said.
Celeste laughed once. “There it is. The tantrum.”
“Now.”
“You need help.” Celeste stepped closer. “You have needed help since Ivy died. Javier agrees with me.”
Lena’s stomach clenched at her ex-husband’s name.
Javier had not said Ivy’s name in over a year. At the funeral, he had stood beside Lena like a man waiting for a bus, checked his phone twice, and asked three days later if she was emotionally ready to discuss selling the house. When she refused, he accused her of punishing him for surviving.
Her phone vibrated in her coat pocket.
She took it out without taking her eyes off Celeste.
A message from Javier filled the screen.
Sign the psychiatric transfer consent before dinner. Make this easy.
Below it was a photograph of a document.
At the top was a hospital letterhead. Under it, in black type, were the words Emergency Mental Health Transfer Consent. Lena’s name appeared in three places.
At the bottom was her signature.
Forged.
It was close. Too close. Whoever had copied it had studied her mortgage records or tax forms, but they had missed the sharp slash she always made through the R in Ramirez.
Lena felt the room become very still.
Celeste watched her face.
“Who is that?” she asked.
Lena locked the phone and slid it into her pocket.
“Someone who just made a mistake.”
Celeste’s expression hardened. “Give me the phone.”
Tessa whispered, “Mom.”
The single word trembled.
Lena turned to her stepsister for the first time and really looked at her. Tessa’s eyes were not triumphant. They were scared. Her fingers gripped the underside of her belly as though holding herself together. Graham, beside her, had gone pale.
“What did you sign?” Lena asked Tessa.
Celeste snapped, “Do not answer that.”
Tessa flinched.
Lena softened her voice. “Tessa, what did Martin give you?”
“It was just support paperwork,” Tessa said. “Mom said Dad left money for the babies. She said we had to file before probate froze everything.”
“Did you give him your Social Security number?”
Tessa looked down.
Graham swore under his breath.
Celeste moved between them. “Enough. Lena, you are bleeding on the carpet. You are frightening your pregnant sister. You need to calm down before Javier gets here.”
There it was.
Before Javier gets here.
Lena’s mind moved quickly now. Javier with the forged psychiatric form. Celeste with the false trust claim. Martin with access to Tessa’s identity. Graham with paint samples before anyone had legal possession of the room. And the pressure point: Ivy. Destroy the keepsakes, provoke a reaction, record the breakdown, turn grief into evidence.
Lena smiled.
It was not a warm smile.
Celeste saw it and stepped back.
“What?” she demanded.
“Ivy’s monitor,” Lena said.
Celeste blinked.
“What about it?”
Lena looked at the small white camera still mounted above the nursery window. After Ivy died, she had unplugged the audio base downstairs but left the camera connected because she could not bear to take it down. Months later, after someone began moving things in the house, she had connected it to a cloud account used for field investigations.
“It records motion,” Lena said.
Graham’s paint card slipped from his hand.
Tessa covered her mouth.
Celeste recovered quickly. “Recording people in a private home without consent is illegal.”
