Chapter 7 - THE GOLDEN CHILD BREAKS THE RULES
Preston was sitting in the corner of the competitor lounge when I arrived, holding the flash drive like it might explode.
Eli and Ethan sat on either side of him.
Ms. Alvarez guarded the door.
No one spoke until Detective Ortiz entered behind me.
Then Preston stood.
“I took it from my mom’s tote.”
Ortiz held out an evidence bag. “Put it in here.”
He did.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Preston looked embarrassed.
“I went to get my charger. Her tote was in the family hospitality room. I saw a flash drive attached to her key ring.”
“That made you suspicious?”
“No.”
He swallowed.
“What made me suspicious was that she told me this morning she lost that key ring last week.”
Nathan, who had followed us in, closed his eyes briefly.
Preston saw him.
“Did you know?”
“No.”
“Stop saying that.”
Nathan looked at his son.
“I don’t know what’s on the drive.”
“You don’t know anything unless it helps you.”
“Preston.”
“No.”
The boy’s voice rose.
“I’m done being told to shut up because grown-ups are embarrassed.”
Nathan flinched.
I had never seen a teenager dismantle a family system so quickly.
Ortiz stepped between them.
“Preston, did you open the drive?”
“Yes.”
“On what device?”
“My laptop.”
“Did you copy anything?”
“No.”
“Email anything?”
“No.”
“Photograph the screen?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
Nathan swore softly.
Ortiz held out her hand. “Phone.”
Preston gave it to her.
“What did you see?” I asked.
Ortiz looked at me. “Let him answer.”
Preston rubbed his palms against his trousers.
“There were folders with names. Dad. Gregory. Richard Vale. Mara Ellis. Some companies I didn’t recognize.”
“What was in my folder?”
“Pictures.”
My stomach twisted.
“Of what?”
“You.”
He looked at Eli and Ethan.
“All three of you.”
The room went silent.
“How recent?” Ortiz asked.
“Some were old. Some weren’t.”
“How old?”
“One was Mom—Dr. Ellis—walking two little kids into a preschool.”
Eli’s face went blank.
Ethan whispered, “What?”
Preston continued.
“There were pictures outside your apartment. A grocery store. A graduation. A school parking lot.”
My hands began to shake.
“Graduation?”
“Your graduation, I think. You were wearing a doctoral hood.”
I remembered that day.
Eli and Ethan had been nine. Ms. Alvarez, who taught at the community college before moving to Eastwood, had attended with flowers. My sister flew in from Oregon. I spent most of the ceremony terrified one of the boys would get bored and yell something during the dean’s speech.
Someone had been watching us.
Nathan looked physically ill.
“I didn’t know.”
Ethan stood.
“Didn’t you?”
“No.”
“You had a guy investigate Mom three days ago.”
“That was different.”
“How?”
Nathan opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Ethan laughed bitterly. “Right.”
Ortiz’s phone buzzed. She stepped into the hall to answer.
The moment she left, Preston looked at me.
“There was another file.”
“What file?”
He glanced at Nathan.
“Support.”
Nathan went still.
“What was in it?” I asked.
Preston’s eyes filled with shame that did not belong to him.
“Copies of checks.”
I frowned.
“What checks?”
“Child support checks. Hundreds of them.”
“That’s impossible.”
“I saw your name.”
Nathan stared at him.
“Preston, listen to me. I sent support through the state system.”
“Not these.”
Nathan’s brow furrowed.
Preston continued.
“They looked like cashier’s checks. Some said ten thousand. Some fifteen. There was a spreadsheet with dates.”
My pulse hammered.
I had never received any such payments.
“What bank?” I asked.
“I don’t remember.”
Nathan moved closer.
“I sent additional support.”
I stared at him.
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“After the garnishment started. I didn’t want everything going through enforcement because—”
“Because it embarrassed you?”
He looked away.
“How much?”
“Over the years? Maybe two hundred thousand.”
The room tilted.
Eli stood.
“Mom?”
“I never got it.”
Nathan’s face changed from defensive to confused.
“I sent it.”
“To where?”
“The account Gregory gave me.”
I nearly laughed from disbelief.
“You sent child support through Gregory Halden?”
“He said your attorney set up a trust mechanism because you didn’t want direct payments.”
“I never had an attorney after the custody modification. I couldn’t afford one.”
Nathan stared at me.
For the first time, he seemed to understand the size of his own gullibility.
“I have receipts.”
“So do I.”
“My receipts show money leaving my accounts.”
“Mine show it never arriving.”
Ethan looked between us.
“So where did it go?”
No one answered.
Ortiz returned.
“We’ve located Celeste.”
“Where?” Nathan asked.
“Her attorney brought her to the downtown precinct.”
Nathan exhaled.
“She’s cooperating?”
“Not exactly.”
Ortiz looked at Preston.
“She reported the flash drive stolen.”
Preston’s face fell.
“What?”
“She claims it contains privileged legal material and that you took it without permission.”
“He’s sixteen,” I said.
