CHAPTER 6 — THE BURNING ESTATE
“You are not getting the ledger,” Emily said.
Preston laughed softly.
“You still believe this is about money.”
Smoke thickened around the garage entrance.
Daniel motioned for Emily to keep Preston talking.
“What is it about?” she asked.
“Survival.”
The line went silent.
Then Vanessa screamed.
Emily heard Preston order someone to move her.
“You have ten minutes,” he said. “Come to the ballroom alone.”
The call ended.
Caleb shook his head.
“You can’t go back.”
Emily doubled over as another contraction seized her.
Nora knelt beside her.
“They are five minutes apart.”
Daniel studied the garage.
Arthur Hale had designed the mansion with several emergency systems. If the fire alarms were active, an underground storm exit should have opened automatically.
It had not.
Someone had overridden it.
Caleb pointed toward a maintenance cabinet.
“My sister told me Arthur kept manual controls in every service area.”
Daniel forced open the cabinet.
Inside was a red lever.
He pulled it.
A section of the garage floor shifted, revealing a concrete ramp leading beneath the estate.
Fresh air rushed upward.
Nora helped Emily toward it.
“I’m not leaving Vanessa,” Emily said.
“She humiliated you,” Nora replied.
“She also tried to tell the truth.”
Daniel looked toward the smoke-filled corridor.
“I’ll get her.”
“No,” Caleb said. “Preston knows your face. He doesn’t know mine.”
Before anyone could stop him, Caleb disappeared into the mansion.
Emily, Nora, and Daniel descended the ramp.
At the end of the tunnel, they found Arthur’s old armored sedan.
The keys were still inside.
As Daniel started the engine, Emily’s phone vibrated.
A video had arrived from an unknown number.
Vanessa appeared on-screen, tied to a chair in the ballroom.
Preston stood behind her.
Lydia was beside him, holding the missing evidence phone.
“I warned you,” Preston said into the camera. “Your father should have stayed out of my business.”
Lydia held up a lighter.
“Bring us the original ledger,” she said, “or every piece of evidence in this house disappears.”
Behind them, flames crawled across the ballroom curtains.
Then Vanessa looked directly at the camera.
Her face was swollen, but her voice remained steady.
“Emily, don’t come back.”
Preston struck her chair from behind.
The video ended.
Daniel drove the sedan through the storm exit and onto a wooded road behind the estate.
Police sirens sounded in the distance.
Nora called ahead to the nearest hospital.
Emily struggled to remain upright.
Then another message appeared.
This one came from Caleb.
Found Vanessa. East balcony. Preston is leaving through the helipad.
A second message followed.
It contained a photograph of Preston carrying a metal case toward the roof.
Emily recognized the case.
Her father had used it to store original corporate seals, account codes, and offshore banking records.
Preston had never wanted only the ledger.
He planned to flee with enough money to rebuild his empire somewhere else.
Daniel changed direction.
“The hospital is west.”
“The private helipad is north,” Emily said.
“You’re in labor.”
“And Preston is carrying proof that could bring justice to eleven families.”
She gripped the seat as another contraction began.
“Call an ambulance to the helipad.”
When they reached the hill overlooking the estate, a helicopter was already lifting from the roof.
But it was not flying away.
It was turning toward them.
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And through the windshield, Emily could see Preston sitting beside the pilot.
He was pointing directly at her car.
