Chapter 16 - The House She Built
By the time I reached the police barrier, smoke was already pouring from one of the mansion’s side rooms.
Ruiz blocked me.
“You cannot go in.”
“My mother is inside.”
“So are firefighters.”
“That house has hidden corridors.”
“What?”
“My father renovated it twenty years ago. There are service passages behind the library and east wing.”
Ruiz grabbed a firefighter and relayed the information.
Flames had not reached the main foyer yet, but smoke curled along the ceiling above the chandelier.
The same foyer where Claire had fallen.
Then my mother appeared on the balcony.
She held no gasoline now.
Only the old framed portrait of our family taken when Daniel and I were teenagers.
She looked down at me.
“You brought police to your father’s home.”
“You set it on fire.”
“It stopped being a home when you gave it to her.”
“It was never Claire’s fault.”
My mother laughed softly.
“Everything changed when she arrived.”
“No. Everything changed when I stopped obeying you.”
Her face tightened.
“That woman made you weak.”
“She survived you.”
The words hit.
For a moment, she looked old.
Not powerful. Not elegant. Just tired and furious.
Firefighters moved into position below.
I kept talking.
“Mom, come downstairs.”
“So you can watch them put me in handcuffs?”
“So you can stop making things worse.”
“You think this can get worse?”
She lifted the family portrait.
Then she threw it over the railing.
Glass shattered on the marble.
I flinched.
She smiled.
“This house belongs to me.”
“No,” I said. “It belongs to evidence now.”
Her smile disappeared.
Behind her, a firefighter emerged through the smoke.
My mother spun around.
For one dangerous second, she backed toward the railing.
The same railing.
I shouted, “Don’t.”
She looked down at me.
I saw something in her expression I had never seen before.
Not regret.
Calculation.
Then she climbed onto the bottom rail.
Ruiz swore beside me.
May you like
My mother looked at the crowd below.
“If I fall,” she said, “you’ll all finally understand what she did to me.”
