Chapter 12
Smoke thickened around us.
Sophie buried her face in my shoulder.
“Daddy, I can’t breathe.”
I kicked the stairwell door.
The chain held.
Cynthia listened through the phone.
“You could have married Amanda,” she said. “You could have signed and walked away.”
“You murdered Grace.”
“Grace made herself difficult.”
My vision turned red.
But anger would not open the door.
I forced myself to look around.
The fire hose cabinet had a small emergency axe.
I smashed the glass with my elbow, grabbed the axe, and struck the door near the latch.
Sophie coughed behind me.
“Stay low, sweetheart.”
I swung again.
The frame cracked.
On the third strike, the latch tore free.
We entered the stairwell as alarms echoed below.
A security guard ran up to meet us.
The fire had started in a trash room.
Sprinklers contained most of it.
Someone had deliberately disabled our floor’s cameras and chained the exit.
Cynthia had not intended to frighten me.
She had intended to trap us.
Ruiz arrived while paramedics gave Sophie oxygen.
I handed over my phone.
“The call was recorded.”
Cynthia had spoken too confidently.
She believed her number was hidden.
Technicians traced it to a prepaid phone discarded two blocks away.
A traffic camera caught a woman leaving the area.
It was not Cynthia.
It was Amanda’s younger sister, Holly.
I had met Holly twice.
She was quiet, nervous, and always watched her mother before answering questions.
Police arrested her at Cynthia’s apartment.
Holly confessed quickly.
“My mother said she would hurt my son if I refused.”
She showed Ruiz photographs Cynthia had sent of the boy outside his school.
Fear controlled every branch of that family.
Holly had chained the door but claimed she did not start the fire.
A man named Wade had done it.
Wade worked as Cynthia’s driver.
Police found him packing a car.
Inside the trunk were gasoline cans, cash, and a map to my mother’s house.
The next target had been Margaret.
I told my mother.
She listened without interrupting.
Then she said, “I will cooperate with the police.”
Years earlier, she would have hidden the threat to protect me from worry.
Now she chose truth.
It did not repair everything.
But I noticed.
Sophie had nightmares after the fire.
She woke screaming that the walls were closing.
I sat on the floor beside her bed until sunrise.
“I’m scared to sleep,” she whispered.
“So we’ll stay awake for a while.”
“Will you be tired?”
“Yes.”
“Are you mad?”
“Never.”
We built a tent from blankets in the living room.
I turned on every light.
She drew stars on paper and taped them beneath the blanket roof.
When she finally fell asleep against me, I understood that safety was not a locked building.
It was the certainty that someone would come when she called.
The next day, Claire recommended a child therapist named Dr. Maya Bennett.
Sophie refused to enter the office until I promised to wait outside the open door.
Dr. Bennett used dolls instead of questions.
Sophie placed one doll in a tiny closet.
She put another outside.
“What is the second doll doing?” Dr. Bennett asked.
“Listening.”
“Why doesn’t he open the door?”
“He doesn’t know she is inside.”
“Who told him?”
“Nobody.”
“What would happen if the little girl shouted?”
“The mean lady would leave forever.”
“Would that be bad?”
Sophie looked toward me.
“For Daddy.”
I entered and knelt beside her.
“Amanda leaving was not bad for me.”
“But you loved her.”
“I loved someone who did not exist.”
She frowned.
“What does that mean?”
“Amanda pretended to be kind. I loved the pretend person.”
“Do you miss her?”
I answered carefully.
“I miss the future I thought we would have. I do not miss anyone who hurts you.”
Sophie moved the father doll closer to the closet.
“Can he hear now?”
“Yes.”
She opened the toy door.
That afternoon, Amanda requested to speak with me.
I refused until Ruiz said Amanda had information about Cynthia’s location.
We met through glass at the jail.
Amanda looked smaller without her expensive clothes and practiced smile.
“My mother will keep coming,” she said.
“Then tell us where she is.”
“She owns a cabin under Holly’s son’s name.”
“Address?”
“I don’t know it. Ryan does.”
“Ryan says he doesn’t.”
“He’s lying.”
“Why?”
“Because the cabin contains proof he participated in Grace’s death.”
My pulse jumped.
“What did he do?”
“He followed her car.”
“Why?”
“To make sure she stopped.”
I stood.
Amanda pressed her palms against the glass.
“Daniel, wait.”
I looked at her.
“I did love you.”
“No. You studied me.”
“At first.”
“And Sophie?”
Amanda began crying.
“I was jealous.”
“Of a child?”
“Of Grace. Sophie looked at me and saw I could never replace her.”
“So you punished her.”
“I became my mother.”
“That is an explanation, not an excuse.”
“I know.”
For once, she did not argue.
As I turned away, she called my name.
“Ryan kept the cabin key inside your father’s watch.”
My father’s watch belonged to my mother.
When we opened its back, we found a brass key and a strip of paper bearing coordinates.
The cabin sat deep in the mountains.
Police approached it before dawn.
Through a window, they saw Cynthia packing Grace’s belongings into a metal barrel.
May you like
Beside her was a rifle.
And tied to a chair across the room was my mother.
