Chapter 4 - THE FIRE IN MY HOUSEBy the time we reached the mansion, smoke was pouring from a ventilation grate near the west wing.
Fire engines blocked the street.
Neighbors stood outside.
Reporters had somehow already appeared.
And Evelyn Valez was sitting in the back of an ambulance wrapped in a blanket.
She looked furious rather than frightened.
I stepped from Daniel’s car.
Her eyes locked on me.
“You.”
A firefighter stopped me before I reached the entrance.
“Ma’am, you can’t go inside.”
“I own the property.”
“That doesn’t make the fire less dangerous.”
Fair point.
Rodrigo hurried toward his mother.
“What happened?”
Evelyn gripped his arm.
“Electrical fire.”
I almost admired her.
The lie came effortlessly.
A battalion chief approached.
“Ms. Marlowe?”
“Yes.”
“We contained it primarily to the wine storage area. There’s significant smoke damage.”
“Cause?”
“Too early.”
“Was anyone downstairs?”
His expression changed slightly.
“We found evidence that someone had been.”
Evelyn interrupted.
“I already told you, I went down to find a bottle.”
The chief looked at her.
“At six-thirty in the morning?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
Then Daniel arrived beside me.
“What burned?”
The chief shook his head.
“We’ll know more after inspection.”
I turned toward Evelyn.
“Where’s Sebastian?”
“I don’t know.”
“Call him.”
“I don’t take orders from you.”
“No. But investigators might.”
Her lips tightened.
Rodrigo looked between us.
“Mom, where is he?”
“I said I don’t know.”
That was when a firefighter emerged carrying a blackened metal case.
Rodrigo stopped breathing.
The case had been partially protected by the safe.
Its exterior was scorched.
But intact.
Evelyn went pale.
Not slightly pale.
Completely.
Daniel saw it too.
He quietly said, “Interesting.”
The battalion chief handed the case to an investigator.
Evelyn suddenly stood.
“That belongs to my family.”
I looked at her.
“It was found in my house.”
“It contains private documents.”
“Then you can explain that to the police.”
Her expression sharpened.
“You vindictive little—”
“Finish that sentence.”
For once, she didn’t.
The fire investigator asked questions for nearly an hour.
Evelyn claimed she had accidentally knocked over a candle.
There were no candles in the wine cellar.
She then claimed electrical wiring sparked.
The preliminary inspection showed accelerant residue.
By ten that morning, police were involved.
I did not feel victorious.
I felt tired.
Humiliated.
Furious.
And increasingly certain the people I had called family for three years had never seen me as family at all.
Only access.
At noon, investigators allowed me inside.
The mansion smelled like smoke.
The foyer still contained fragments of the crystal bowl Rodrigo had shattered when he hit me.
Nobody had cleaned them.
I stared at the staircase.
So many memories lived inside those walls.
Christmas mornings.
Late-night pizza.
Grace’s nursery upstairs.
Our wedding photographs.
For a moment, grief overwhelmed anger.
Daniel stood quietly behind me.
“I loved him.”
“I know.”
“I thought he loved me.”
Daniel didn’t offer an easy answer.
That was why I trusted him.
We went downstairs.
The wine cellar door had burned.
Inside, soot covered the walls.
An investigator showed us the hidden safe.
I never knew it existed.
“Installed recently?” I asked.
The investigator checked the mechanism.
“Looks several years old.”
Rodrigo had hidden it before our marriage.
The metal case recovered earlier was opened under police supervision.
Inside were water-damaged folders, flash drives, and contracts.
Several documents bore Sebastian’s signature.
Several bore Evelyn’s.
Two bore Rodrigo’s.
One made my blood cold.
It was an agreement between Valez Hospitality Group and Pacific Arc Development.
The date was eighteen months earlier.
Victor Soren had agreed to provide the Valezes with $14 million in private financing.
The collateral clause was unusual.
Not their hotels.
Not their restaurants.
Something called an “anticipated marital interest transfer.”
Daniel read it twice.
“This is garbage.”
“What does it mean?”
“They promised Soren assets Rodrigo expected to obtain through you.”
I stared at him.
“But Rodrigo has no claim to my premarital companies.”
“He does if you voluntarily transfer them.”
“I never would.”
Daniel turned another page.
Then he stopped.
“What?”
He handed it to me.
A draft postnuptial agreement.
My name appeared at the top.
It transferred partial ownership of the Santa Monica property into a marital holding company.
Unsigned.
Except on the final copy found beneath it.
There was my signature.
Again.
Forged.
But this one had been notarized.
“Who notarized this?”
Daniel checked.
Then his face changed.
“Bianca Valez.”
Rodrigo’s sister.
Bianca.
The quiet one.
The sister who used to bring soup when I was sick.
The woman who cried beside me at Grace’s funeral.
“She’s a notary?”
“She was commissioned two years ago.”
My chest tightened.
It was no longer Sebastian.
No longer Evelyn.
The conspiracy was wider.
Daniel continued sorting.
Then he found photographs.
Me leaving restaurants.
Me entering Marlowe offices.
Me meeting board members.
Surveillance.
Someone had tracked me.
Another photograph showed me visiting my obstetrician.
Date stamped the week before I lost Grace.
My hands shook.
“Why would Soren need pictures of this?”
Daniel didn’t answer.
There was one final folder.
Medical.
My medical.
Prenatal appointments.
Blood tests.
Prescription records.
I nearly dropped it.
“How did they get these?”
Daniel’s voice was quiet.
“They shouldn’t have.”
At the bottom was a handwritten note.
If pregnancy continues, timeline becomes complicated.
I read it twice.
“What does that mean?”
Nobody answered.
I felt the room tilt.
Grace’s death had been diagnosed as placental abruption.
A terrible tragedy.
No suspicious circumstances.
No reason to doubt anyone.
Until now.
I looked toward Rodrigo.
He was standing by the burned doorway.
His face was gray.
“Did you know they had my medical records?”
“No.”
“Did you know Soren was watching me?”
“No.”
“Did you know this existed?”
I held up the note.
Rodrigo shook his head.
“Elena, I swear.”
I wanted to believe him.
Some stupid wounded part of me still wanted one boundary.
One line he had not crossed.
Then an investigator called from inside the safe.
“We found something else.”
A small digital recorder.
Fire-damaged but functional.
They connected it to a forensic laptop.
Three audio files survived.
The first was static.
The second contained Sebastian arguing with someone.
The third began with Evelyn’s voice.
Clear.
Cold.
Recorded eleven months earlier.
“Rodrigo will never convince her to transfer the land while she thinks she’s building a future for the child.”
A man replied.
Victor Soren.
“What are you suggesting?”
Evelyn said:
“I’m suggesting grief makes people easier to control.”
My knees nearly gave out.
Rodrigo whispered, “No.”
The recording continued.
Soren asked one question.
“What exactly are you planning, Evelyn?”
She replied:
“Nothing that can ever be traced back to us.”
Then the audio ended.
I looked at Rodrigo.
He was crying.
I wasn’t.
Not anymore.
Because something inside me had become terrifyingly calm.
“Daniel.”
“Yes?”
“Call the district attorney.”
Evelyn had wanted me grieving.
Weak.
Dependent.
Easy to control.
May you like
Instead, she had made one mistake.
She had left me alive.
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