Chapter 4 - CELESTE’S BADGE
Celeste laughed.
It was the wrong sound.
Too bright. Too fast. Too practiced.
“My badge?” she said. “That’s ridiculous.”
Grace Kim did not blink. “The device was checked out at 6:12 this morning using your donor credential.”
“I have assistants.”
“Then give us their names.”
Celeste looked at Nathan.
He did not rescue her.
That surprised me more than anything else.
For thirteen years, I had imagined them as a unit. Nathan-and-Celeste. The shiny family on foundation brochures. The couple photographed at galas, ribbon cuttings, university dinners, hospital fundraisers. In my mind, their betrayal had hardened into a single shape.
But up close, under pressure, they were not a unit.
They were two people checking which one might become the other’s lifeboat.
“I don’t remember who picked it up,” Celeste said.
Grace’s voice remained calm. “You signed the electronic release.”
“I sign dozens of things.”
“Facial verification was used.”
Celeste’s mouth closed.
Nathan turned toward her slowly.
“You told me Gregory handled registration.”
“He did.”
“Then why did you check out his device?”
“I didn’t.”
“You just said an assistant might have.”
“I said I sign things.”
“You also said Gregory handled it.”
Her eyes flashed. “Whose side are you on?”
The question was so revealing that even Nathan seemed stunned.
Rebecca Sloan intervened.
“This is not about sides. The device is evidence in an active integrity inquiry. Mrs. Crowe, we need your cooperation.”
Celeste crossed her arms. “I want our attorney.”
Grace nodded. “That is your right.”
Nathan looked around. “And the competition?”
Rebecca’s expression sharpened. “Continues.”
“Preston is being dragged into this.”
“So are two other minors,” I said.
Nathan looked at me.
He almost snapped back, then glanced at Eli and Ethan.
For once, he seemed to remember they were his children before his enemies.
Or maybe I only wanted to believe that.
Security escorted Nathan and Celeste to separate waiting rooms.
Preston stood alone in the lobby.
No one seemed to know what to do with him.
His school coach hovered several feet away, clearly uncertain whether to approach.
The boy stared at the floor.
Ethan nudged Eli.
They exchanged one of those silent twin conversations that still irritated me because I could never decode them.
Then Ethan walked toward Preston.
I almost stopped him.
I didn’t.
“What?” Preston asked defensively.
Ethan held out a granola bar.
Preston stared at it.
“Seriously?”
“My mom packs like we’re crossing the Andes.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Cool.” Ethan put it on the chair beside him. “Then don’t eat it.”
He walked away.
Five minutes later, Preston picked it up.
I pretended not to notice.
The second event was research synthesis.
Students were given a packet containing conflicting data sources on water allocation, agricultural output, municipal growth, and environmental constraints. They had forty minutes to produce a written policy analysis and ten minutes to defend it before a panel.
Eli loved problems like that.
He believed every system was a puzzle if you were patient enough to identify what everyone else had assumed.
Ethan preferred pure mathematics, but he had a gift for spotting contradictions.
Preston was known for debate.
For the first time all day, the competition became what it was supposed to be.
Three brilliant boys doing difficult work.
No parents in the room.
No foundation money.
No family mythology.
Only questions and answers.
Because I remained recused, I watched the live scoring feed in a monitoring room with Omar. Competitor names were masked by number.
“Candidate 114 just challenged the prompt,” he said.
I looked at the screen.
One student had written: SOURCE C USES A POPULATION BASELINE INCONSISTENT WITH SOURCE A. COMPARISON INVALID WITHOUT NORMALIZATION.
I smiled.
“That’s Eli.”
Omar looked at me. “You’re sure?”
“He once sent a three-paragraph email to a cereal company because their serving-size chart used two different cup measurements.”
Omar stared.
“He was eleven.”
“That is terrifying.”
“Parenting him is humbling.”
The anonymous scores began posting.
114 — 97.
209 — 95.
331 — 93.
Others followed.
I did not know which number belonged to Ethan or Preston.
I was grateful for that.
Outside the room, however, the investigation was getting worse.
Omar received a message and swore under his breath.
“What?”
He turned his laptop toward me.
The access logs showed Gregory’s guest device had connected to the restricted camera controls at 7:49 a.m.
But the device itself had never entered the east hallway.
“How?” I asked.
“Remote session.”
“From where?”
He typed.
“Hotel network.”
“The Whitmore?”
“Yes.”
“Room?”
“Network doesn’t show room number at this layer. Hotel security can map it.”
My stomach tightened.
The championship occupied floors two through five of the convention complex, but the Whitmore Hotel tower above it had hundreds of rooms.
“Could Halden have done it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Could Celeste?”
“Yes.”
“Nathan?”
“Yes.”
“Helpful.”
Omar shrugged. “Computers are good at telling you what happened. Less good at telling you which liar held the mouse.”
My phone buzzed again.
Another unknown text.
YOU’RE ENJOYING THIS TOO MUCH.
Then:
ASK NATHAN WHAT HE DID IN 2011.
I stared at the screen.
2011.
The year before Nathan left us.
I showed Omar.
He photographed the messages and forwarded the metadata to Grace.
“Same number?”
“Yes.”
“Likely spoofed.”
“What happened in 2011?”
“I have no idea.”
That was not entirely true.
