Chapter 6
I picked up the two wooden stars, carried them into the guest room, and placed them gently beneath the small tabletop tree I had decorated earlier that week.
They would find their owners eventually. But not tonight.
Christmas Eve passed in complete, icy isolation.
There were no calls from Andrew. No texts from Celeste. Mom sent a single, terse message wishing me a peaceful holiday, accompanied by a picture of a desert sunset.
I spent the day at the RouteSpring offices. The building was empty, the workstations dark, but the server room hummed with steady, rhythmic precision. I reviewed our fourth-quarter projections, approved year-end bonuses for our engineering team, and signed off on our new warehouse integration contract with the state healthcare cooperative. Useful work. Real work. Work that produced something tangible instead of vaporous prestige.
On December 26th, at 8:30 a.m., Gregory Shaw called my direct line.
“Good morning, Meredith,” he said crisply. “I assume you survived the holiday fallout?”
“Barely. How does the ledger look?”
“Clean,” Gregory replied, the rustle of heavy bond paper audible over the phone. “The gala vendors were paid in full on Friday. Total cost: forty-two thousand, six hundred dollars. Caterers, staffing, floral installations, valet services, and the string quartet. All disbursements came from the final discretionary reserve.”
“And the notices?”
“Received and confirmed. Andrew’s corporate expense card was cancelled as of midnight on the twenty-fourth. The commercial landlord for the penthouse has been officially notified that the master lease will terminate on March thirty-first, with no option for renewal under the trust’s guarantee. If Andrew wishes to assume the lease individually, he will need to provide twelve months of personal tax returns and post a three-month security deposit.”
I looked out my office window at the snow-covered skyline of downtown Minneapolis. “Can he qualify on his own?”
Gregory let out a dry, humorless snort. “Not unless he finds an oil well in his backyard. His firm’s reported net income last year was sixty-four thousand dollars. The rent on that penthouse is fourteen thousand a month. He wouldn't qualify to rent the storage locker in the basement.”
“What about the car?”
“The Range Rover lease expires in February. The dealership was notified that the trust will surrender the vehicle at lease-end. And per your instructions, Maisie and Poppy’s educational trust has been legally separated into an independent custodial escrow account. Andrew cannot touch the principal, borrow against it, or use it for any other purpose. Their tuition through eighth grade is completely secure.”