Chapter 3 - The Christmas Dinner Nobody Ate
The next morning Isaiah asked whether Christmas had been canceled.
Malcolm was sitting beside his bed, attempting to peel an orange without making a mess. "Christmas doesn't belong to Celeste."
"She said the decorations were hers."
"Then we'll find different decorations."
Isaiah considered this. "Can Aunt Renee bring the crooked star?"
"Absolutely."
Renee's crooked star had been made from cardboard and foil when Malcolm was twelve. Their mother had kept it until she died. Renee still put it on her tree every year, despite her children's complaints that it leaned sideways.
"And Odessa?" Isaiah asked.
"What about her?"
"She makes sweet potatoes like Mama did. Celeste said she couldn't eat with us because she's staff."
Malcolm set down the orange. "If Odessa wants to come, she can sit wherever she likes."
Isaiah looked relieved, then frightened. "Don't tell Celeste I asked."
"You don't have to protect me from her."
The boy stared at the blanket. "I was protecting Odessa."
Across town, Celeste hosted the Christmas luncheon she had refused to cancel. The dining room glittered with crystal, and a caterer carried trays past the empty chair where Isaiah should have sat. Celeste told guests he had suffered a minor playground accident.
Odessa heard the lie from the kitchen. She took off her apron, folded it, and placed it beside the sink.
Celeste found her there. "Where do you think you're going?"
"To see about that child."
"You're fired."
"Then I won't have to ask permission."
Celeste grabbed the apron. "You signed a confidentiality agreement."
Odessa looked her in the eye. "It doesn't make lying the truth."
She walked out the servants' entrance with her purse and a small tin of Christmas cookies she had baked for Isaiah.
Outside, a delivery driver called after her. "Ma'am, you dropped something."
He handed her a folded payroll statement. Odessa had found it in the laundry room that morning and forgotten it in her pocket. The statement listed her wages, then a recurring deduction labeled CHILD CARE SUPPORT.
Odessa had never agreed to such a deduction.
She photographed it and sent it to Dana, whose number Andre had given her.
Dana called within minutes. "Do you have older statements?"
"Six years' worth. I'm the kind of woman who keeps receipts."
"Please keep them safe."
"I already did."
At the hospital, Malcolm reviewed Simone's flash drive with Dana and a forensic specialist. The files included account ledgers, scanned invoices, and an audio memo Simone recorded for herself.
"I found the same vendor paid three times," Simone said in the recording. "The signature on the authorization looks like Malcolm's, but he was in Chicago that day. I need to tell him before the board meeting."
Malcolm covered his face. He had been in Chicago. He remembered calling Simone from the airport, telling her he'd be home by midnight.
The recording ended with a faint sound of a door opening.
"Who's there?" Simone asked.
Then a woman's voice said, "You weren't supposed to find that."
The file cut off.
The specialist warned that the voice required proper examination and could not be identified from one sentence. Malcolm agreed. He knew whom it reminded him of; that was not the same as proof.
Dana's phone rang. She listened, then put it on speaker.
It was the bank's fraud officer. A new withdrawal request had been submitted against Isaiah's education trust. The request claimed an emergency treatment expense at a private clinic.
"He's in a hospital covered by our insurance," Malcolm said.
"The request was blocked pending verification," the officer replied.
"Who submitted it?"
"The authorized guardian on file."
Malcolm knew Celeste had been added as an emergency contact. He had never knowingly authorized her to control the trust.
Dana asked for the documents. When they arrived, Malcolm stared at the signature at the bottom.
May you like
His name had been forged.
And the witness was the man who had been his closest friend since college: Julian Cross.
