Chapter 8 - Fire in Evelyn’s House
The smoke thickened quickly.
Briggs grabbed the cassette recorder while the officer radioed for emergency support. Sally and Martin covered their mouths and climbed toward the library.
Flames crawled across the curtains and climbed the walnut shelves.
A broken bottle lay near the fireplace, surrounded by burning liquid.
The fire had been started from inside the house.
One of the new security guards lay unconscious near the hallway.
The second was missing.
Briggs pulled the injured guard toward the front door. Martin helped.
Sally turned back toward the hidden archive.
“We cannot leave the evidence.”
“The room is concrete,” Briggs shouted. “The fire department will protect it.”
“The entrance mechanism could collapse.”
“You will die before the documents burn.”
He seized her arm and forced her toward the exit.
Outside, Sally coughed violently as smoke rolled from the library windows.
Fire engines arrived within minutes.
The front lawn filled with firefighters, police officers, and emergency vehicles. Paramedics treated the unconscious guard, who had a wound on the back of his head.
The missing guard’s car was still parked near the gate.
Security recordings showed both guards completing an exterior check at 3:11 p.m.
At 3:17, every camera went offline.
At 3:22, smoke appeared.
Someone had known how to disable the system.
The locksmith who installed it had access to the codes.
Police located him at Bethany’s townhouse.
He claimed he was repairing a door.
Bethany claimed not to know he had worked at Bellweather.
Sally did not believe her.
Neither did Detective Ortiz.
By evening, the fire was contained. Most of the library was destroyed, but the concrete archive survived. Water damaged several boxes, though forensic teams began removing and preserving them.
The injured guard regained consciousness in the hospital.
He remembered hearing Sally’s voice calling from the library.
When he entered, someone struck him from behind.
Sally had been underground at the time.
The attacker had used a recording.
A second audio fragment was found on Richard’s flash drive.
It contained Sally saying, “Come to the library.”
The sentence had been cut from an old family video.
This was no impulsive attack.
It had been planned.
Detective Ortiz interviewed Richard at his office.
He denied involvement and provided security footage showing himself in a meeting when the fire started.
Diane was at a spa.
Bethany was at her townhouse.
Each had an alibi.
But Sally noticed something in the footage from Bethany’s front door camera.
At 2:54 p.m., a man entered the townhouse carrying a black tool case.
The image was unclear.
He was not the locksmith.
He wore a dark cap and had a slight limp.
Sally had seen that walk before.
In an old video from Evelyn’s archive, Samuel Crane walked with the same uneven step.
Her grandfather might still be alive.
Briggs compared photographs.
Samuel would be eighty-one years old.
The man in Bethany’s footage looked younger from a distance, but his face was mostly hidden.
“Could be a relative,” Briggs said.
“My mother had no brothers.”
“None that you know of.”
The fire investigators discovered a hidden device beneath the library floor.
It was a remote ignition receiver.
The signal came from a phone registered to a dead man.
That dead man was Thomas Wren.
The phone had been activated three days earlier.
Someone was using the identities of the missing and the dead as weapons.
The next morning, Bethany arrived at Sally’s apartment.
She looked exhausted. Her expensive coat was wrinkled, and there were dark circles beneath her eyes.
“I need protection,” she said.
Sally did not let her enter.
“From whom?”
“Dad.”
“You helped him break into my house.”
“I did not know he would start a fire.”
“You brought the locksmith into your home.”
“He was not there for the house.”
“Then why was he there?”
Bethany glanced down the hallway.
“Let me inside.”
“No.”
“Sally, please.”
Sally watched her for several seconds, then opened the door.
Briggs was in the kitchen reviewing evidence. He stood when Bethany entered.
She removed a small memory card from the lining of her purse.
“I copied Dad’s phone before he took the Daniel box.”
“Why?” Sally asked.
“Because he was lying to me.”
“What is on it?”
“Messages between Dad and someone saved as S.C.”
“Samuel Crane?”
“I do not know.”
Briggs inserted the card into an isolated reader.
The messages began six months earlier.
Richard: She inherited the property.
S.C.: Then Evelyn succeeded.
Richard: We need the archive before she finds it.
S.C.: Use the younger daughter.
Richard: Bethany is unreliable.
S.C.: She is desperate. Desperate people obey.
Bethany looked away.
More recent messages appeared.
Richard: Sally opened the room.
S.C.: Burn the library.
Richard: The archive may survive.
S.C.: The fire is not for the archive.
Richard: Then what is it for?
S.C.: To force her to move the evidence.
The final message was sent during the fire.
S.C.: Now we know where the police will take it.
Briggs stood.
“They are planning to steal the evidence after collection.”
Bethany gripped the edge of the table.
“There is something else.”
She opened her phone and displayed a photograph of the missing Daniel box.
Richard had removed most of the contents, but Bethany photographed one document.
It was a signed agreement between Richard Harrow and Samuel Crane.
In exchange for Richard raising Laura’s unborn child as his own, Samuel would provide Richard access to protected municipal property records.
At the bottom was a handwritten clause.
If Daniel Vale’s child ever learns the truth, ownership of Bellweather shall activate the Crane succession protocol.
Sally read the sentence twice.
“What is the Crane succession protocol?”
Bethany shook her head.
“Dad does not know.”
“How do you know?”
“Because he is terrified of it.”
A loud crack came from the apartment door.
May you like
The lock exploded inward.
Three masked men entered.
