She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [114]
With Steve’s body being escorted to the medical examiner’s wagon to be taken for autopsy, Celeste called Donna at Studio 29, a woman she barely knew.
“Steve’s dead. He’s dead,” she shouted.
“Celeste, calm down,” Donna said. “You’re going to be all right.”
“No, he’s dead, Donna. He’s really dead.”
When she hung up, Donna told the others who worked at the salon. Many had known Steve and liked him. Except from Celeste, Donna had never heard a bad word about him.
“God, he gave her everything,” Petra Mueller, the owner, said.
Celeste left the hospital that afternoon and drove home in Steve’s Cadillac with the twins and their boyfriends. As they got out of the car, she went inside. Justin opened the center console to retrieve a parking ticket they’d gotten at the hospital. Inside, he discovered something odd, an unfamiliar cell phone. As much time as he’d spent with Kristina and Celeste, he thought he knew all their phones. This was one he’d never seen.
“What’s that?” Christopher asked as he walked over beside him.
“Have you ever seen this cell phone before?” Justin said.
Christopher took it from him and held it. He flipped the buttons and pulled up the opening screen with the phone number. “No,” he said. He then flipped through the numbers recently dialed. Tracey’s home and cell phones popped up.
Justin and Christopher looked at each other with a sinking feeling.
“She’s still talking to Tracey,” Justin said. Christopher nodded. He was thinking about all the times Celeste just disappeared. Usually, she told everyone where she was going, but since the shooting, she’d left the house or the hospital and was gone for hours, never mentioning where she’d been when she returned.
Just then Celeste ran from the house toward the car. They stepped to the side, Justin holding the cell phone behind him.
“I’m missing something,” she said, throwing open the car door and searching. She opened the center console, then the glove compartment, then checked under the seats. While she was distracted, Justin dropped the cell phone and kicked it under the car.
Celeste jerked up and stood inches from him, pulling her body straight. Staring Justin in the eye, she held out her hand. “You have it. Give it to me.”
“What?” Justin said.
“You have it. I want it now,” she insisted as she frisked him down, like a cop searching a suspect. Seeing what was happening through the window, Kristina and Jennifer ran outside.
“What’s wrong?” Kristina asked.
Celeste didn’t answer, but again searched the car. Finding nothing, she ran inside.
“This is what she wanted,” Justin said, bending down to retrieve the telephone. He handed it to Kristina.
Kristina grabbed the phone and looked at it. She, too, had never seen it before. But instead of investigating any further, she walked inside and gave it to her mother. “Is this what you wanted?” she said.
Celeste snatched it and disappeared into the guest bedroom, locking the door. Then Kristina heard her talking to someone on the telephone.
Later that night Celeste asked Kristina if she’d heard Steve’s dying wish.
“No, what was it?”
“Steve said he forgave the person who shot him, and he didn’t want to pursue the case. He didn’t want any of us to have to go through the pain of a trial,” she said. “He wouldn’t want any of you to cooperate with the police.”
Sad and confused, Kristina said nothing.
Chapter
15
Within hours of Steve’s death Celeste left a message on the home voice mail of C.W. Beard, his cousin and banker in Dallas. “Steve’s dead,” she said. “I want to be put on his bank accounts right away. I have bills to pay.”
When C.W. got the message, he called Becky. By then the bad news was filtering through the family. “We didn’t even know our dad was back in the hospital,” says Paul. “Celeste never told us.”
The loss hit all of them hard as they looked back at the final years of their father’s life. They’d had so little time with him since their mother’s death. With Celeste pushing them away, they’d felt like outsiders. When they tried to visit, she always had reasons why it wouldn