Chapter 14 - Fire in the Family House
The alarm became a frantic pulse as smoke crawled beneath the records-room door.
“Everyone out!” Luis shouted.
We ran through the narrow passage while flames climbed the curtains in the dining room. Marcus had poured gasoline across the floor, but the fire had not yet reached the stairs.
Ethan appeared at the far end of the hall.
“Mom!”
He started toward me.
“Stay back,” I ordered.
He stopped as if the words had struck him.
“The fire is spreading,” he said.
“Then help the officers get out.”
Marcus stood near the front entrance, blocked by two police officers. He held a lighter in one hand and the missing silver cuff link in the other.
“You should have left the past buried,” he said.
Daniel, supported by a paramedic, stared at him.
“You buried it,” Daniel said. “Samuel only hid it.”
Marcus laughed. “Samuel was weak. He gave money to everyone and called it forgiveness.”
The ceiling groaned.
Luis tackled Marcus as a burning beam fell. The lighter skidded across the floor.
I saw the fire racing toward the records room.
The server held Samuel’s final evidence. If it burned, the truth might disappear again.
I ran back.
“Eleanor!” Miriam screamed.
Smoke tore at my lungs. I wrapped my coat around my face and crawled beneath the thickest haze. The server cabinet sparked beside me.
I pulled the drive free.
Behind me, a hand grabbed my ankle.
Ethan.
“Come on!” he shouted.
For one terrible second, I saw only the man who had shoved me through glass. Then I saw his face, terrified and covered in soot.
“Let go,” I said.
“I’m trying to save you.”
“You don’t get to decide that anymore.”
He released me, and I crawled toward the hall.
We escaped through the kitchen as firefighters arrived. Outside, rain struck the flames and turned the yard to mud.
Marcus was handcuffed against a patrol car. Ethan stood with his arms raised while officers searched him.
Vanessa pointed at his coat.
“There’s a pocket,” she said.
The detective removed a small metal box. Inside was the original film reel.
Ethan lowered his head.
“You had it all along,” I said.
“I was going to turn it in.”
“When?”
He looked at the burning house.
“When I could stop being afraid.”
“You were never afraid enough.”
The firefighter chief approached Miriam. “The fire began in three places. This was deliberate.”
Marcus shouted from the patrol car, “Ask Daniel what he did to the little girl!”
Vanessa froze.
Daniel looked at her, then at me.
“There is one more truth,” he said quietly.
“What truth?” Vanessa asked.
Daniel’s face twisted with shame.
“Your mother did not abandon you,” he said. “She died trying to hide you from me.”
Vanessa took a step backward.
Daniel continued, “She believed I would use you to get revenge on Samuel. She was wrong about some things, but not about my anger.”
The flames reflected in Vanessa’s tears.
Then Miriam opened the recovered film case and found a second reel hidden beneath the first.
May you like
Its label was in Samuel’s handwriting:
The part I could never show Eleanor.
