Chapter 10 – The Fire
Chapter 10 – The Fire
The name lingered in the room long after Daniel lowered the letter.
James Holloway.
For years, he had been more than the Ashford family's attorney.
He had attended every birthday.
Every funeral.
Every board meeting.
He had held Daniel's shoulder at his father's funeral and whispered, "Your father was a good man who carried impossible burdens."
Now Richard's final letter accused him of something far worse than fraud.
Attempted murder.
Evelyn closed her eyes.
"I never wanted to believe it."
Daniel looked at her.
"You suspected him?"
She nodded slowly.
"Not at first."
"But after Charles died..."
"James stopped looking at me."
"He looked through me."
Detective Michael Cross carefully sealed Richard's letter inside an evidence bag.
"This changes the investigation."
Daniel frowned.
"How?"
"If Richard's account is truthful, Sebastian Blackwell wasn't the man who pushed Mrs. Ashford."
"He ordered it."
"James carried it out."
Cross paused.
"Which means we've been chasing the wrong role."
Before anyone could speak again, Cross's radio crackled violently.
"Detective!"
A frantic voice shouted through the static.
"We have an emergency!"
Cross grabbed the radio.
"What happened?"
"It's the storage warehouse."
"The one containing Richard Ashford's belongings."
Daniel's heart sank.
"What about it?"
"It's on fire!"
Twenty minutes later, police cars raced through sheets of rain toward the industrial district.
By the time Daniel arrived, towering flames had already consumed half the building.
Smoke billowed hundreds of feet into the night sky.
Firefighters fought desperately to contain the blaze.
The intense heat forced everyone behind the police barricades.
Daniel stared in horror.
"My father's paintings..."
"The records..."
Cross's jaw tightened.
"If this was arson..."
"Someone's cleaning up."
The fire chief hurried toward them.
"The building was locked."
"No signs of accidental ignition."
"Where did it start?"
"The archive room."
Exactly where Richard's private documents had been stored.
Cross looked toward Daniel.
"That's no coincidence."
As firefighters battled the inferno, one officer ran across the soaked pavement.
"Detective!"
"We found surveillance footage from a nearby warehouse."
Cross immediately followed him to the mobile command unit.
The grainy security video showed the street outside Richard's storage facility.
At 11:43 p.m., a black SUV stopped beside the entrance.
A hooded figure stepped out.
Within three minutes...
The building exploded into flames.
The figure calmly returned to the vehicle and drove away.
Daniel frowned.
"Can you zoom in?"
The technician enlarged the image.
The face remained hidden.
But one detail stood out clearly.
A silver walking cane.
Cross looked at Evelyn.
"That's not yours."
She shook her head.
"No."
"My cane has a wooden handle."
The one in the video...
Had a silver lion's head carved into its top.
Cross immediately recognized the symbol.
"The lion."
Daniel whispered,
"Blackwell."
The fire chief approached again.
"We found something."
He held up a scorched metal lockbox.
"It survived."
Daniel felt a flicker of hope.
"What was inside?"
"We haven't opened it."
Cross nodded.
"Do it here."
Using specialized tools, firefighters carefully pried open the warped steel.
Inside...
Most documents had burned.
Only one object remained intact.
A pocket-sized notebook.
Its leather cover was blackened but recognizable.
Richard Ashford's initials.
R.A.
Daniel carefully opened the notebook.
Many pages had been damaged.
Others remained readable.
Unlike Charles' journal, Richard hadn't written daily entries.
Only dates that mattered.
The first surviving page read:
May 7
James says Mother must never return.
Daniel swallowed hard.
Another page.
May 19
Sebastian wants the Foundation dissolved.
Charles would never allow it.
Further into the notebook, the entries became more frantic.
June 2
I signed another transfer.
James prepared everything.
I didn't read it.
God forgive me.
Cross looked at Daniel.
"Your father knew."
"He knew he was being used."
Daniel nodded silently.
Then they reached the final surviving entry.
It had clearly been written in haste.
The ink smeared across the page.
If anything happens to me, search the chapel crypt.
The truth isn't buried with Father...
The rest of the page had burned away.
"The chapel."
Daniel whispered.
"We searched the chapel."
Cross shook his head.
"No."
"We searched the chapel."
He emphasized the final word.
"We never searched beneath it."
Before they could leave, a firefighter called out.
"We've got someone!"
Near the collapsed rear wall, rescue crews pulled an unconscious man from the wreckage.
His clothes were burned.
His face was covered in soot.
Daniel couldn't recognize him.
Paramedics rushed him onto a stretcher.
As they lifted him into the ambulance, his hand slipped from beneath the blanket.
Cross froze.
A gold ring gleamed on his finger.
The Ashford family crest.
Daniel's eyes widened.
"That's impossible."
The ring belonged to only one person.
James Holloway.
At the hospital, surgeons worked through the night.
The man had suffered severe burns and smoke inhalation.
He remained unconscious.
Outside the intensive care unit, Daniel paced the corridor.
Cross approached with a grim expression.
"The fingerprints don't match James Holloway."
Daniel stopped.
"What?"
"The ring belonged to James."
"But the man isn't him."
"Who is he?"
Cross handed over a forensic report.
Daniel stared at the name.
His pulse quickened.
Thomas Holloway.
James Holloway's younger brother.
Officially declared dead...
Twenty-eight years earlier.
Evelyn looked up in disbelief.
"I attended his funeral."
Cross replied quietly,
"There wasn't a body."
Before anyone could process the revelation, an officer rushed into the hallway.
"Detective!"
Cross turned.
"What now?"
"The fire wasn't the only attack tonight."
Daniel's stomach tightened.
"What happened?"
"The hidden archive beneath Ashford Manor..."
He hesitated.
"...is burning too."
Daniel didn't wait.
He ran.
Back through the rain.
Back toward the mansion.
As police cars raced behind him, towering flames were already climbing from the basement windows of Ashford Manor.
The hidden archive Charles Ashford had built to preserve the truth...
Was becoming an inferno.
And somewhere inside those flames...
May you like
Were the last original records that could expose a conspiracy spanning nearly three decades.
End of Chapter 10
