
Grace's pulse quickened.
"Who delivered those?"
Celeste looked directly at her.
"Daniel."
The room went quiet.
"He said he picked them up from Vivian."
Grace thought about Daniel saying he did not write her signature.
That could be technically true while still leaving him deeply involved.
"Did you see the wet signature?"
"Yes."
"Did it look like mine?"
"I had no reason to question it at the time."
Grace leaned back.
"You had never seen my signature."
Celeste did not answer.
That silence contained the first lie.
Grace recognized it immediately.
"You had seen it."
Celeste looked at Marcus.
"This is why I wanted a lawyer."
Marcus's voice remained neutral.
"Then stop talking and get one."
Celeste pressed her lips together.
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Celeste reached into her folder and removed another page.
"I saw your signature on the marital acknowledgment attached to the preliminary acquisition file."
Grace frowned.
"What acquisition?"
Celeste looked genuinely confused.
"The Harbor Point project."
Grace knew the name only vaguely.
Daniel had described it as a redevelopment opportunity on the South Shore.
He said investors were competing for a distressed waterfront property.
It was supposedly the reason for half his late nights.
"What marital acknowledgment?"
Celeste slid the document toward her.
Grace read the first line.
CONSENT OF SPOUSE TO TRANSFER AND ENCUMBRANCE OF MEMBERSHIP INTEREST.
Her name appeared at the bottom.
Another false signature.
Marcus's face changed.
"This is different from the home equity document."
Celeste nodded.
"There are at least four."
Grace stared at her.
"Four documents?"
"Four packets with your signature."
Grace felt the old instinct from trial work take over.
Celeste's meeting left Grace with an emotion she had not expected.
Embarrassment.
Not because Daniel cheated.
Because she had defended Celeste to herself for months without realizing it.
Whenever Daniel mentioned late meetings with her, Grace had reminded herself that women in male-dominated businesses were unfairly suspected of sleeping with powerful men.
She had refused to become the jealous wife who treated every female colleague as a threat.
That instinct had been decent.
Daniel had exploited it.
Grace told Marcus as they waited for the elevator.
"I feel stupid for trying to be fair."
Marcus pressed the button.
"Don't."
"I literally argued against my own suspicion."
"That's called not convicting someone without evidence."
"She was sleeping with my husband."
"And your fairness did not cause that."
The elevator arrived.
Inside, Grace watched the numbers descend.
"Vivian always told me instinct was emotional and therefore unreliable."
"Instinct is data without explanation."
Marcus shrugged.
"Sometimes it's wrong. Sometimes it noticed something before your conscious mind did."
Grace looked at him.
"You sound less like a lawyer every day."
"I'm expensive enough to be philosophical."
She smiled despite herself.
When the doors opened, Celeste was still in the lobby ahead of them.
She stood near the revolving door speaking to someone on the phone.
Grace could not hear most of the conversation.
She heard one sentence clearly.
"No, Daniel, I told you I'm done covering for this."
Celeste noticed Grace.
Their eyes met.
She immediately turned away.
Grace said nothing.
Outside, she took another screenshot of the meeting time and saved the notes Marcus had prepared.
She was learning not to depend on emotional clarity before taking practical action.
Some days, she could be furious and organized at the same time.
Some days, grief and competence occupied the same body.
That too was allowed.
She stopped thinking emotionally and started organizing facts.
"Dates."
Celeste listed them.
One in February.
One in March.
Two in April.
Grace was pregnant during all of them.
Two were signed while her doctor had restricted travel because of complications.
"Did anyone notarize them?"
"Yes."
Marcus looked up sharply.
"Who?"
Celeste opened the folder again.
"Rebecca Sloan."
Grace stared at the name.
Vivian's assistant was also a commissioned notary.
That transformed the issue.
A false signature was serious.
A notarized false signature created a trail.
Marcus asked Celeste whether she retained emails and originals.
"Some."
"Why only some?"
"Daniel told me last night to delete anything involving family authorizations because his lawyers would collect the official copies."
Grace went still.
"Did you delete them?"
Celeste looked at her.
"No."
"Why not?"
Celeste's jaw tightened.
"Because after he came home and saw you with the baby, he told me to stay quiet and let his attorneys make you look unstable."
Grace said nothing.
"Then I saw the motion they filed."
Celeste's voice became lower.
"He had told me you were cold, ambitious, and barely involved in his life."
She looked embarrassed.
"The photographs Vivian used were of you in a hospital gown while your baby was sick."
Grace held her gaze.
"You helped him cheat on me."
"Yes."
"You helped close transactions using documents you now believe may have been forged."
"Yes."
"And you came here because you suddenly discovered a conscience?"
Celeste accepted the question without flinching.
"Partly."
"What's the other part?"
Celeste hesitated.
Then she said it.
"Daniel lied to me about the Harbor Point money."
Marcus leaned forward.
"How much?"
"Three point eight million dollars."
Grace stared at her.
"What money?"
"Investor escrow."
Celeste looked toward the window.
"It was supposed to remain untouched until closing."
"And it didn't?"
"Two weeks ago, one point two million was transferred out."
"To where?"
Celeste looked back at Grace.
"A company called VRS Consulting."
Grace did not recognize it.
Marcus did.
His expression changed immediately.
"Vivian Rhodes Sloan."
Grace's eyes shifted to him.
Vivian's full maiden name was Vivian Rhodes Sloan.
Celeste nodded slowly.
"That's what I thought too."
Marcus asked for the transfer records.
Celeste had screenshots from the project portal.
She forwarded them before leaving the room.
At the door, she stopped and looked at Grace.
"For what it's worth, I ended it."
Grace's voice remained calm.
"It isn't worth anything to me."
Celeste nodded.
"I understand."
She left.
Marcus waited until the door closed.
"She held something back."
"More than one thing."
"You caught the signature issue."
Grace nodded.
"She didn't just see my signature on a document."
"What makes you say that?"
"The way she answered."
Grace stood and looked out over the city.
"She knows what my real signature looks like because she saw me sign something in person."
Marcus considered that.
"What?"
"I don't know yet."
Grace's phone buzzed.
The unknown number again.
Rebecca didn't forge your name.
Grace read the message aloud.
Marcus moved beside her.
A second message appeared.
She notarized it, but she didn't write it.
Then a third.
If you want to know who did, look at the guest book from Vivian's charity gala on March 14.
Grace remembered the gala.
She had been seven months pregnant and left early because her feet were swollen.
Daniel had stayed behind.
Vivian had insisted guests sign a leather-bound book near the entrance.
Grace had written a short message beneath her name.
Thank you for supporting the children's wing.
She remembered Daniel standing behind her while she signed.
She remembered Vivian taking the pen afterward.
And she remembered Rebecca carrying the guest book away.
May you like
Grace turned to Marcus.
"Someone had a fresh sample of my handwriting."
