Chapter 5 - THE PRICE OF KEEPING UP APPEARANCES
Owen Pike did not offer an explanation over text, and when Claire Donovan called the number the following morning, he asked to speak through an attorney because he feared losing his license if his role at Wren Mill became public.
Claire told him that the investigation could not promise immunity or secrecy, but truthful records would be more useful than rumors, and after several hours Owen agreed to provide invoices and correspondence through his lawyer.
Evelyn listened to the update from her living room, where Tessa had arranged a temporary workspace on the ground floor so she would not need to confront her own staircase while recovering.
She resented the wheelchair parked beside the sofa, though she was also grateful for its freedom, and she hated that Celeste's act had returned her to the helplessness she had fought through after the first injury.
Tessa noticed her staring at the stairs and quietly moved the company files to a lower shelf, making no comment because she understood the difference between offering practical help and treating Evelyn as fragile.
Jonah Price arrived with a forensic ledger that identified seven suspect payments over nine months, including the three recently discovered Aster charges and four older transactions routed through a consulting company called Briarwick Facilities.
Together, the payments totaled $286,900 before the wedding charge, with descriptions referring to emergency inspections, temporary site equipment, and documentation services that Meridian had never commissioned.
Several invoices included Richard's digital approval initials; others had been processed through an unauthorized administrator account, and the company's external auditor was now reviewing whether the money had gone to legitimate suppliers or related parties.
“Please don't tell me every charge is theft before we know,” Evelyn said, pressing her fingers against the ledger. “Our employees deserve facts, not another Mercer family performance.”
Jonah agreed, then pointed to an account belonging to Elm Ridge Development that had received transfers from Briarwick within days of the suspect Meridian payments.
Those transfers created a possible financial trail, but he emphasized that the bank and investigators would need to confirm ownership and determine whether the movements involved legitimate debts or deceptive billing.
Evelyn considered the numbers in silence, remembering the anxious subcontractors waiting for payment at Wren Mill and the overtime she had personally funded to keep Meridian's technicians employed after the accident.
Her father had called her cruel for refusing his loan request, even while he was apparently constructing a system that could take money without her approval.
Daniel visited that afternoon carrying a worn blue notebook Evelyn recognized from an engagement dinner months earlier, when Celeste had asked guests to write memories they wanted the couple to preserve.
He explained that he had spent the morning canceling nonessential arrangements and speaking with wedding vendors, several of whom were frightened they might be blamed for accepting payment in good faith.
Aster Event Holdings had legitimately processed the wedding deposits, he said, but its account manager believed Meridian was an approved corporate sponsor because she had received signed documents asserting that connection.
The signature belonged to the same outdated version of Evelyn's name, and a scan of her old passport had been attached as identification, copied from a family travel folder Patricia kept at home.
Daniel admitted that Celeste had described Evelyn as controlling and jealous, especially whenever he praised her engineering work or asked how she managed a company through difficult years.
“I thought I was being loyal by staying out of your disagreements,” he said, looking down at his hands. “But I never asked why loyalty always meant accepting her version.”
Evelyn told him she did not need another apology for failing to predict the future; she needed him to remember conversations accurately and resist the temptation to punish Celeste with guesses he could not prove.
Their conversation was interrupted by a call from Daniel's mother, who wanted to know whether the wedding could somehow proceed quietly once the immediate embarrassment subsided.
Daniel turned the speaker off and replied that the ceremony was canceled, because marriage required trust he no longer possessed and because an injured person's safety mattered more than a paid deposit.
He sounded devastated rather than triumphant, and Evelyn realized the betrayal had stolen his imagined future as surely as it had stolen her sense of safety inside her own family.
That evening, Celeste arrived at the house without warning, carrying a box of photographs from their childhood and wearing jeans instead of the rehearsal dress that had become infamous in her imagination.
Tessa met her at the door and told her Evelyn was not available for an unplanned visit, but Celeste insisted they were sisters and no office colleague had the right to keep them apart.
Evelyn heard the argument and wheeled herself into the hallway, feeling every jolt in her leg while struggling not to show how badly her sister's presence frightened her.
Celeste began with tears and a trembling apology for the shove, then quickly shifted toward the familiar claim that Evelyn had always taken everything good from her without noticing.
“You had the company, Dad's respect, the big house, and everybody's admiration,” Celeste said. “I wanted one weekend that was mine.”
Evelyn looked at the photographs in the box, remembering birthdays and school plays and the afternoons she had spent helping Celeste prepare for exams, and understood how thoroughly her sister had rewritten their shared history.
“You could have had a beautiful wedding,” Evelyn answered. “You did not need my company card, and you did not need to push me down the stairs.”
Celeste begged her to tell the police the fall had been an accident, claiming a criminal record would destroy her career in public relations and prevent Daniel from ever speaking to her again.
Evelyn's hands grew cold on the wheelchair rims, because the request revealed that Celeste still valued the consequences to herself above the pain she had inflicted.
“No,” she said, her voice shaking despite her effort to remain calm. “I won't lie so you can keep believing nothing happened.”
Celeste left the photographs on the floor and walked out without another word, and Evelyn sat in the hallway long after the door closed, staring at a picture of two little girls holding the same red kite.
She finally picked up the photograph and placed it inside her desk, not as proof that the past excused the present, but as a reminder that grief could coexist with boundaries.
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The following morning, investigators contacted Claire with confirmation that Owen Pike's attorney had delivered an encrypted archive, and one document carried the subject line “Retain original stairwell report until funding clears.”
The sender was Richard Mercer, and the message was dated forty-six hours before Evelyn's first fall.
