Chapter 7 - THE NIGHT THE HOUSE BURNED
Police moved immediately.
The twins were taken through a rear medical entrance into an unmarked vehicle.
Vincent insisted on going with them.
Then Blake called again.
This time, he called Vincent directly.
“You can keep moving them,” Blake said, “but eventually you’ll run out of places.”
Vincent’s voice was terrifyingly calm.
“What do you want?”
“A conversation.”
“You had one.”
“Without detectives.”
“No.”
“Then I suppose the next conversation happens after another accident.”
Vincent’s face changed.
That word.
Accident.
He had chosen it deliberately.
“Did you kill Isabella?”
Silence.
Then Blake sighed.
“I didn’t touch her car.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
“You always were emotional about her.”
I watched Vincent’s hand curl into a fist.
“You have ten seconds.”
“Isabella was going to destroy everything.”
“What everything?”
“My work. My practice. Research that could have changed residential medicine.”
“You exposed my family to unapproved compounds.”
“I gave your wife exactly what she asked for.”
“She told you to remove it.”
“She panicked because she found a laboratory report she didn’t understand.”
“And the boys?”
A pause.
“That was unfortunate.”
Vincent closed his eyes.
Unfortunate.
Eighteen months of two children losing weight and strength.
Unfortunate.
I wanted to reach through the phone.
“What about the fake invoices?” Vincent asked.
“Research costs money.”
“You stole from me.”
“I used resources you would’ve wasted on another building.”
“And Eric?”
“Hired help.”
“To threaten a witness?”
No answer.
Vincent’s expression sharpened.
That silence was more useful than denial.
Blake said, “Come to the estate alone and I’ll give you the remaining records.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Because Isabella kept more than one copy.”
That got everyone’s attention.
The call ended.
Police objected to Vincent going anywhere.
He went anyway.
Not alone.
They built a controlled operation around the estate.
I was supposed to remain with the twins at a secure location.
I intended to.
Then Leo began vomiting.
His doctors believed stress and his existing condition were responsible, but both boys needed observation.
The medical team rerouted us to a children’s hospital.
Halfway there, our vehicle stopped.
The road ahead was blocked by a fallen utility truck.
Anthony’s voice came over the security radio.
“Reverse. Now.”
Our driver shifted.
A second vehicle appeared behind us.
Black SUV.
No plates.
Every guard moved at once.
I pulled Lucas and Leo down beneath the window line.
“Stay low.”
Lucas started crying.
Leo clutched my sleeve.
Glass exploded somewhere outside.
Not our window.
Another security vehicle had been struck.
The SUV behind us accelerated.
Our driver swerved onto the shoulder.
Then police units appeared from the crossroad ahead.
The black SUV turned sharply and crashed through a wooden barrier before stopping in a drainage ditch.
Officers surrounded it.
Eric Sloan stepped out with his hands raised.
He had been released earlier that day pending further questioning because his initial charges had not justified holding him.
Now they had him.
Again.
And this time, he had a gun.
The boys were safe.
But when Anthony called Vincent, nobody answered.
At the estate, the operation had gone wrong.
Blake arrived earlier than expected.
He entered through a service tunnel beneath the old greenhouse—a tunnel Vincent hadn’t known existed.
By the time police realized it, smoke was already rising from the east wing.
Blake had started a fire near the mechanical room.
Not an explosive inferno.
A deliberate destruction of evidence.
Vincent went inside.
When Anthony told me, I nearly screamed.
“He did what?”
“Fire crews are there.”
“Where is Vincent?”
“We lost visual contact for four minutes.”
“Four minutes?”
“Claire—”
The hospital doors opened.
Doctors took the boys inside.
I should have gone with them.
Instead, my eyes remained on Anthony’s phone.
Then Vincent called.
Alive.
Coughing.
But alive.
“What happened?” I demanded.
His voice came rough.
“Nice to hear you too.”
“Vincent.”
“I’m fine.”
“You walked into a burning house.”
“Not entirely burning.”
“That distinction is not helping you.”
Anthony almost smiled.
Vincent continued.
“Harrison is in custody.”
“What?”
“He didn’t get out before police sealed the greenhouse tunnel.”
My knees weakened with relief.
“And the records?”
“Some survived.”
“Some?”
“Enough.”
Later that night, Vincent came to the hospital.
His dress shirt smelled like smoke.
A bandage covered his left forearm.
I met him outside the boys’ room.
“You’re injured.”
“Minor burn.”
“You could have died.”
“I didn’t.”
“That is an incredibly stupid defense.”
He looked tired enough to collapse.
“I found something.”
He handed me a plastic evidence copy.
A letter.
Isabella’s handwriting.
Vincent,
If Harrison refuses to remove the system, I’m taking the boys to Sofia’s. I know you’ll think I’m overreacting. Maybe I am. But I need you to trust me this once before asking me to prove everything.
I’m scared, Vin.
Not only of the system.
Of him.
He knows I found the financial records.
If I can’t reach you tomorrow, I’m going to the police.
I love you.
I love our boys.
Please don’t blame yourself for trusting someone I trusted first.
My throat tightened.
Vincent looked away.
“She knew,” I whispered.
“She knew what I would do.”
“Blame yourself?”
He nodded.
“She wrote that because she knew me.”
I touched the edge of the letter.
“Then maybe listen to her.”
He looked at me.
“For four years, I thought her last day was random.”
“It wasn’t.”
“No.”
Blake had not physically forced Isabella’s car from the road.
But detectives now believed he had knowingly concealed the exposure she reported, stalked her investigation and sent Eric to intimidate witnesses afterward.
Whether her impaired condition caused the crash would require expert reconstruction.
Whether Blake had intended her death was another question entirely.
But the cover-up was no longer a theory.
It was a mountain of records.
At midnight, Lucas woke.
Vincent entered his room.
Leo slept beside him.
“Dad?”
“I’m here.”
Lucas looked at the bandage.
“Did you fight a dragon?”
Vincent sat down.
“Something like that.”
“Did you win?”
Vincent looked across the room at me.
“No.”
Lucas frowned.
Vincent took his son’s hand.
“We survived.”
Then he smiled.
“That’s better.”
Three days later, doctors gave us the first genuinely good news.
The twins’ laboratory markers were improving.
Slowly.
But clearly.
The damage did not appear irreversible.
Vincent sat beside both boys when the doctor explained it.
He didn’t speak until she left.
Then Leo asked, “Does this mean we can run again?”
“Eventually,” I said.
Lucas looked offended.
“I’m faster.”
“You were faster,” Leo corrected.
They started arguing.
Vincent laughed.
Not the controlled half-smile I had seen before.
A real laugh.
May you like
And for the first time since I entered the Moretti estate, the future sounded louder than the past.
---
