Chapter 6 - Fire at Rosebridge)
Evelyn locked the hidden shelf while Charlotte helped Mr. Hale into a chair. Through the wall came the dull impact of drawers opening and furniture overturning.
“How many?” Evelyn asked.
“Two. Maybe three.”
The secret room had no windows, but Eleanor had never built a room with only one exit. Charlotte remembered her grandmother’s lesson from childhood: Any door can become a trap when only one person controls the key.
She searched beneath the desk and found a copper lever. A panel opened near the floor, revealing a narrow service stair.
Evelyn gathered the letter, ledger, and reel. Charlotte took the photographs. Smoke slid through the gap above the shelf before they reached the stair.
The intruders had set fire to the library.
They descended into a stone passage that ended near the greenhouse. Mr. Hale struggled between them. Behind the glass, flames climbed the west wing, orange against the night.
Charlotte called emergency services, then Margaret and the head of Halcyon security. Evelyn photographed every item before sealing it in the sedan’s lockbox.
“Someone knew we were coming,” Charlotte said.
“Four people knew,” Evelyn replied. “You, me, Claire, and my driver.”
“Your driver?”
“Employed by my firm for eleven years.”
“So was Jonathan’s accountant.”
Sirens sounded beyond the gates.
The firefighters contained the blaze before it reached the rest of the house, but the library collapsed. Police found evidence of accelerant and footprints leading to the river. No intruders were caught.
At two in the morning, Jonathan arrived.
He crossed the lawn beneath news cameras, carrying a coat for Charlotte as if he were a concerned husband. She refused it.
“I came when I heard,” he said.
“How did you hear?”
“It’s on the news.”
“The first report aired seven minutes after your car passed the south gate.”
His concern hardened. “Are you accusing me of burning your own house?”
“I’m asking why you were already driving here.”
Florence emerged from the second car. Unlike Jonathan, she did not perform sympathy.
“Sentimental places are dangerous,” she said. “People hide things in them and imagine the hiding makes those things theirs.”
Charlotte stepped toward her. “You found the key.”
“I found many surprises in your belongings.”
“Do you know Daniel Reed?”
For one instant, Florence’s eyes changed.
Jonathan noticed. “Who is Daniel Reed?”
Florence ignored him. “Come home, Charlotte. Withdraw your accusations, restore the credit line, and this unpleasantness can end.”
“A man was attacked tonight.”
“Then you should consider what other people may suffer because of your stubbornness.”
Jonathan reached for his mother. “What are you talking about?”
Florence turned on him with such cold authority that he dropped his hand.
Charlotte understood then that Jonathan was not the architect of the trap. He was a beneficiary who had mistaken the decorated room for his kingdom. Florence had selected the walls, locked the doors, and decided who would be sacrificed when the building burned.
“The audit continues,” Charlotte said. “And tomorrow we give the ledger to federal investigators.”
Florence smiled faintly. “Which ledger?”
Evelyn looked toward the sedan.
Its rear door stood open.
The lockbox was gone.
Police searched the grounds and questioned every emergency worker. The security camera in the sedan had been disabled with a device used by professionals. Evelyn’s driver had vanished.
At dawn, Charlotte returned to the city with only the photographs she had slipped into the lining of her coat. The ledger, Eleanor’s letter, and Daniel’s recording were gone.
Her phone rang as they crossed the bridge.
An unfamiliar man spoke.
“Your grandmother always made copies.”
Charlotte pressed the phone to her ear. “Who is this?”
“Ask Evelyn what she did on October seventeenth, nineteen ninety-eight.”
The call ended.
Evelyn had gone pale.
“What happened that day?” Charlotte asked.
May you like
For several miles, her lawyer said nothing.
Then she looked out at the river and answered, “That was the day I helped your father disappear.”
