Celeste Files: Unlocked

by Kristine Mason

  “Don’t lie to me,” Kelly shouted.

  Olivia stopped moving and started to cry. “Hush up,” Kelly said, and bounced Olivia on her right hip, likely to quiet her. Celeste knew from experience that never worked, and she just hoped to God Olivia reacted the way she had in the past. Otherwise, she didn’t know how the hell she’d stop Kelly from harming Olivia.

  “Talk to me, Celeste. Who else knows? Did you tell the detectives? Does your husband know?”

  “No,” Celeste cried. “I swear, I never thought you killed your mom or Tracy. Never once did the thought enter my mind.”

  “But you suspected my mother was murdered?”

  Olivia bawled. Her chubby face became red and tear-soaked. She tugged at Kelly’s hair and slapped at her face.

  “Bad girl,” Kelly scolded Olivia, but continued to bounce her. “Stop that.” She pulled her head away, but couldn’t prevent Olivia from yanking on her hair.

  Celeste slowly rose to her feet, eyeing her cell phone, which sat on the kitchen island. “Put my daughter down and get out of my house. If you go now, I won’t call the police.”

  “Bullshit. If the situation were reversed, I’d kill you for laying a hand on Avery.”

  Kelly had no idea how much Celeste wanted to hurt her. She wanted to smash the woman’s head against the granite countertop for threatening her baby. “I’m not like you. Now put her down.”

  “I don’t think so. Unfortunately, there’s only one solution as I see it, and it doesn’t involve me going to the police with a confession. There’s no way I’m going to prison. Since Dale killed himself last night, who would raise Avery?”

  “Dale killed himself?”

  “Poor guy was so devastated that he got caught cheating, he couldn’t live with the guilt.” Kelly shrugged. “So, he hung himself.”

  Celeste shook her head. “You murdered him.”

  “No, I encouraged him.” Kelly kissed Olivia’s head. “Just like I’m going to encourage you. Now, here’s how we’re going to do this. You’re going to take a knife and slit your wrists. If you don’t, I’ll stab Olivia. Since I do love babies, I promise not to kill yours, as long as you kill yourself. Sound like a plan?”

  “Not a good one,” she said, searching the kitchen for a way to save her child.

  “Too bad. It looks like I’m calling the shots. Get a knife and start cutting.” Kelly scrunched her right shoulder. “Bad girl,” she yelled at Olivia, who kept wriggling in Kelly’s arm and pulling at the woman’s hair.

  Deciding that she’d rather be armed than vulnerable, she cautiously moved toward the knife drawer. Her daughter’s cries had grown hoarse. Celeste’s throat tightened with the urge to cry right along with her. She hated Kelly, hated the fear, the way the woman used Olivia to threaten her. “I’ll do it.” Her breath caught on a sob. She’d die for her child, but had no intention of allowing that to happen today. “Just put Olivia down,” she said, opened the drawer, then pulled out a steak knife.

  Kelly shook her head. Not much since Olivia had refused to let go of her hair. “Come on. Cut your fucking wrists,” Kelly shouted over Olivia’s cries. “Hurry before I lose my—”

  Olivia vomited all over Kelly’s shoulder and neck. Kelly swore and turned her head away.

  Celeste lunged and stabbed the knife into Kelly’s left arm. The woman dropped Olivia. Celeste quickly caught her before she hit the kitchen floor, then released her as Kelly attacked. Kelly sliced the knife through the air, missing Celeste.

  Celeste kicked Kelly in the knee. When the woman’s leg buckled, Celeste kicked again, connecting with Kelly’s stomach. Hatred, rage and vengeance blurred her vision. She grabbed the coffee pot off the counter and swung it at Kelly’s head. Glass shattered. The knife fell from Kelly’s hand and she dropped to the floor.

  Olivia’s cries penetrated the haze of rage. Her heart beating fast, her breath coming in short spurts, she knocked the knife out of Kelly’s reach, then rushed to her baby and scooped her in her arms. She set the steak knife on the kitchen island long enough to call 911, then picked it back up again. Instinct told her to run from the condo, or lock herself and Olivia in the bedroom. But she didn’t want to let Kelly out of her sight, not until she was handcuffed and in police custody.

