Chapter 12 - The Night of the Fire
The emergency lights came on in dim red strips along the tunnel wall.
Liana spun toward the steel door.
"Did someone lock us in?"
Matteo tested the handle.
It did not move.
Rosa looked toward the ceiling.
"The new lock is electronic."
"And whoever controls it just shut us down," Matteo said.
He pulled out his phone.
No signal underground.
The guard with them tried his radio.
Static.
For the first time since leaving the nursery, Matteo felt real panic.
Not for himself.
For Nico upstairs.
"There's another exit," Rosa said.
Matteo turned.
"How do you know?"
"Old estate tunnels were built with two exits in case of collapse."
"Where?"
"I don't know."
Liana was already checking the walls.
"Then we find it."
They searched the utility room.
Behind a metal shelving unit, the guard found an outline in the concrete.
A narrow emergency hatch had been painted over.
The mechanism resisted.
Matteo and the guard pulled together until rust gave way with a shriek.
Cold air rushed in.
A ladder climbed toward darkness.
Matteo went first.
He emerged beneath the guesthouse kitchen through a trapdoor hidden under a rug.
The building was empty.
The front door stood open.
A black sedan was disappearing down the private road.
"Dominic," Matteo said.
Liana climbed out behind him.
"Or Cross."
Matteo called the main house.
Dr. Shaw answered.
Nico was safe.
The guards had seen a brief power interruption but no breach.
Matteo closed his eyes in relief.
Then he called Luis at the gate.
"Did a black sedan leave?"
"Yes, sir. It used an override code."
"Whose?"
A pause.
"Mrs. Varric's."
Matteo looked at Liana.
"My mother's code."
They returned to the mansion.
Marisol waited in the study.
She had removed her jacket and was sitting beside the cold fireplace with a glass of water she had not touched.
When Matteo entered, she looked at his face and understood immediately.
"You found the garage video."
He stopped.
"You knew it existed."
Marisol closed her eyes.
"Yes."
Liana stepped into the room behind him.
"Elena said you had the backup from Saint Arden."
Marisol's eyes opened.
"You spoke to her?"
"She spoke through Dominic's surveillance system."
For the first time, hope appeared in Marisol's face.
"She's alive?"
Liana stared at her.
"You didn't know?"
"Not for certain."
"You told Matteo she survived the fire."
"She survived the fire. That does not mean I knew she survived everything after it."
Matteo walked to the desk.
"What did you burn after Camila's funeral?"
Marisol's face changed.
She looked suddenly old.
"Who told you that?"
"Elena."
"Then she knows more than I thought."
"Answer me."
Marisol stood.
"A hard drive."
Matteo felt his anger sharpen.
"The Saint Arden backup?"
"A copy."
"Why?"
"Because Julian Cross came to me the morning after the funeral."
Liana's mouth tightened.
"The dead doctor."
Marisol nodded.
"He told me the clinic fire had destroyed most of the original fertility records, but Camila had copied part of the database before the fire."
Matteo stared.
"How did she get it?"
"Elena gave her access."
"And Cross wanted it back."
"Yes."
"So you burned it."
Marisol's voice broke for the first time.
"He threatened you."
Matteo said nothing.
"He showed me photographs of you leaving Nico's neonatal unit."
She looked at Liana.
"Photographs like the ones Dominic later took of your family."
Marisol swallowed.
"Cross said if I gave the records to police, he would make sure Matteo was named as the person who authorized the donor substitution."
Matteo laughed bitterly.
"Because my signature was already on the paper."
"Yes."
"You believed him?"
"I knew what the document looked like."
"So you destroyed evidence in my wife's death to protect me from scandal."
"I did not know Dominic had touched Camila's car."
"Did you suspect?"
Marisol looked away.
That was answer enough.
Matteo's voice dropped.
"Did you suspect?"
"I suspected Cross was capable of frightening her."
"That is not what I asked."
"I did not know she was murdered."
"But you knew her last message said she was afraid."
Marisol began to cry.
Matteo had seen his mother cry at funerals, weddings, and once when Nico first opened his eyes after a respiratory scare.
