Chapter 3 - THE SHATTERED YELLOW MUG
“That’s ridiculous!” Celine’s voice cracked, her polished facade finally breaking. She reached across the table, making a desperate grab for the yellow tag, but Luca smoothly dropped it into his breast pocket.
“Is it?” Luca asked. “I’ve had my auditors looking for that routing number for three weeks. Two hundred thousand dollars vanished from the foundation. And now, Richard brings it straight to my dinner table, glued to the back of a woman’s apartment key.”
Martha looked at me, completely lost. “Claire, I don’t understand. I just bought that key tag at the hardware store today.”
I looked at the yellow tag in Luca’s pocket, and the ugly truth clicked into place.
“Martha didn’t put that routing number there,” I said, my heart hammering against my ribs. “Celine asked Martha for the spare key at noon today. She had it in her purse for six hours before she gave it to Richard tonight. Celine put the sticker on it.”
Richard’s face flushed a deep, angry purple. He turned on Celine. “You told me she was trying to hide marital assets! You said the account number on that key would prove she was embezzling from my firm!”
“Shut up, Richard!” Celine hissed, glancing around the room. The other guests were politely pretending not to notice, but the tension was suffocating.
Luca stood up from the table. He didn't yell. He didn't make a scene. He simply looked at the woman he was supposed to marry in three months with absolute disgust.
“My driver is bringing your car around, Celine,” Luca said. “You are leaving. We will discuss this in the presence of my attorneys tomorrow.”
Celine opened her mouth, her eyes welling with tears, but Luca had already turned his back to her. He looked at me.
“Claire, please take Martha to her new apartment. Use my private car out back. I don’t want Richard following her.”
Richard scoffed. “She’s my wife. She’s coming home.”
Luca stepped squarely into Richard’s personal space. He was a head taller and significantly broader. “If you follow them, Richard, I won’t just call the police. I will have my auditors pull every financial record your accounting firm has filed for the last ten years. Walk away.”
Richard’s jaw clenched. He stared at Martha, his eyes making a silent, terrifying promise, before he turned and stormed out of the dining room. Celine followed seconds later, her red gown swishing furiously behind her.
Martha slumped into her chair, covering her face with her hands. She was shaking uncontrollably.
“It’s okay,” I whispered, rubbing her shoulder. “He’s gone. You’re safe.”
Ten minutes later, we were in the back of Luca’s tinted SUV, gliding through the dark city streets. Martha clutched her purse to her chest the entire ride.
“Why would Celine do that?” Martha asked quietly. “Why would she frame me for stealing Luca’s money?”
“Because if Luca found the routing number on your key, he’d think you and Richard were the ones stealing from him,” I said, trying to piece the puzzle together. “She was using your marital drama as a smokescreen to hide her own theft.”
The SUV pulled up to the curb outside Martha’s new brick apartment building. It was modest, but it was supposed to be hers.
I walked her up the three flights of stairs. When we reached apartment 3B, I held out my hand. “Let me use the key.”
Martha handed me the primary key. I slid it into the deadbolt.
It didn’t turn.
The door was already unlocked.
I pushed the door open, the hinges squeaking in the quiet hallway. I reached in and flipped the light switch.
Martha let out a choked gasp.
Her single kitchen chair was overturned. And sitting right in the center of the linoleum floor was the yellow thrift-store mug she had bought that morning. It had been smashed into a dozen jagged pieces.
But that wasn't what made my blood run cold.
Resting on the kitchen counter, weighed down by a piece of broken yellow ceramic, was an old, faded photograph. I walked over and picked it up.
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It was a picture of a much younger Richard, standing on a boat. And wrapping her arms around his waist, smiling brightly at the camera, was a teenage Celine.
And written in blue ink across the bottom were the words: Don’t think you can leave me behind, Dad.