  Minutes ticked by. Olivia had stopped crying and now clung to her neck. Her little body was sweaty and warm, and Celeste couldn’t wait to remove her daughter’s vomit-stained clothes and wipe her down with a cool washcloth.

  Kelly shifted. Her eyes fluttered open, and she released a harsh groan. “Celeste, help me.” Blood dripped from the stab wound on her arm as she reached up to touch her head. She winced when her fingers grazed the gash left by the coffee pot. “You have to help me. I can’t go to jail. My baby…Avery needs me. I’m so sorry.” Tears filled her eyes. “You know I would’ve never hurt Olivia. I was scared and—”

  “Were you scared when you murdered your own mother?” Celeste asked, and waved the knife. “Or how about when you held Tracy under the water until she drowned?”

  “You don’t understand,” she wailed. “I wasn’t lying. I needed the money to leave Dale.”

  “Now you’ll need it to hire a good defense attorney.”

  Kelly narrowed her eyes and pushed up on her elbow. “Bitch. I should’ve killed—”

  Celeste quickly crossed the room, then kicked the woman in the head. Satisfied she was out cold, Celeste kissed Olivia’s sweaty forehead. “I’m sorry you had to see that.” She set the knife on the island, then tapped her daughter’s little nose. “But Mommy wasn’t in the mood to talk to that bad woman anymore.”

  Chapter 14

  Two days later…

  “WHAT DO YOU think?” Celeste asked John, as he parked in front of Maxine’s house.

  He killed the ignition. “Beautiful. Too bad it’s haunted.” John stepped out of the car, then opened the rear driver’s side door to take Olivia out of her car seat. “I hope whatever Maxine has in store for us doesn’t have anything to do with a séance or a Ouija board.”

  She grinned and grabbed Olivia’s diaper bag. “Would you stop? And please don’t say anything to Maxine about her ghosts.”

  “I won’t. But it is kind of creepy. Think about it. You’re taking a shower or going to the bathroom, and there could be someone watching you.”

  She rolled her eyes and knocked on the front door. “Thanks for planting that thought in my head. Now I won’t be able to use Maxine’s bathroom.”

  He chuckled. “Glad I can help,” he said, as Maxine opened the door.

  Maxine quickly pulled Celeste in for a big hug. “Oh, darling, I was so worried about you.”

  “I’m just glad it’s over.” The moment the police removed Kelly from her condo, the stress and exhaustion that had weighed Celeste down had disappeared. Until Kelly was arrested, Celeste hadn’t realized how much the visions had drained her, as if the black mass she kept seeing had been sucking the life from her.

  “Me, too,” John said, drawing Maxine’s attention to him.

  The older woman turned and stared at John. “Well, aren’t you handsome.”

  John’s cheeks and ears reddened as he looked to the floor. “Thank you, ma’am.”

  “None of this ma’am nonsense, call me Maxine,” she said, and took Olivia from his arms. “And you are just too cute for words.” She cuddled Olivia and kissed her cheek.

  To Celeste’s surprise, Olivia hugged Maxine back. Normally, her daughter didn’t take to strangers. When Olivia leaned back, she gazed at Maxine, her blue eyes strangely thoughtful for a fourteen-month-old.

  “You are something special,” Maxine said, never taking her eyes from Olivia’s. Then she smiled, and looked to Celeste and John. “Lunch is ready. Come into the kitchen and tell me everything that’s been happening.”

  Although Celeste wanted to ask Maxine what she’d meant when she’d called Olivia special, she decided to wait until she was alone with her. If she saw…something in her daughter, she
’d rather John not know just yet. As it was, he still had a hard time coming to terms with how a killer had threatened their baby with a knife.

  Celeste hung their coats in the closet. “I thought you wanted me to cook?”

  “Another time. But don’t worry. I won’t be subjecting you to my cooking. I ordered in.”

  Once they were in the kitchen and seated for lunch, Celeste took Olivia from Maxine and sat her on her lap. “As you know, Kelly was arrested,” she said, and dug into her diaper bag for Olivia’s Sippy cup and snack.

  Maxine poured wine into John’s glass. “Thank God. I just hope they have enough evidence to convict her.”

