Chapter 6 - FIRE IN THE DARK
The emergency lights failed three seconds later.
The mansion became completely black.
Ruiz shouted.
“Everybody stay where you are!”
Elena heard footsteps.
Fast.
Close.
Daniel grabbed her hand.
“Elena.”
“I’m here.”
Glass shattered somewhere downstairs.
Then came the smell.
Smoke.
Ruiz swore.
“Fire!”
A bright orange glow appeared beneath the study door.
Daniel pulled it open.
Flames were already climbing the hallway curtains.
“That’s too fast.”
Ruiz looked toward the stairs.
“Accelerant.”
Someone had set the mansion on fire.
“Elena, move!”
Daniel wrapped an arm around her.
They ran toward the rear staircase.
Smoke filled the corridor.
Elena coughed.
Her lungs burned.
A wooden beam crashed behind them.
Ruiz led the way.
Then a masked figure stepped from the darkness.
He swung something metal.
Ruiz ducked.
The crowbar struck the wall.
Daniel tackled the attacker.
Both men crashed onto the floor.
“Go!”
Daniel shouted.
Elena didn’t.
The attacker rolled Daniel over and raised the crowbar.
Elena grabbed a heavy brass lamp.
She swung.
The lamp struck the attacker’s shoulder.
He stumbled.
Ruiz slammed him against the wall.
The mask came loose.
Thomas.
Everyone froze.
Daniel stared at him.
“You?”
Thomas’s eyes widened.
“No.”
Ruiz ripped away the mask.
Thomas was bleeding from the mouth.
“I didn’t set the fire.”
Daniel pointed toward the crowbar.
“Then what the hell is that?”
“I came because Margaret called me.”
“Why?”
“She said someone was destroying the house.”
Ruiz handcuffed him.
“Convenient.”
Thomas struggled.
“Listen to me!”
Another explosion shook the mansion.
Ruiz pushed everyone toward the stairs.
They escaped through the kitchen.
Firefighters arrived minutes later.
Elena stood outside wrapped in a blanket.
Daniel stared as his childhood home burned.
Margaret was nowhere to be found.
Neither was the server.
Then a firefighter approached carrying something.
A black metal case.
Ruiz opened it.
Inside was Elena’s server.
Partially burned.
But intact.
Elena nearly collapsed with relief.
Ruiz immediately handed it to a forensic technician.
“If the drives survived, we have everything.”
Thomas laughed bitterly from beside the police car.
“That’s exactly why someone burned the house.”
Daniel walked toward him.
“Who?”
Thomas looked at Margaret’s burning bedroom window.
“I think your mother is being framed.”
Daniel stopped.
Elena approached.
“By whom?”
Thomas looked at her.
“Vanessa.”
Elena shook her head.
“Margaret helped her.”
“At first.”
“What changed?”
“You.”
Thomas nodded toward Elena’s stomach.
“Margaret wanted you gone.”
Daniel’s face hardened.
Thomas continued.
“But she never wanted you dead.”
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
Thomas lowered his voice.
“Vanessa did.”
Elena stared at him.
“Why?”
“Because Vanessa isn’t trying to marry Daniel.”
Daniel looked confused.
Thomas said the next words carefully.
“She’s trying to take the company.”
Ruiz stepped closer.
“How?”
Thomas looked at Daniel.
“Vanessa Cross isn’t her real name.”
Silence.
“What?”
Daniel asked.
Thomas swallowed.
“Her name is Vanessa Price.”
Samuel Price’s daughter.
Daniel stared at him.
“No.”
“I saw her birth certificate.”
Elena remembered the hospital bracelet.
PRICE.
The photograph.
The baby.
Her stomach tightened.
“Catherine.”
Thomas nodded.
“Catherine never existed.”
“The baby in Margaret’s arms was Vanessa.”
Daniel looked physically ill.
Thomas continued.
“Samuel Price and Margaret created the story about a dead infant because Richard discovered something he wasn’t supposed to.”
“What?”
“The original majority shareholder had a daughter.”
Thomas looked at Elena.
“That daughter was Vanessa’s mother.”
Elena finally understood.
Vanessa wasn’t fighting for access to the Howard fortune.
She believed it already belonged to her.
Daniel whispered:
“So she came back for revenge.”
Thomas shook his head.
“No.”
“She came back to finish what her father started.”
A forensic technician approached Ruiz.
“We recovered part of the server.”
Ruiz looked at Elena.
“How much?”
“Enough.”
He handed Elena a tablet.
One recovered video showed Margaret and Samuel arguing in Richard’s study.
Samuel shouted:
“You promised Vanessa would control Daniel!”
Margaret answered:
“She was supposed to marry him, not murder his wife!”
Daniel closed his eyes.
The recording continued.
Samuel leaned across the desk.
“If Elena gives birth, Vanessa loses everything.”
Margaret whispered:
“Then stop the birth.”
Elena went completely still.
Daniel looked at his mother’s empty place beside the burning mansion.
And then another recovered clip began playing.
This one had been recorded only hours before Elena’s fall.
Margaret was alone.
She looked directly into one of Elena’s hidden cameras.
And said:
“Elena, if you ever see this, run.”
Then someone entered the room behind her.
Margaret turned.
May you like
Her face filled with terror.
The video cut out.
