Chapter 14 - Fire in the Library
The first flame reached the curtains before anyone understood how fast the fire was moving.
Brooks grabbed Ava’s wheelchair.
“Out. Now.”
Ava twisted toward the blue room.
“The evidence.”
“People first.”
Two forensic officers pulled hard drives from the tables and stuffed them into evidence bags.
Ethan carried the box marked C. PIKE.
Smoke thickened.
The hallway disappeared behind gray.
Ava coughed.
The power failed.
Emergency lights flashed red.
As Brooks pushed her toward the kitchen exit, a man stepped from the mudroom.
Conrad Pike.
For a second, everyone froze.
He held no gun.
He did not need one.
He held a lighter.
“Give me the box,” he said.
Ethan tightened his grip.
Pike smiled.
“You still think this is about your wife.”
“It is.”
“No. This is about what her father stole from me.”
Ava stared at him.
“My father exposed you.”
“Your father destroyed me.”
“You stole from clients.”
“I built those deals.”
“You robbed them.”
Pike’s smile died.
Behind him, fire crawled up the wall.
Brooks drew her weapon.
“Conrad, step away from the door.”
He looked at Ava.
“Ask Margaret why she arranged your first meeting with Ethan.”
Ethan stiffened.
Pike’s eyes gleamed.
“She knew who you were before you knew who he was.”
Ava felt a new kind of cold.
“Move,” Brooks ordered.
Pike threw the lighter into a stack of newspapers.
Flames jumped.
Then he ran through the mudroom.
Two officers chased him.
Brooks pushed Ava outside.
Ethan followed, carrying the evidence box.
The summer house burned behind them.
Pike reached the cliff road.
Police vehicles blocked one direction.
He turned toward the shoreline path.
Then he vanished into the smoke.
Search teams found his coat near the rocks.
No body.
No blood.
No certainty.
By dawn, most of the house was gone.
But the blue room had been built with a fire-rated steel shell.
Nearly half the archive survived.
Ava sat wrapped in a blanket inside an ambulance.
Ethan stood nearby.
Neither spoke for a long time.
Finally, Ava said, “Did your mother arrange for us to meet?”
“I don’t know.”
“You told me you met me by accident at the Lennox fundraiser.”
“I thought I did.”
Ava looked at him.
“Ask her.”
Margaret was being held at the county detention center.
When Ethan visited her that afternoon, she refused to answer at first.
Then he placed the photograph of Samuel and Margaret on the table.
Her face collapsed.
Ethan asked one question.
“Did you put Ava in my path?”
May you like
Margaret whispered, “Yes.”
Behind the glass, Ethan stopped breathing.
