Chapter 7 - Fire on the Lake
Smoke filled the room within seconds.
Someone had poured gasoline beneath the back windows.
Fire raced across the curtains and climbed the wooden walls.
Daniel kicked open the front door.
“Move!”
Claire helped Caleb toward the exit.
A burning beam crashed between them.
Ethan pulled Claire back as sparks exploded across the floor.
Caleb disappeared behind the flames.
“Caleb!”
“I’m here!”
His voice came from the kitchen.
Daniel tried to reach him.
The ceiling groaned.
Caleb threw the sealed envelope through the fire.
“Take it!”
Ethan caught it against his chest.
“Come with us!”
Caleb stood beyond the flames.
His face was calm.
“I ran for ten years.”
“I won’t run again.”
A shadow appeared outside the kitchen window.
Caleb raised his rifle.
The glass shattered.
He disappeared in a burst of smoke.
Daniel dragged Ethan toward the door.
They escaped seconds before the roof collapsed.
Claire fell to her knees in the snow.
Flames consumed the cabin.
No one came out.
The dark SUV was gone.
Firefighters arrived twenty minutes later.
By then, almost nothing remained.
Daniel called the shooting and fire into state police.
Ethan stared at the burning ruins.
“My mother did this.”
“We cannot prove she ordered it,” Daniel said.
“Not yet.”
Claire opened the envelope.
Inside was a second photograph.
Thomas sat in a wheelchair near a garden wall.
A nurse stood beside him.
This time, the nurse’s face was visible.
Claire recognized her.
“Her name is Dr. Helen Voss.”
“How do you know her?”
“She treated my mother after her car accident.”
Ethan looked at Claire.
“Your mother died at the scene.”
“That’s what I was told.”
Claire remembered Dr. Voss arriving at the funeral.
She had hugged Claire and said Laura had not suffered.
At the time, the kindness had felt genuine.
Now it felt rehearsed.
Daniel searched the doctor’s name.
Helen Voss had worked at White Oak Recovery Center.
She currently served as medical director of Saint Augustine’s Sanitarium.
Claire turned the photograph over.
A line had been written across the back.
Ask Helen what happened to Laura.
Claire’s knees weakened.
Ethan caught her.
“What if my mother found your father?” Claire whispered.
“What if Eleanor found mine too?”
Daniel’s phone rang.
He listened without speaking.
Then his expression hardened.
“What happened?” Ethan asked.
“The hospital security team assigned to Claire’s room was attacked.”
Claire stared at him.
“My room?”
“They found a syringe beside the bed.”
Ethan’s face turned cold.
“What was inside it?”
May you like
Daniel ended the call.
“Enough potassium chloride to stop a human heart.”
