Chapter 8 - The Fire at the Cabin
Nora moved before I finished repeating Grace’s warning.
She switched off every light in the cabin.
Scout lifted his head from the floor and growled.
“Back bedroom,” Nora said.
I grabbed my coat.
“What about Samuel’s documents?”
“Leave them.”
“There are originals here.”
“Emily, move.”
The authority in her voice ended the argument.
We crossed the dark cabin toward a small rear room.
Nora opened a narrow door I had assumed was a closet.
Behind it was a staircase leading to a crawlspace exit beneath the back porch.
“You have an escape route?”
“My brother is paranoid.”
“Tonight I love your brother.”
Scout went first.
Nora followed.
I climbed down carefully with one arm useless in a cast.
We emerged into knee-deep snow behind the cabin.
The forest was black except for moonlight on the branches.
Nora pointed downhill.
“There’s an old logging road.”
“We follow it to the ranger shed.”
A sound came from the front of the cabin.
Glass breaking.
Scout growled again.
Then orange light flashed across the snow.
My breath stopped.
“They’re burning it.”
Flames spread frighteningly fast behind the windows.
Whoever entered had not come to search.
They had come to destroy.
Nora grabbed my sleeve.
“Go.”
We moved into the trees.
The fire grew behind us.
Smoke climbed above the roof.
A figure stepped around the side of the cabin.
Tall.
Dark jacket.
Face covered.
He carried a red fuel can.
Scout lunged.
Nora caught his harness.
“No.”
The figure stopped.
For one terrible second, he looked directly toward us.
Then he lifted something in his hand.
A flashlight beam swept across the forest.
We dropped behind a fallen tree.
The light passed inches above my head.
The baby kicked hard.
I pressed both hands to my stomach.
Please not now.
Please stay quiet.
The figure walked closer.
Snow crunched beneath his boots.
Nora slowly reached into her jacket.
She pulled out a compact flare gun from her rescue kit.
It was not a weapon meant for a fight.
But it was enough to make me feel less helpless.
The figure stopped ten yards away.
Then a vehicle horn sounded from the road.
One short blast.
Two long blasts.
The figure turned immediately and ran.
Scout tore free before Nora could stop him.
“Scout!”
The dog exploded through the snow.
The figure sprinted toward the road.
We heard shouting.
Then a sharp yelp.
Nora’s face changed.
She ran after him.
I followed as fast as I could.
By the time we reached the road, a black pickup was sliding away around the bend.
Scout stood in the road barking.
He was unharmed.
Something black lay in the snow near his paws.
Nora picked it up.
A glove.
Not an ordinary winter glove.
The wrist had a small embroidered silver logo.
HARTWELL SECURITY.
I stared at it.
“Ethan.”
“Maybe,” Nora said.
“Or someone wants us to think Ethan.”
The cabin roof collapsed ten minutes later.
Fire crews arrived from Cedar Ridge.
Nora told them an unknown intruder had started the blaze.
I stayed hidden in the ranger shed until state police arrived.
Not Mercer’s county office.
State police.
Nora had called someone she trusted.
Detective Lena Torres entered the shed at three seventeen in the morning.
She was forty, compact, with dark hair pulled tightly behind her head and a voice that wasted no words.
“I read Mercer’s initial report,” she said.
“I didn’t like it.”
Neither did I.
Torres photographed the Hartwell glove.
She collected Nora’s account.
Then she asked me to repeat the cliff incident from beginning to end.
I expected skepticism.
Instead, she asked about details Mercer never considered.
Which hand did Daniel use first?
Where was the SUV parked?
Which direction did it face?
Was the engine running?
Did I remember any other vehicles?
Had Daniel washed the SUV recently?
“Why does that matter?” I asked.
“Because if he drove away after leaving you there, the tires may have retained material from the overlook road.”
“The sheriff released the SUV.”
Torres’s expression hardened.
“I know.”
That was when I understood she did not trust Mercer either.
At dawn, Samuel called.
He had copies of almost everything destroyed in the cabin.
Grace had the photographs of Daniel’s message drafts.
For the first time, we had pieces Daniel did not know existed.
Then Torres asked where Daniel had been during the fire.
Grace answered over the phone.
“At the Hartwell Winter Foundation gala.”
I felt my hope collapse.
The gala had hundreds of guests and local television cameras.
Daniel had a perfect public alibi.
He had not burned the cabin himself.
Torres looked at the glove again.
“That means he has someone willing to commit serious crimes for him.”
My phone buzzed.
A message came from Grace.
It was a photo from the gala livestream.
Daniel stood at a podium beneath bright lights.
Vanessa stood beside him.
My mother sat at the front table.
Ethan Vale stood against the wall behind them.
All four people we suspected were on camera at the exact time the cabin burned.
Nora stared at the image.
“Then who was outside?”
I looked at the Hartwell glove in Torres’s evidence bag.
May you like
Someone else was involved.
Someone none of us had considered.
