Chapter 5 - What the Fire Couldn’t Take
“My bag!”
Evan lunged for the door.
Roman caught the back of his jacket and hauled him away as flames climbed the frame.
“My father’s photograph!”
“I know,” Roman said.
“You don’t know anything!”
Roman did not release him.
Cal called the fire in while I ran for the guest register.
There were six people inside the inn.
Two upstairs.
Four in the dining room.
Mom moved before I reached the porch, directing guests toward the gravel turnout.
Dad grabbed the emergency cashbox.
Tess took the keys and started moving cars.
We did what people do when fear becomes too large to think around.
We followed the next necessary instruction.
The fire crew arrived in eleven minutes.
It felt like an entire season.
By midnight, the barn roof had collapsed.
The inn survived.
So did everyone inside it.
But the red building that had leaned left through every year of my life was gone.
At dawn, I stood at the fence while steam rose from the wreckage.
Roman approached carefully.
“You should sit down.”
“You should stop telling me what my body needs when you haven’t told me what my life is standing on.”
He went quiet.
I was exhausted.
Cruelty would have been easy.
I did not want easy.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “But I need the whole truth.”
He looked toward the blackened beams.
“After Owen died, I told investigators I went to the warehouse because of missing inventory.”
“Was that false?”
“Not entirely.”
I closed my eyes.
There it was.
The space men like my father and my husband left between a lie and the truth they preferred.
Roman continued.
“Owen had contacted me first. He said my father’s people were moving money through Hail’s hauling contracts. He wanted out. He wanted payment records.”
“Then why did he shoot?”
“I don’t know. He became frightened. Luca came through the side door. Owen thought we’d trapped him.”
“Did you tell the investigators about his call?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because it would have exposed other things my father had done. Things I was still helping conceal.”
The morning seemed to sharpen around us.
“You let his son grow up without that.”
“Yes.”
No excuse.
No reaching for my hand.
Just yes.
I looked at him.
“You need your own lawyer. And you need to correct the record.”
“I know.”
“Not because I’m threatening to leave.”
His eyes met mine.
“Because it’s wrong,” he said.
I nodded.
For the first time since the barn door exploded, I could breathe all the way in.
The fire investigator found evidence inconsistent with an accidental ignition.
We were told little beyond that.
Cal asked for security footage from neighboring properties.
Mara sent copies of the land records to the appropriate investigators.
Roman retained counsel and arranged an interview concerning his earlier statement.
None of it moved as quickly as my fear wanted.
Meanwhile, Evan slept in a guest room at the inn.
He kept apologizing.
I finally sat on the edge of the other bed and stopped him.
“You did not set that fire.”
“They came because I was here.”
“They came because somebody chose to burn a building.”
He stared at his hands.
“I hated him.”
“Roman?”
He nodded.
“You can still be angry.”
“But he pulled me away.”
“Both things can be true.”
The next afternoon, a firefighter brought us a metal box recovered near the tack room.
Its lid had warped.
Inside were charred receipts, two horseshoe nails, and part of an old maintenance card.
Dad stared at it.
“What?”
He took it with trembling hands.
“Pearl hid spare keys in these.”
There was a number scratched beneath the soot.
Fourteen.
I knew that number.
Nana’s old seed cabinet had fourteen drawers.
We had moved it into the pantry after her death.
I ran so fast Mom called after me.
The fourteenth drawer stuck.
It always had.
I pulled harder.
Behind a loose wooden panel was a brass key and a folded envelope.
My name was on the front.
Daisy.
I sat on the pantry floor and opened it.
May you like
My grandmother’s handwriting wavered across the first line.
If Garrett ever offers to solve a problem cheaply, find out which problem he expects you to become.