  “They do,” Celeste said. “Sandra’s autopsy revealed that she did die from an overdose—so nothing new there. But when they examined her body, they found a slight chafing along her wrists, confirming she’d been tied to the office chair. What was more damning was the morphine itself. They found empty vials of the drug in the dumpster behind Kelly’s townhouse—with Kelly’s fingerprints on the vials.”

  “How did she get the morphine?” Maxine asked, and, after she finished pouring wine for everyone, took a seat.

  “She ordered it online.” John picked up his glass. “Kelly bought a Visa gift card to place the order, and had the morphine delivered to a PO Box.”

  “Which was dumb because the PO Box was in her name.” Celeste sat Olivia on the floor and handed her a toy from the diaper bag. “The Milwaukee police also found Kelly’s partial fingerprint in Tracy Saunders’ bathroom, along with a foreign hair. They’re waiting on DNA results, but they believe it also belongs to Kelly.”

  “Were they able to find out why she did it?” Maxine asked. “Money seems to be the obvious motivator, but to kill her dying mother?”

  Celeste snagged a roll from the basket at the center of the table. “Kelly tried to give me some BS story about needing the money to leave her husband. The police never found any evidence that Kelly planned to divorce Dale. And, unfortunately, other than what Kelly confessed to me, there’s no evidence that she murdered her husband. The detectives told George it looked like Dale hung himself. But they suspect she somehow coerced him into taking his own life.”

  “That would fit with her MO,” John said. “She tried to make each murder look like a suicide.”

  Celeste reached for the butter. “If she hadn’t killed Tracy, she could have probably gotten away with her mom’s murder.”

  “If you hadn’t had a vision about Sandra, it might’ve taken the police a while to connect Tracy back to her mother.” John lifted his glass. “Sandra’s body would have been cremated, and the vials of morphine Kelly tossed into the dumpster would’ve ended up in a landfill. You did right by those women. I’m proud of you.”

  “Thank you,” she said, her cheeks warming from her husband’s compliment. “Anyway, after Kelly’s arrest, and the detectives dug into her and Dale’s credit and bank statements, they did discover that Kelly and Dale were about eighty thousand dollars in debt. She was using credit cards to pay for insurance, car payments, food, pretty much everything.”

  Maxine frowned. “I don’t understand. They both worked. How could they have that much debt?”

  She shrugged. “Think about it. All of their income was going to pay the mortgage and the minimum credit card payments. She got in over her head, figured she’d get her inheritance early and make the debt go away.”

  “So two women died over another woman’s greed.”

  “Or desperation,” John suggested. “The police aren’t sure how Kelly found out about Tracy, but it’s clear she worried her half-sister would get too much of the inheritance.”

  “Exactly.” Celeste said. “And now she’ll get nothing, once she’s convicted.”

  Olivia squealed and clapped her toys together.

  Maxine smiled and looked to Olivia. “Sounds like someone likes that idea. I know I do.”

  “Same here.” Celeste glanced down at her daughter. “When I talked with George this morning, he said Lea went to see Kelly yesterday. The detectives told him she was furious with Kelly. Lea made it clear Kelly was dead to her, and that Avery would never know Kelly existed. Since Dale is dead, Lea’s adopting Avery. She’s also working with Sandra’s attorney to make sure what would’ve been Kelly’s inheritance is placed in trust for Avery.” She shook her head. “In the short months I’ve known Kelly, she made it sound like she was constantly at her mom’s. Turns out, Kelly rarely visited, and Lea was the one who helped Sandra when her nurse couldn’t. After Lea spoke to Kelly, she told the detectives that Kelly and Dale were always asking Sandra for money, and almost always denied. Sandra believed you needed to learn from your mistakes. Apparently credit card debt was one mistake Kelly has repeated her entire adult life.”

  “Murder to pay off credit cards.” Maxine set her fork on the table and picked up her glass. “That woman is beyond despicable.”

  Although memories of the black malevolent mass had already begun to fade, Celeste couldn’t agree more. She glanced down at Olivia, who played quietly on the floor. Seeing a knife held near her daughter was one memory that would not fade. “She’s more than despicable. She killed three people, attempted to kill me and threatened my daughter. She’s an evil woman who deserves to rot in prison for the rest of her life.”

  John cleared his throat and stood, then went to Olivia and lifted her in his arms.

