“LET GO OF MY LEG!”—A Rich Heiress Kicked the Wrong Woman at a Luxury Gala… Then a Deadly Family Secret Left the Entire Ballroom in Shock!

Adrian drove through empty Newport streets with both hands tight on the wheel. Mara had called Ben, asked him to get their mother away from the windows, and given him the number of the officer who had taken Jonah's statement. Ben's answer was simple.

"I'll take care of Mom. You take care of Dad."

Evelyn Bellamy's cottage sat beyond a stand of wind-bent pines. Inside, the rooms smelled of cedar and the lemon soap she had always used. Adrian stood in the doorway too long. Mara let him have the silence.

"She never stopped asking about Mercer House," he finally said. "I thought she was trying to pick fights with Dad."

They found the camera bag in a cabinet beneath a stack of watercolor sketches. Inside were nine memory cards marked with dates. Mara set them in order on the kitchen table while Adrian opened his mother's old laptop. The first cards held birthday cakes, boats, and blurry pictures of a teenage boy. The fourth contained the date of the fire.

There was the blue sedan. The service van. The black case. A flash of Owen Pike's face as he turned toward the camera. Hugh Bellamy stood in the distance beside a man Mara recognized from newspaper photographs: Grant Varrick, Celeste's father.

Adrian whispered, "That's everyone."

The last picture was different. It showed Evelyn at the window of Mercer House with an older woman holding a clipboard. On the back of a photograph tucked into the camera bag, Evelyn had written a name: ROSA DELANEY, CITY INSPECTOR.

"She was there before the fire," Mara said. "Why?"

A metallic bang came from the basement. Then the smell of gasoline pushed up through the heating vents.

Adrian grabbed the camera bag. Mara went to the rear door, found it chained from outside, and broke the pane with a fireplace tool. Smoke thickened beneath the ceiling. They climbed through the opening into wet grass as orange light spread under the cottage windows.