Chapter 10 - THE NIGHT THE FOUNDATION BURNED
At 11:08 p.m., flames appeared behind the windows of the Northbridge Cultural Foundation.
By 11:11, the fire alarm was screaming through three floors.
By 11:15, Claire Bennett was running toward the building while firefighters shouted for everyone to stay back.
“The conservation vault!” she cried.
A firefighter caught her arm.
“Ma’am, you cannot go inside.”
“There are historical documents in there!”
“And there are people trying to keep this building from collapsing.”
Ethan arrived moments later.
He found Claire standing in the rain, watching smoke pour into the night sky.
“Claire!”
She turned.
“Someone set the fire.”
“How do you know?”
“The vault has a specialized suppression system. It shouldn’t burn like that.”
Ethan looked toward the flames.
A window shattered.
Glass rained onto the sidewalk.
He pulled Claire backward.
“Stay with me.”
For nearly two hours, they watched firefighters battle the blaze.
The building survived.
Much of the archive did not.
When the fire chief finally allowed limited access the next morning, Claire entered wearing protective equipment.
Her heart broke.
Shelves had collapsed.
Storage boxes were soaked.
Fragments of historical correspondence lay scattered across the floor.
She knelt beside a ruined cabinet.
“This was deliberate.”
Ethan stood behind her.
“Can anything be saved?”
“Some of it. But we need emergency conservation teams immediately.”
“Hire whoever you need.”
“Ethan—”
“Whatever it costs.”
Claire looked up.
He was not looking at the damage to his investment.
He was looking at the history that might disappear.
Something in her chest shifted.
By noon, Ethan had arranged temporary conservation facilities, specialist equipment, and emergency funding.
He also suspended Victoria Hale and initiated an independent audit of the foundation.
But the worst news arrived at two.
Margaret entered the temporary laboratory carrying a police report.
“The fire investigators found an accelerant.”
Claire nodded grimly.
“I expected that.”
“There’s more.”
Margaret placed a photograph on the table.
A partially melted electronic access device had been recovered near the vault.
Its registration number belonged to Claire.
Claire stared.
“Someone copied my credentials.”
“We believe so.”
Ethan folded his arms.
“Victoria?”
“Possibly. But there’s a complication.”
Margaret opened another file.
“The original manuscript was removed before the fire began.”
Claire looked up.
“So the fire was meant to destroy the evidence that it had been stolen.”
“That’s one possibility.”
Ethan turned toward the window.
“Where is Graham?”
Margaret hesitated.
“His office says he left Boston last night.”
Claire felt a chill.
“Before the fire?”
“Yes.”
Ethan took out his phone.
His uncle did not answer.
Neither did Victoria.
By evening, police had issued a public request for information concerning both of them.
Claire returned to her apartment exhausted.
She found a package outside her door.
No return address.
Inside was a small fireproof document pouch.
And a handwritten note.
YOUR MOTHER SAVED THE WRONG PERSON.
Claire opened the pouch.
Inside was a photograph taken at the scene of the accident twenty-eight years earlier.
Her mother’s wrecked car lay beside the highway.
A second vehicle stood nearby.
And beside it was a teenage boy.
Ethan Mercer.
Claire stared at the photograph.
Then she turned it over.
May you like
Written across the back were five words.
ASK ETHAN WHY HE WAS THERE.
