At first it felt like being rescued from a sinking boat.
Then Celeste began making decisions for them.
She chose teachers, controlled audition fees, demanded private performances, and threatened to stop paying whenever anyone questioned her.
“We kept telling ourselves she was family,” Dana said.
“I thought she was helping Lila,” I replied.
“She helped her play better.”
Dana looked back at the school doors.
“Then she taught her that gratitude meant obedience.”
She had found bank notices in an old folder Celeste kept for them.
They showed transfers from the Bellhaven Youth Music Council to an account titled Caldwell Educational Services.
The service company had paid for lessons, but Dana could not tell whether donations intended for unrelated students had also moved through it.
“I don’t want to accuse her of stealing,” she said.
“Then don’t accuse her yet.”
“I want someone who isn’t frightened to ask for the books.”
I told her about Julian Beckett.
She asked whether he would speak with her and Marcus.
I said I would find out.
That weekend we met at Julian’s apartment with enough coffee to make everybody jittery.
Julian had brought out a ledger he kept of his own donations.
Marcus and Dana brought the statements they could find.
Mrs. Paredes attended as an observer, and Sophie asked permission to come too.
“This is partly my life,” she said.
I agreed, but I told her she could leave whenever the conversation became too much.
Lila sat beside her, keeping her hands folded over a notebook.
The adults began with a careful question.
How was money meant for students selected, recorded, and paid?
Julian showed an agreement promising transparent grants to children who applied through local schools.
Dana showed an expense described as Lila’s travel scholarship.
The same month, the council’s newsletter said that grant had been awarded to a different student.
“Could that be a mistake?” Marcus asked.
“Of course,” Julian answered.
“That’s why we ask for a correction before we call it anything else.”
Sophie pointed to a receipt in the stack.
“This was the room where I recorded my audition,” she said.
“Celeste told me it was free.”
The invoice showed the council paid the studio two hundred and forty dollars under Lila’s name.
Lila looked sick.
“I wasn’t there that day,” she whispered.
We made three lists on yellow paper.
One contained facts supported by records, another contained questions, and a third contained statements people had made without proof.