He had never seen her cry with shame.
"I thought I could contain it," she said.
"That has always been your disease."
The words left Matteo before he softened them.
"You think everything can be contained if you close enough doors."
Marisol looked at him.
"I was trying to save you."
"Camila needed you to save the truth."
Marisol sank back into the chair.
Liana moved to the window, giving mother and son distance.
Matteo wanted to hate Marisol cleanly.
It would have been easier.
But he knew her fear had been real.
He also knew fear did not excuse what she destroyed.
"Tell me everything about Cross," he said.
Marisol wiped her face.
"Saint Arden had a private program for wealthy clients."
"What kind of program?"
"Guaranteed live-birth arrangements."
Liana turned.
"You can't guarantee that."
"No," Marisol said.
"But you can lie about what you do when the original embryos fail."
Cross had built a hidden donor bank using samples taken from carriers during routine testing.
When a wealthy client's embryo was nonviable, the clinic sometimes substituted genetic material from a carrier or donor without complete consent.
The official file was then rewritten to show an approved embryo.
The clients received the baby they desperately wanted.
The clinic received extraordinary fees.
Most families never knew.
Most carriers never knew.
"How many?" Matteo asked.
"I don't know."
"Five? Fifty?"
"I don't know."
"And you funded this clinic."
Marisol closed her eyes.
"The foundation funded maternal health programs. We did not know what Cross was doing privately."
"Until Nico."
"Until after Nico."
Matteo paced.
Camila's miscarriages had made them vulnerable.
Cross had promised certainty where medicine could promise none.
When the Varric embryos failed, someone selected Elena's egg, created a new embryo with Matteo's genetic material, and transferred it without telling the two women whose lives would be permanently changed.
"Why Elena?" Liana asked.
Marisol looked at her.
"She was young, healthy, and already approved as a carrier."
Liana flinched.
"You say that like she was inventory."
"I am telling you how they saw her. Not how I do."
"You still paid them."
Marisol had no defense.
Matteo thought about the night of the clinic fire.
"What happened at Saint Arden?"
Marisol told them what Cross had later admitted.
Camila and Elena discovered the substitution.
They copied part of the clinic's private database.
Cross learned about it.
Dominic, who had been managing Varric security around the clinic, warned Cross that Camila planned to tell Matteo and then go to authorities.
The fire was set in a records wing to destroy evidence and create a believable explanation for missing files.
Elena escaped through a maintenance corridor.
Cross disappeared and allowed himself to be listed among the dead.
The world believed Elena died too because her identification had been found near the destroyed wing.
"Did Dominic set the fire?" Matteo asked.
"I don't know."
"Did Cross?"
"I don't know."
"You know a lot of things only after they become useless."
Marisol accepted the insult.
Liana asked, "Why did Elena stay dead?"
"To protect you."
Marisol looked at her.
"Cross believed she had given Camila the only surviving copy. If Elena resurfaced, he would know she might have another."
"Did she?"
"Camila thought so."
Matteo remembered the underground recording.
The person who approved the transfer was not a doctor.
"Who approved it?"
Marisol went still.
Matteo repeated the question.
"Camila said the person who approved Elena's transfer wasn't a doctor."
Marisol's lips parted.
"I don't know."
"You do."
"I know who signed the funding authorization, not the medical order."
"Who?"
Marisol looked at him with dread.
"Your father."
Matteo did not react at first.
His father, Rafael Varric, had died two years earlier.
He could not have authorized Nico's transfer nine months later.
Liana saw the contradiction too.
"That makes no sense."
Marisol's voice dropped.
"The signature was dated after Rafael died."
The room fell silent.
Someone had used a dead man's authority to move money and approve decisions inside the Varric family structure.
Matteo suddenly understood why Cross had been so confident.
The fraud was not limited to a clinic.
It reached into his family office.
And only one person besides Marisol had controlled Rafael Varric's old authorization credentials after his death.
Dominic Vale.
Matteo's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
May you like
Dominic's voice came through calmly.
"If you want Elena alive when the sun comes up, come to Santa Pilar alone."
