Chapter 15 - Midnight Deadline
The list wasn't a murder schedule.
At least not exactly.
Torres's team discovered the dates matched planned "events": scandals, accidents, financial exposures, disappearances.
Daniel's event was scheduled for 11:30 p.m.
The note beside his name read: Garage. Carbon monoxide. Make it grief.
Rachel stared at it. "They were going to make his death look like suicide after Lily died."
Torres nodded. "And yours was two days later."
Rachel's line read: Pills. Postpartum depression narrative.
Daniel felt physically ill.
It was not enough to kill them. Celeste wanted to rewrite them.
A dead baby from a careless mother. A grieving father who took his own life. A broken young widow who followed him.
Then Celeste would stand before cameras in black and talk about tragedy.
"She planned our funerals like public relations," Rachel said.
Henry's date corresponded to a scheduled flight to Switzerland. Nora's matched the night of the boathouse fire.
"Loose ends," Torres said.
At 10:45 p.m., police secretly wired Daniel's garage.
If the conspirators believed the plan was still active, someone might show.
Daniel sat in a dark SUV across the property with Torres.
Rachel and Lily were under guard at a hotel.
At 11:26, the garage side door opened.
A man wearing an Ashbourne security jacket stepped inside.
Daniel recognized him as Paul Gentry, Celeste's personal driver.
Paul connected a hose to the exhaust of Daniel's vintage Jaguar and fed it through the driver's window.
Police moved in.
Paul surrendered immediately.
"I didn't have a choice," he said.
Torres looked disgusted. "Everyone has a choice."
Paul started talking before they even put him in the car.
Celeste had paid him for years to follow Daniel and Rachel. Robert gave him orders. Henry moved money. Martin cleaned up records.
"Who else?" Daniel asked.
Paul hesitated.
"There was one more person."
"Name."
"I never met them. Only heard Celeste call them 'the judge.'"
Torres exchanged a look with Daniel.
Then her phone rang.
She listened, said nothing, and ended the call.
"Celeste just made bail."
Daniel stared at her.
"How?"
May you like
Torres's face hardened.
"A judge signed the order."
