Chapter 10 - The House That Was Meant to BurnThe police returned to Birch Hollow before noon.
The house was evacuated, the electricity disconnected, and the surrounding property searched for additional devices. Investigators found damaged wiring behind the false wall, but the ignition mechanism itself was missing.
“Someone may have removed it,” Quinn said. “Or it may never have been installed.”
“Who ordered the work?”
“The invoice lists a shell company associated with your father. The contractor remembers meeting a man who called himself Daniel.”
“Mercer?”
“We haven't confirmed that.”
I stood in the muddy yard, looking at the house my family had dismissed as worthless.
For the first time, I wondered whether the decay had been part of the plan.
If the building were demolished, the box and the firearm might never be discovered. If I sold the property without inspecting the walls, the contents could disappear into a contractor's dumpster. And if someone tried to recover them while I was away, the old house offered dozens of ways to make evidence vanish.
A fire, for example.
Quinn guided me toward her vehicle.
“We're placing a temporary security detail here.”
“I want to search the property myself.”
“Absolutely not.”
“It's my house.”
“And someone may have attempted to set it on fire.”
I stopped arguing.
That afternoon, the detectives recovered a second recording from the damaged memory card. It was only forty seconds long, but every second mattered.
The footage showed the rear corridor of the warehouse on the night of the fire.
At 8:41 p.m., Richard entered the frame carrying a metal case.
At 8:49, Martin Vale appeared, holding papers.
The two men argued. Their voices were distorted by the damaged recording, but one sentence was clear.
Martin pointed toward the papers and said, “Arthur has already signed it.”
Richard grabbed the documents.
Then the footage cut to static.
When the image returned, the corridor was empty.
At 9:06, a figure emerged from the rear exit.
The person was wearing Richard's coat.
The image ended moments later.
Quinn froze the final frame.
“There's something on his sleeve.”
I leaned forward.
A dark stain covered the right cuff.
The same sleeve described in Mercer's handwritten statement.
“Blood?” I asked.
“We don't know. The footage quality is poor, and the stain could be anything. We'll need forensic analysis.”
“Can you prove Richard started the fire?”
“Not from this recording alone.”
I felt frustration rise in my throat.
“How much more do we need?”
“Evidence that connects him to the fire itself. A witness who can establish what happened inside. Physical evidence. A reliable confession. Something that survives scrutiny.”
She looked at me.
“We're building a case, Evelyn. We can't arrest someone because everything points in one direction and we desperately want the story to be true.”
I knew she was right.
The following day, Mercer agreed to provide a full statement. He admitted that he had altered the original report after Richard's legal team threatened him with a corruption investigation. He also revealed that he had kept a copy of the warehouse alarm records.
The records showed that the fire alarm had been manually disabled shortly before the blaze began.
The access code belonged to Richard.
But before the detectives could obtain the original server logs, a call arrived from the hospital.
Margaret's former nurse, Angela Price, had requested to speak with me.
She had cared for my grandmother during the final six months of her life.
When I entered the hospital meeting room, Angela looked frightened.
“I should have told you this months ago,” she said.
“Told me what?”
“The night Margaret died, your father came to see her.”
I sat down.
“He said he wasn't there.”
“He was. I saw him enter her room at 8:17 p.m.”
The number again.
Eight seventeen.
“What happened?”
Angela clasped her hands together.
“They argued. Margaret told him she had found the original records and that he would never control the trust again. He told her she had no idea what she was risking.”
“And then?”
“Your grandmother asked me to leave. When I returned, your father was gone.”
“Was she all right?”
“Physically, yes. But she was terrified.”
Angela reached into her handbag and removed a small envelope.
“She gave me this the following morning. She said that if anything happened to her, I was to give it to you.”
Inside was a handwritten note.
If Richard comes back, the house is no longer safe. Evelyn must find the final recording before he does.
Below the message was a location.
The old Callahan greenhouse, which had been abandoned for more than a decade.
I looked at Quinn.
“We need to go there.”
She nodded, but before we could leave, Angela caught my wrist.
“Evelyn, there's something else.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper.
“Your grandmother wasn't afraid that your father would steal her money.”
May you like
She swallowed.
“She was afraid he would kill you to keep it.”
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