Chapter 13 - Fire in the House
“Everybody out!” Mara shouted.
Richard grabbed Leo. Anna grabbed Mrs. Bell.
Police raced toward Claire’s dressing room while Graham looked directly into the camera.
“You should have left the dead alone,” he said.
Then he dropped the lighter.
Fire rolled across the carpet.
The alarm exploded through the mansion.
Sprinklers came on, but not in Claire’s wing.
“Suppression system disabled,” an officer yelled.
Smoke poured into the upstairs hall.
Richard started toward it.
Anna caught his sleeve.
“What are you doing?”
“Claire’s boxes are in there.”
“You have copies.”
“There are photographs. Her letters.”
“And your son is right here.”
That stopped him.
He looked down at Leo, terrified by the sirens.
Richard lifted him and carried him outside.
Firefighters arrived within minutes.
Graham escaped through a service stairwell before police reached the room.
By the time the fire was controlled, half of Claire’s suite was destroyed.
Vanessa’s room, strangely, had not been touched.
Mara noticed.
“This wasn’t rage. It was evidence destruction.”
Anna walked through the wet hallway after firefighters cleared it.
A framed picture lay cracked on the floor.
Claire holding newborn Leo.
Anna picked it up.
Behind the frame was a folded piece of paper protected by plastic.
Claire had hidden another note.
Richard read it beside the ambulance lights.
“Vanessa keeps asking me to change the beneficiary on the family voting shares. She says Leo is too young and Richard is too sentimental. I refused.”
Below that was a number.
48-17-3.
Richard stared at it.
“What is that?” Anna asked.
He shook his head.
Mrs. Bell spoke from behind them.
“It is a vault number.”
Everyone turned.
“At First Atlantic Bank,” she said. “Mrs. Claire once asked me to bring her passport there.”
Mara arranged access under the reopened investigation.
The bank manager confirmed the box existed.
It was jointly registered to Claire and Leo.
Inside were original trust papers, handwritten ledgers, and a sealed DNA kit.
Richard stared at the kit.
“Why would Claire have this?”
The label read: PATERNITY — LEO BLACKWOOD.
Anna looked at Richard.
His face had gone completely blank.
Mara said carefully, “We should not assume what this means.”
Richard laughed once, without humor.
“Vanessa wanted control of Leo’s trust. Claire hid a paternity test. Tell me what else I’m supposed to assume.”
Then the bank manager handed him one final envelope.
It was addressed to Vanessa.
In Claire’s handwriting.
Richard opened it.
May you like
The first sentence read:
I KNOW WHAT YOU DID WITH LEO’S BIRTH RECORDS.