  Celeste blinked back the tears. John had been both furious and devastated when he’d arrived home and discovered what had happened. She’d thought he would blow up at her, blame her psychic gift for nearly killing both her and Olivia. Instead, he’d held her and Olivia, then had called Ian and cancelled his trip to Michigan. He hadn’t let either of them out of his sight since.

  Which was starting to drive her a bit crazy. She and Olivia both needed to put what happened with Kelly behind them. Olivia wouldn’t remember, and while she would, Celeste missed her routine and wanted normalcy. She also wanted to resume working on her psychic skills with Maxine. With as powerful as the visions and trances had been this past week, neither she, nor John, could pretend this was a fluke. In her gut, she knew more visions would come. The question remained…could she learn to control them?

  “John,” Maxine began, “how are you dealing with what happened at your home?”

  “I’m fine.”

  Maxine smiled. “It doesn’t take a psychic to know when someone is lying. I, personally, wouldn’t have been fine with any of it.”

  “You’re not helping,” Celeste said.

  “I’d like to.” Maxine set her napkin on the table and stood. She touched John’s arm. “You know Celeste is special.”

  He looked at Celeste, his dark-brown eyes holding love. “Of course.”

  “Olivia is, too.”

  He closed his eyes and pressed his cheek against their daughters golden curls. “You think she’s like Celeste?”

  “I wasn’t sure until I held her.”

  John opened his eyes and stared at Maxine. “Meaning?”

  “I believe she’s an old soul. Mother and daughter have been together for years. Time will tell if Olivia’s gift will be as strong as Celeste’s, but don’t you want to ensure that your daughter has the proper guidance, should that be the case?”

  “I told Celeste to meet with you as much as she needed,” he said, his tone defensive. “I married Celeste knowing she was psychic. It never occurred to me Olivia could be, only because Celeste hasn’t had a vision since she moved to Chicago.”

  “Does this mean you’re willing to open your mind and home to other possibilities?” Maxine asked. “Even if there’s no logic or proper science involved?”

  John continued to hold Celeste’s gaze. “I love my wife and daughter. I couldn’t live without them.”

  Celeste used her napkin to wipe the tears from her cheek. She quickly stood, then rushed to John and Olivia, and hugged them. The doorbell rang as John embraced her with his free arm.

  “
Remember what I said about opening your mind and home to other possibilities,” Maxine said, as she moved past them.

  John kissed Celeste’s cheek. “What do you think she’s talking about?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Dog,” Olivia said.

  Stunned, she looked to John. “Did she just say ‘dog’?” Olivia’s vocabulary consisted of Mama and Dada, and everything else was babble.

  “Sure sounded like it. Has she ever—”

  “Dog,” Olivia repeated, and pointed a finger over John’s shoulder.

  They both turned, just as Maxine and a man, leading an adorable black Lab, made their way into the kitchen.

  Olivia wriggled in John’s arms. “Dog,” she said louder.

  “It’s okay,” the man said. “Ruth’s a good girl and well-trained.”

  John set Olivia on the floor and held their daughter’s hand toward the dog. She giggled when Ruth licked her hand.

  “This is Jim Compton. He trains service dogs,” Maxine said.

  “You mean like Seeing Eye dogs?” Celeste asked.

  “Yes,” Jim said. “Only Ruth is special. She’s trained to detect seizures.”

  Celeste looked to Maxine, who shrugged. “Jim has trained Ruth to be a companion to people with epilepsy. She will detect a change in her person fifteen to thirty minutes before a seizure. I know you’re not prone to seizures, but I spoke to Jim about what you do experience.”

  “That’s right,” Jim said. “Ruth’s trained to detect abnormal electro-magnetic energy changes. She knows the difference between normal and abnormal movement and can even hear changes in her owner’s breathing patterns.”

  “Are you telling us that this dog would know when Celeste is slipping into a trance?” John asked.

  “I’m telling you what she can do for epileptic patients,” Jim said. “Based on what Maxine described, I don’t see why Ruth couldn’t detect a shift in Celeste. I’ll be honest, this will require a bit of training for all of you. But once we get Ruth acclimated to Celeste, we’ll find out for sure if she’ll be suitable for your family.”