Chapter 8 - The Fire in the Hallway
My father looked nothing like the man who had raised me.
His shirt was untucked.
His face was covered in sweat.
His eyes were fixed on Daniel’s phone.
“Give me the backup.”
Daniel stepped in front of me.
“You already destroyed my phone.”
“The cloud account.”
“You can’t destroy the police copy.”
Dad lifted the gasoline can.
“Everything can be destroyed.”
Gigi began crying against my shoulder.
The sound changed his expression for half a second.
Then he looked away from her.
Nora pulled the fire alarm again.
“It’s already ringing.”
Dad’s voice was almost calm.
“Move, Charles.”
“You should not have involved yourself.”
“I’m her attorney.”
“You are helping her destroy her own family.”
“No.”
Nora held up her phone.
“I’m helping her document it.”
Dad lunged forward.
Daniel grabbed his arm.
The gasoline can struck the wall.
Liquid spilled across the carpet.
The smell became overwhelming.
“Run!”
Nora shoved me toward the emergency stairs.
I carried Gigi through the smoke.
Guests crowded the stairwell.
A hotel security officer raced past us toward my father.
Behind me, I heard Daniel shouting.
Then I heard Dad scream.
I did not turn around.
I did not stop until we reached the lobby.
Firefighters rushed through the entrance.
Hotel employees guided guests outside.
Cold morning air hit Gigi’s face.
She clung to me and sobbed.
A paramedic checked her breathing.
“She’s okay.”
I almost collapsed from relief.
Police officers brought my father outside in handcuffs.
His face was blackened by smoke.
Daniel followed with an ice pack against his nose.
The fire had been small.
Dad had started it in a metal trash bin to trigger an evacuation.
He wanted the smoke to force us out of the room.
He planned to steal the remaining evidence during the confusion.
The gasoline was meant to destroy Daniel’s phone and my files.
My father had gone from forging signatures to setting a hotel fire.
And he still believed I was the one ruining the family.
As the police placed him inside a patrol car, my mother called.
Her voice came through the speaker in the back of another police vehicle.
“Clara, tell them your father did not mean to hurt anyone.”
“He brought gasoline into a hotel.”
“He was desperate.”
“He helped Arthur hit Gigi.”
“He did not touch her.”
“He planned it.”
“Arthur misunderstood him.”
“Arthur admitted it.”
Mom began crying.
The sound would once have broken me.
Now it only made me tired.
“Your father could spend years in prison.”
“What about Sophie?”
“What?”
“She was locked in a room.”
“Only for a few minutes.”
“She said there were locks on the outside.”
“She runs away.”
“She is six.”
“She is difficult.”
I closed my eyes.
“You keep using that word.”
“What word?”
“Difficult.”
“You called me difficult whenever Arthur hurt me.”
Mom stopped crying.
I remembered being thirteen.
Arthur had shoved me down the basement stairs during an argument.
My wrist had fractured.
Mom told the doctor I had tripped.
Dad bought Arthur a new car two weeks later.
“You knew what he was becoming.”
“Arthur was a troubled boy.”
“He is forty-one.”
“He needed support.”
“So did every person he hurt.”
Mom’s voice became sharp.
“You always resented him.”
“No.”
“I feared him.”
“You are exaggerating.”
“I have the hospital record from my broken wrist.”
Silence.
That record was inside the secret folder.
Mom had not known.
“I also have the voicemail where you told Grandma not to ask questions.”
“You recorded me?”
“Grandma did.”
My grandmother had suspected the truth.
Before she died, she gave me a small digital recorder.
She told me to keep it somewhere safe.
I had never listened to every file.
Nora had converted them only the week before.
One recording captured my mother admitting that Arthur had pushed me.
Another captured my father promising to pay the doctor to avoid a report.
Mom whispered.
“Those recordings were private.”
“So was Gigi’s trust.”
“You cannot use them.”
“Watch me.”
I ended the call.
Daniel approached slowly.
“I’m sorry I told Charles about the hotel.”
“You were scared.”
“He threatened to cancel my dad’s business loan.”
“That loan is probably funded with stolen money.”
Daniel looked sick.
Then he handed me a flash drive.
“I made another backup.”
“Of the birthday video?”
“Of everything from the party.”
He swallowed.
“I left my camera recording after you walked out.”
“What did it capture?”
“Your mother told everyone what to say in court.”
Nora inserted the drive into her laptop.
The video showed the living room after I left.
My mother locked the front door.
My father handed out printed statements.
Arthur walked from relative to relative, warning them that anyone who refused to sign would be cut off financially.
Then the camera captured something none of us expected.
My mother looked at Arthur and said:
“You hit the wrong cheek.”
Arthur frowned.
“What difference does it make?”
“The doctor’s report we prepared says the bruise is on the left.”
Nora froze the video.
“They created a medical report before Gigi was injured.”
Daniel nodded.
“There’s more.”
The video continued.
My mother took an envelope from her purse.
A doctor’s signature appeared at the bottom.
The report claimed Gigi had been injured while alone with me.
The doctor’s name was Dr. Malcolm Reeves.
I recognized it immediately.
May you like
He was my parents’ oldest friend.
And he was scheduled to testify against me in court that morning.
