Chapter 12 - The Fire Door.
The video on the ballroom screens lasted only six seconds.
“Celeste, if you are watching this, you already know why I recorded it.”
Then the image vanished.
The screens returned to black.
Everyone in the ballroom stared upward.
Jonathan looked at the control booth.
“No one is supposed to be in there.”
Detective Ortiz was already moving.
Officers ran toward the rear stairs.
Maya followed until Ortiz ordered her to remain behind.
A minute later, an officer radioed that the booth was empty.
Someone had accessed the mansion's presentation system remotely.
Jonathan's face tightened.
“Celeste.”
Ortiz shook her head.
“Maybe.”
Maya stared at the dead screens.
“Why show only six seconds?”
“To prove she has the rest,” Ortiz said.
“Or to make us chase it.”
A fire alarm suddenly screamed through the mansion.
The sound shattered the room.
Red lights flashed above the doors.
Staff members began directing the remaining police and family representatives outside.
Maya smelled smoke before she saw it.
It came from the east corridor.
“The archive,” Jonathan said.
He ran.
Maya ran after him.
Smoke curled from beneath the old nursery doors.
An officer grabbed a fire extinguisher while another forced the lock.
Inside, a wastebasket burned beside a wall of wooden cabinets.
The fire was small but spreading.
Jonathan moved toward it.
Ortiz pulled him back.
“Stay out.”
The officer extinguished the flames.
Maya covered her mouth with her sleeve.
On the floor beside the wastebasket were scraps of photographs and melted plastic.
Someone had tried to destroy something quickly.
Ortiz scanned the room.
A narrow service door stood open behind a curtain.
Maya had never known it existed.
The detective pushed it wider.
Beyond was a steep staircase descending into darkness.
Fresh marks scarred the dust on the steps.
Someone had used it recently.
Officers descended.
The passage ended near a rear fire door leading to the gardens.
The door was open.
Outside, wet footprints crossed the stone terrace and disappeared onto the lawn.
A silver object lay near the threshold.
Maya picked it up only after Ortiz nodded.
It was a diamond earring.
She had seen Celeste wearing the matching pair at the gala.
Jonathan stared at it.
“She was still here.”
Ortiz looked toward the trees.
“Or someone wants us to think she was.”
The fire department arrived and confirmed that the alarm had been triggered manually.
The small fire had been started with papers and alcohol from a nearby cabinet.
It had not been meant to burn the mansion.
It had been meant to destroy specific material.
Maya returned to the archive room once it was safe.
Most of the cabinets were intact.
One drawer had been forced open.
Inside, among old family film reels, was an empty camera case.
The label read EVELYN - PERSONAL.
The camera was gone.
But beneath the case, Maya noticed a white envelope blackened along one edge.
Her name was written on it.
MAYA BENNETT.
Her hands began to shake.
Jonathan saw it.
“Open it.”
Maya looked at him.
The envelope had been sealed three years earlier.
Inside was a single handwritten line from Evelyn.
If you are reading this, the house has become more dangerous than I feared.
Below it was an address in Greenwich.
May you like
And one instruction.
Ask for Ruth Bell.