Something had happened.
I just did not know what it meant.
Nathan had been different that year.
He worked in financial operations for a regional education-services company called Meridian Learning Group. He came home late. Took calls outside. Started carrying cash, which he had never done before. Once I found him burning papers in the grill behind our building.
When I asked, he said they were old client drafts.
I believed him because our babies had ear infections and I had not slept four consecutive hours in months.
Then Meridian collapsed in a fraud investigation.
Nathan claimed he had left before anything illegal happened.
A year later, he left me.
I had never connected the two events because Celeste seemed like the explanation for everything.
Maybe she wasn’t.
Maybe she was only the most obvious betrayal.
The research round ended at noon.
Scores were released twenty minutes later.
Eli placed first.
Preston placed second.
Ethan placed fourth.
Combined with qualifying scores, Eli moved into first overall, Preston second, Ethan third.
When the leaderboard illuminated in the lobby, the room erupted.
Ms. Alvarez screamed.
Actually screamed.
Eli covered his face.
Ethan grabbed his brother around the neck and shouted, “Cereal chart justice!”
I laughed so hard I nearly cried.
Then Nathan came out of the private waiting room.
He saw the board.
His eyes went immediately to PRESTON CROWE — 2.
Then to ELI ELLIS — 1.
Then ETHAN ELLIS — 3.
He stood perfectly still.
There they were.
All three of his sons.
Three names in the top three positions.
The lobby around him began to murmur.
Some people had learned the family connection.
Others were learning it now.
A reporter whispered to her cameraman.
Nathan looked at me.
For once, there was no anger in his face.
Only something harder to watch.
Loss.
Not because Preston was second.
Because Nathan suddenly understood how much brilliance had grown without him.
He walked toward Eli.
“Congratulations.”
Eli looked at him.
“Thanks.”
“You were excellent.”
“I know.”
Nathan almost smiled.
“That confidence must come from me.”
Eli’s expression did not change.
“No. Mom made us practice saying what we’re good at without apologizing.”
Nathan’s smile disappeared.
Ethan muttered, “That was rough.”
Eli elbowed him.
Then Preston approached.
Nathan turned immediately.
“Second is strong. The final oral round has a higher weight. You can still—”
“Stop.”
Nathan blinked.
Preston’s voice shook, but he held it steady.
“I don’t want you coaching me.”
“I’m not coaching.”
“You’re calculating.”
“Preston—”
“I got a ninety-five.”
Nathan frowned, confused.
“I know.”
“I got a ninety-five on one of the hardest rounds in the state.”
“Yes, and—”
“And you didn’t say good job. You told me how to get first.”
The words hit everyone close enough to hear.
Nathan opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
Preston laughed bitterly.
“Do you even like me when I’m not winning?”
Celeste’s voice came from behind him.
“Preston, don’t be dramatic.”
He spun around.
She had returned with an attorney I recognized from Blackwell & Pierce, one of the most expensive firms in the city.
“You too,” Preston said.
Celeste stopped.
“You tell everyone I’m gifted like you ordered me from a catalog.”
Her face tightened. “We have sacrificed everything for you.”
“No. You invested in me.”
The distinction was brutal.
Preston walked away.
No one followed him.
I waited three seconds.
Then I looked at my sons.
Eli nodded once.
I went after him.
I found Preston in a service corridor near the ballroom, sitting on a folded banquet table with his face in his hands.
I stayed ten feet away.
“I’m not here to talk about your parents.”
He looked up.
“Then why are you here?”
“Because you’re sixteen and alone in a hallway after a terrible morning.”
He stared at me.
“You hate me.”
“No.”
“You hate my mom.”
“That’s more complicated.”
“My dad left you for her.”
“Yes.”
“And left them.” He nodded toward the ballroom. “For me.”
“No.”
He looked confused.
I stepped closer.
“Nathan left because Nathan made a choice. You were a baby. You are not responsible for an adult man abandoning his children.”
His eyes filled.
“My whole life they said you were unstable.”
I was not surprised.
Still, hearing it hurt.
“What else?”
“That you tried to ruin Dad. That you kept the twins away because you wanted money.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because child support had arrived so inconsistently that I kept a spreadsheet titled MAYBE MONEY.
“I never kept them away.”
“He said you moved without telling him.”
“I moved six blocks. The court had the address. His attorney had the address. The school had the address.”
Preston looked sick.
“He said he fought for visitation.”
“He signed a waiver.”
“Do you have it?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because when someone keeps rewriting your life, you learn to keep documents.”
He looked down.
Then he said something I did not expect.
“Can I see it?”
Before I could answer, Grace Kim appeared around the corner.
Her expression told me the day had found another cliff.
“Dr. Ellis.”
I stood.
“What now?”
“We got the hotel mapping on the remote camera session.”
My pulse quickened.
“Which room?”
Grace looked at Preston.
Then back at me.
“Suite 1814.”
Preston went white.
I understood immediately.
“That’s their suite?”
He nodded.
Grace continued.
“The connection was made at 7:49 a.m. using the Crowes’ private hotel network login.”
I looked toward the lobby where Nathan and Celeste waited with their attorney.
The exam page had not been planted by some stranger wandering the convention center.
May you like
The sabotage had come from inside their room.
And one of them had just spent the morning pretending to be shocked.
