Chapter 13 - Fire
I left Adrian to the police and drove home with smoke already visible above the trees.
The east wing was burning.
Fire crews covered the lawn. Windows shattered from heat. I jumped from the car before it stopped moving.
“Noah!”
A firefighter grabbed me.
“Sir, you can’t go in.”
“My son is inside!”
“Who told you that?”
I pointed toward the house.
Then Grace came running from the garden, coughing, Noah in her arms.
I nearly collapsed.
I took him from her.
“Dad!” He clung to my neck. “The bad man came back.”
“What bad man?”
“The one from Grandpa’s picture.”
Grace looked at me.
Noah had once seen Adrian in an old photograph I had found that morning.
“Did Adrian come inside?” I asked.
Noah shook his head. “Not him. The other man.”
My stomach turned.
Eric was in surgery.
My father was dead.
“Show me.”
Noah pointed toward the driveway.
A man in a paramedic jacket was walking calmly toward an ambulance.
Grace whispered, “That’s not a paramedic.”
The man looked back.
I knew him.
Martin Hale, my father’s former chief financial officer.
He ran.
Security chased him through the trees. He escaped over the stone wall, but dropped a metal case.
Inside were two gasoline igniters, a forged staff badge, and a portable hard drive.
Melissa arrived twenty minutes later and connected the drive to a secure laptop in the pool house.
It contained copies of Mercer Holdings ledgers.
And one video.
My father sat behind his desk six weeks before his death.
Martin stood across from him.
Dad said, “The Rebecca problem should have ended on River Road.”
Martin answered, “It did.”
Dad’s eyes narrowed.
“No. Daniel still has questions. And Eric kept the wrench.”
The camera angle shifted slightly.
Someone else was secretly filming them.
Dad leaned closer to Martin.
“If Daniel ever learns what really happened, you know what to do.”
Martin asked, “Even if Noah is with him?”
May you like
My father did not hesitate.
“Especially then.”
