Chapter 4 - THE LAST CHRISTMAS OF ELEANOR VALE
Gideon had spent two years trying not to remember his mother's final Christmas.
Eleanor Vale had died on December twenty-sixth after a sudden cardiac event.
She was sixty-one.
Healthy enough to ski.
Strong enough to argue with Gideon's father for hours.
And stubborn enough to refuse medical attention until she could no longer stand.
The death certificate listed natural causes.
Gideon had believed it.
He had needed to believe it.
Now Mara was telling him otherwise.
“Where did you hear that?” he asked.
“My father.”
“What evidence did he have?”
Mara hesitated.
“He found records showing someone had changed her medication delivery.”
Gideon went still.
His mother had taken medication for a heart condition.
A mild one.
Carefully monitored.
“Who changed it?”
“We don't know.”
“Then how can you say she was murdered?”
Mara's eyes filled.
“Because the changes weren't authorized by her doctor.”
Gideon sat down.
For the first time, he looked exhausted.
Mara continued.
“Your mother knew something was wrong. She told my father she was being watched.”
Gideon stared at the floor.
He remembered Eleanor's final phone call.
Don't marry Celeste.
He had laughed.
Mother, you haven't even met her properly.
I know enough.
He had told her she was being unreasonable.
Two days later, she was dead.
Gideon returned to Vale House that afternoon.
The ballroom had been cleared.
The shattered terrace door was boarded up.
The Christmas tree still stood beneath the chandelier.
But the house felt different.
Empty.
Accusing.
Nathan met him in the foyer.
“Police collected statements from the staff.”
“Where's Mrs. Pike?”
“Being questioned.”
“Celeste?”
“Her attorneys arranged an interview.”
Gideon nodded.
“Good.”
He climbed the stairs to his mother's old suite.
Nobody had occupied it since her death.
He had forbidden changes.
The room still smelled faintly of lavender.
Her books remained on the shelves.
A pair of reading glasses rested beside the bed.
Gideon opened the closet.
Inside were boxes of Christmas decorations.
He searched every one.
Red ornaments.
Silver bells.
Glass angels.
No blue star.
At the bottom of the last box, he found an envelope.
His name was written across the front.
In his mother's handwriting.
He opened it.
Inside was a single photograph.
Eleanor stood beside Thomas Whitlock in the estate conservatory.
Between them was a small blue glass star.
On the back, Eleanor had written:
The truth is safer with the person nobody notices.
Gideon stared at the words.
Then he looked toward the servants' corridor.
The person nobody notices.
A maid.
He called Nathan.
“Search every storage room. Every staff closet. Every locked cabinet.”
Nathan hesitated.
“What are we looking for?”
Gideon looked at the photograph.
“A blue Christmas star.”
Three hours later, Nathan called from the old greenhouse.
“We found something.”
Gideon hurried downstairs.
Nathan stood beside a wooden cabinet.
Inside was a velvet-lined box.
The lid had been forced open.
The box was empty.
But beneath it lay a white evening glove.
And embroidered on the cuff were two letters.
May you like
C.H.
Celeste Harrow.
