Chapter 11 - FIRE
Mercer Development headquarters had thirty-two floors.
By the time we arrived, evacuation alarms were already screaming.
Employees poured onto the sidewalk.
Smoke curled from a lower service entrance.
I saw Margaret through the lobby glass.
“Margaret!”
Ramirez grabbed my shoulder.
“Stay back.”
I shook him off.
“My grandfather’s original records are in there.”
“So is a fire.”
“And so is the proof that puts her away.”
Ramirez cursed.
We entered with firefighters.
Smoke burned my throat.
Sprinklers hammered the floor.
Margaret wasn’t running.
She was waiting.
I found her inside the executive records room.
A metal cabinet burned behind her.
She held a lighter.
“You always were stubborn,” she said.
I stopped ten feet away.
“You tried to kill a baby.”
“He took everything.”
“He’s fifteen months old.”
“He took what should have been Victor’s.”
“It was never Victor’s.”
Her eyes flashed.
“It should have been.”
“That’s why you destroyed Rebecca?”
“I gave Rebecca choices.”
“You threatened her child.”
“She left.”
“You killed Emily.”
Margaret’s mouth tightened.
“That was never supposed to happen.”
“But it did.”
“Victor failed.”
“No. You failed.”
She stepped toward me.
“You think Rebecca loves you?”
“I think she was afraid of you.”
“She abandoned you.”
“To keep me alive.”
“That is what weak people tell themselves.”
I looked at the cabinet behind her.
“You’re burning the ledger.”
“Yes.”
“Too late.”
She paused.
I smiled without humor.
“Samuel copied it.”
For the first time, Margaret truly lost control.
She threw the lighter toward the files.
I lunged.
We hit the floor.
She clawed at my face.
“You ungrateful little bastard!”
There it was.
The word she used for Noah.
The word she had probably wanted to use for me my whole life.
Firefighters stormed in.
Ramirez dragged Margaret away.
She screamed.
“This family is mine!”
I stood coughing.
“No.”
I looked directly at her.
“It never was.”
They hauled her toward the exit.
Then a firefighter opened the half-burned cabinet.
Inside was a fireproof compartment.
Untouched.
He handed Ramirez a sealed envelope.
It had one sentence written on it.
IF MARGARET DESTROYS EVERYTHING ELSE, OPEN THIS.
Ramirez opened it.
Inside was a death certificate.
Thomas Mercer.
My father.
Cause of death: blunt force trauma.
Not a car accident.
I looked at Margaret.
May you like
She stopped fighting.
And that told me everything.
