She Wanted It All - Kathryn Casey [97]
About then, Celeste’s cell phone rang.
“I’ve been questioned,” Tracey said. “The cops just left. And they took my shotgun.”
“Steve’s not doing very well,” Celeste said. “I’ll call you back.”
Then the phone went dead.
At the hospital, Justin prodded Kristina. “Why would Tracey do this? Isn’t it strange that Celeste took Meagan to the lake house?”
Kristina ignored his insinuations, not wanting to hear what he was saying.
When the teens were together, they made small talk. Christopher and Jennifer didn’t know where Justin stood, if he’d tell Kristina that they believed Celeste was involved. “We couldn’t trust her,” says Jennifer. “We knew how loyal she was to our mom.”
Her hands shaking and tears clouding her eyes, Tracey’s next call was to Philip Presse, who’d been at the hospital much of the day with Celeste. Weeks earlier, Celeste had referred her to him to handle her DWI, and she’d hired him to represent her. Now she explained that the police had questioned her and taken her shotgun for ballistics. “I’m expecting it to match,” she said. When she started to talk about Celeste, Presse stopped her. He was already representing Celeste, he said, and he couldn’t talk to her. But he could refer her to another attorney, a man named Keith Hampton, who shared his office building. “He’s good and he handles criminal cases,” Presse said.
Tracey hung up and immediately dialed Hampton’s number. When he got on the phone, she launched into her explanation again, but Hampton stopped her. “I think we need to talk at the office,” he said. “When can you come in?”
Within an hour Tracey was seated in Hampton’s office, detailing her relationship with Celeste and the circumstances surrounding the shooting, as the attorney’s eyes grew wide. “Celeste had told me that you don’t tell an attorney the truth. You tell him what you want him to represent,” Tracey said later. “But I didn’t believe that. I thought he should know everything, so he wouldn’t be blindsided.”
When she finished, Tracey told Hampton there was one thing she would never consider: turning on Celeste. “I pulled the trigger, and I’m taking the fall,” she said. “I’m telling you the rest because I think you need to know. But I don’t want you to use it.”
Hampton explained what they could do, including fighting the admissibility of the weapon, since Knight and Wines hadn’t had a search warrant. “And we could talk to the D.A. about a deal,” he said. “If you’re willing to tell the whole story… ”
“Absolutely not,” Tracey said. “Do what you can but if this thing goes bad, I don’t want Celeste involved.”
Afterward, Keith Hampton had a problem. He’d just been told that Celeste planned the shooting, that she wanted Steve dead. With Celeste at the hospital, Steve could still be in danger, and he had a duty to alert someone to keep her from finding a way to finish Steve off in the ICU. Hampton called Philip Presse. When Presse got off the telephone, he talked to Celeste, then put in a call for Charles Burton, Austin’s premier criminal attorney, to represent her.
Early that evening Celeste and the twins were allowed into Steve’s room. The girls were shocked by his condition. He was pale and barely responsive. When Jennifer touched his hand, it felt stone cold. He tried to talk, but the tubes running down his throat made it impossible. Instead they read his lips.
“Why am I here?” he asked.
“Someone shot you,” Kristina explained. “You’ve had an operation.”
Steve shook his head no and tears ran down his cheeks.
“Oh, Steve,” Celeste said, standing at his bedside, the picture of the perfect wife. She held his hand. “You’ll be all right. I love you.”
Chapter