Chapter 11
Both Daughters on Stage
Celia reached the podium in Mira's red dress.
Before she could accept the trustee seal, Mira entered from the donor aisle wearing the plain gray clothes issued in the west wing. The room recognized one woman and stared at the other.
Lydia took the microphone. "My niece's illness has entered a dangerous phase."
"Which niece?" Owen asked from the trustee table.
He placed his swing vote on hold. Tomas restored the ballroom feed after Lydia's technicians tried to cut it. Dr. Shaw projected the forged declaration beside her credential audit. Nessa appeared from the hospital and described Mara's fall.
Lydia denied every link separately.
Then Celia connected the missing drive.
The screen showed Lydia correcting her posture, teaching her Mira's signature, ordering the clinic payment, and explaining which cousin would be declared dead.
"This video is fabricated," Lydia said.
Celia turned toward her. "Then why did you make me repeat the phrase whenever I forgot a memory?"
Lydia's answer came by reflex. "A Hawthorne never asks who she is in public."
The same sentence played from twelve dated rehearsal clips.
Owen voted to suspend Lydia. Celia placed the trustee seal in front of Mira but did not ask to be absolved.
"My name is Celia Rowan," she said into the live microphone. "I appeared as Mira Hawthorne under Lydia Hawthorne's direction. I benefited. I also kept the records."
Deputies entered from both sides of the ballroom.
Lydia did not look at them. She looked at Mira.
"If you are alive," she said, "the trust condition failed eleven months ago. There is no foundation left for you to inherit."