Chapter 21 - Fire on the Ridge
Three nights after the hearing, my security alarm screamed at 2:13 a.m.
I woke instantly.
Not the entry alarm.
Fire.
Smoke was already slipping beneath my bedroom door.
I grabbed my phone.
“Emergency services are responding,” the automated security system announced.
I pulled on shoes and opened the door.
Thick smoke filled the upstairs hallway.
“Damn it.”
The smell wasn't wood smoke.
Chemical.
Accelerant.
I stayed low and moved toward the rear stairs.
Then I heard cracking below.
Flames erupted along the western wall of Michael’s drafting room.
My heart stopped.
Not there.
Anywhere but there.
I took one step toward it.
Then Michael’s voice seemed to rise from memory.
A house can be rebuilt. You can't.
I turned and ran.
The rear exit opened onto deep snow.
Barely dressed, coughing, I stumbled away as flames climbed the cedar siding.
Fire engines arrived eleven minutes later.
Daniel arrived thirty minutes after that.
He found me wrapped in a paramedic blanket beside an ambulance.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He looked at the flames.
“Oh God.”
The firefighters contained the blaze before it reached the central great room.
The drafting room was destroyed.
My bedroom suffered smoke damage.
The western exterior wall was black.
But the lodge stood.
At sunrise, the fire marshal walked toward us.
His expression said everything.
“Accelerant was used.”
Daniel's face became stone.
“Where?”
“Three ignition points.”
“Accidental?”
“No chance.”
My hands started shaking.
Someone had tried to burn my house.
Maybe with me inside.
An hour later, deputies found tire tracks near an old service road.
Security cameras captured part of a dark pickup.
Plate obscured.
Maya began working immediately.
By afternoon, investigators identified a suspect.
Not Graham.
Paul Mercer.
His phone had pinged near Breckenridge shortly before the fire.
A warrant was issued.
He disappeared.
National news picked up the story.
DEVELOPER SCANDAL ESCALATES AFTER ARSON AT WIDOW'S MOUNTAIN HOME.
I hated the headlines.
Widow.
Victim.
Sanctuary.
Scandal.
I was Rebecca.
Not a storyline.
Then I entered the damaged drafting room.
Everything smelled wet and burned.
Michael’s drawing desk was nearly destroyed.
The architectural model was gone.
His pencils.
His chair.
The old photographs.
For the first time through this entire nightmare, I collapsed.
I sat on the soaked floor and cried until my ribs hurt.
Daniel found me but didn't speak.
He simply sat beside me.
“I saved the documents,” I whispered.
“Yes.”
“But I didn't save this.”
“You couldn't.”
“I should have.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
Daniel rarely raised his voice.
Now he did.
“No, Rebecca. Stop making survival another test you think you failed.”
I stared.
“The room burned. You didn't.”
That sentence broke something open.
I cried harder.
Eventually he placed his coat around my shoulders.
“We rebuild.”
I looked at the charred beams.
“Michael built this room.”
“So rebuild it the way Rebecca would.”
I didn't answer.
Outside, firefighters rolled hoses beneath a bright blue sky.
The lodge was wounded.
But standing.
So was I.
That afternoon Vanessa arrived with her probation officer's permission.
She stepped into the damaged great room and covered her mouth.
“Oh my God.”
I expected her to say something dramatic.
Instead she picked up a broom.
“What are you doing?”
“Cleaning.”
“You don't work here.”
“I know.”
She swept ash from the floor.
For the first time in our lives, she wasn't asking permission to take something.
She was simply helping.
May you like
I picked up another broom.
And together, without forgiving the past, we began cleaning the future.