“I’m aware.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened. “She called police on our son?”
Ortiz gave him a flat look. “Her attorney called. And no, we are not arresting a minor for picking up his mother’s key ring in a hospitality suite. But custody of the drive is now contested, so we’re obtaining a warrant before opening it.”
Preston looked relieved and devastated at the same time.
I glanced at the clock.
Four thirty.
The oral final began at six.
Three boys in this room were supposed to spend the next ninety minutes preparing to defend original ideas before a panel of university professors.
Instead, they were discovering financial crimes, surveillance files, and parental lies.
I made a decision.
“Enough.”
Everyone looked at me.
I pointed at Eli, Ethan, and Preston.
“You three are leaving this room.”
Nathan frowned. “Mara—”
“No. They are competitors, not witnesses right now unless Detective Ortiz says otherwise.”
Ortiz nodded slowly. “I have what I need for the moment.”
“Good. Then they eat. They prepare. They compete.”
Preston stared at me.
“How am I supposed to compete?”
“The same way you’ve been competing all day.”
“My mother might be involved in—”
“Yes.”
“My dad lied about—”
“Yes.”
“My whole family is—”
“Complicated.”
He laughed sharply. “That’s your word?”
“It’s the polite version.”
Despite himself, Ethan smiled.
I stepped closer to Preston.
“You do not owe your parents a collapse.”
He blinked.
“You do not have to fail because they failed you.”
His throat moved.
“And you do not have to win to prove you’re different from them either.”
That landed hardest.
Preston looked away.
I continued.
“For the next ninety minutes, your job is to be sixteen. Eat something. Read your notes. Argue with Eli about some obscure economic model. Let Ethan annoy you.”
“Hey,” Ethan said.
“You’re very good at it.”
“Fair.”
Preston’s mouth twitched.
Nathan watched all of us.
Something in his face broke quietly.
Maybe he saw what parenting looked like when it was not ownership.
Maybe he simply saw me comforting the child he had chosen while the children he abandoned stood beside him.
Either way, I could not save him from the sight.
Ms. Alvarez took the boys to a study room.
Nathan stayed behind.
When the door closed, he said, “You’re good with him.”
I stared at him.
“He’s a child.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He flinched.
I was too tired to enjoy it.
Nathan sat in a chair and covered his face.
“I thought I was protecting them.”
“Which ones?”
He looked up.
“All of them.”
“No. Try again.”
His jaw tightened.
“You don’t get to decide what I—”
“I watched you for seven years, Nathan. You protected yourself. Sometimes protecting yourself happened to benefit other people.”
He looked down.
“I left because Richard Vale told me Meridian would destroy you if I stayed.”
I froze.
“What?”
“He knew about the twins. He knew where we lived. He said if I cooperated and joined his side, you’d be left alone.”
“And you believed him?”
“At the time? Yes.”
“You could have told me.”
“He said if you knew anything, you became leverage.”
“So you made me ignorant instead.”
“I thought ignorance was safer.”
“And then you slept with his daughter.”
Nathan’s face twisted.
“That came later.”
“Does that make it better?”
“No.”
He spoke the word quietly.
“No, it makes it worse.”
For once, he did not defend himself.
I sat across from him.
“Did you love Celeste?”
He looked surprised.
“I did.”
“Do you now?”
He stared through the glass wall toward the ballroom.
“I don’t know who she is right now.”
The answer should have satisfied something bitter in me.
It didn’t.
Because revenge was less interesting when the person you hated finally looked miserable.
It did not return thirteen years.
It did not erase my sons waiting at the dinosaur-covered window.
It did not make the rent easier to pay.
Ortiz returned with another update.
Her expression was grim.
“We have a warrant for the flash drive.”
Nathan stood.
“Already?”
“Cybercrime unit expedited because the championship system may have been compromised.”
She looked at me.
“We also traced one of those alleged child-support cashier’s checks.”
My stomach tightened.
“To where?”
“A trust account controlled by Vale Educational Charities.”
Nathan swore.
Ortiz continued.
“The endorsement line lists your name, Dr. Ellis.”
“I never signed it.”
“I believe you.”
“Why?”
“Because the signature doesn’t match your signature on your driver’s-license record.”
Nathan went pale.
“So someone forged it.”
“Yes.”
“How many checks?” I asked.
“We don’t know yet.”
Ortiz looked at Nathan.
“But if what you’re saying is accurate, someone may have spent years diverting money intended for your children.”
Nathan sat down heavily.
For once, his outrage was not about his reputation.
It was about them.
“Who?” he whispered.
Ortiz’s phone chimed.
She checked it.
Then she looked at us.
“The drive just opened.”
My heart started pounding.
“And?”
“There’s a spreadsheet tracking payments, surveillance expenses, legal fees, and something labeled containment.”
Nathan’s face went blank.
“What does containment mean?”
Ortiz looked directly at him.
“According to the notes attached to your family’s file?”
May you like
She paused.
“Keeping Mara Ellis financially unstable enough that she wouldn’t investigate Meridian.”
