Chapter 8 - Locked Inside Hawthorne House
For one second, nobody moved.
Then Detective Alvarez drew her weapon.
“Everyone away from the stairs.”
The basement emergency light flickered on.
Dim red light filled the room.
Lorraine whispered, “Celia.”
Alvarez pointed toward the far wall.
“Is there another exit?”
Travis nodded.
“Bulkhead door.”
“Where?”
“Behind those shelves.”
We moved quickly.
The basement shelves were heavy, but Travis and the uniformed officer shoved them aside.
Behind them stood a narrow wooden door.
Travis pulled it.
Locked.
“Key?”
“Upstairs.”
Alvarez swore.
“Windows?”
“Two.”
Tiny basement windows near the ceiling.
Too small for an adult.
Maybe barely large enough for Zia.
Thank God Zia was not here.
A smell reached me.
Smoke.
“Do you smell that?”
Travis looked up.
“Yes.”
Lorraine’s face changed.
“No.”
Alvarez moved toward the stairs.
Smoke began slipping beneath the basement door.
“Fire department now.”
The officer radioed.
I grabbed Walter’s steel box.
Alvarez looked at me.
“Leave it.”
“No.”
“Maya.”
“This is why they’re here.”
She looked at the smoke.
Then at me.
“Fine.”
Travis found a hammer.
He attacked the old bulkhead door near the latch.
Wood splintered.
Smoke thickened.
Lorraine began coughing.
I wrapped my sleeve over my mouth.
“Again.”
Travis swung.
The frame cracked.
The officer joined him.
Together they forced the door outward.
Cold daylight spilled in.
We climbed into the backyard.
Smoke poured from an upstairs window.
The fire alarm finally began screaming.
Alvarez pulled us toward the fence.
“Move.”
Fire trucks arrived within minutes.
Flames had started in the dining room.
The same dining room where Zia’s place card had said Guest.
The image felt too symbolic to be accidental.
Travis stared at the house.
“She set it on fire.”
“We don’t know that yet,” Alvarez said.
“She called us.”
“Yes.”
“Then the power went out.”
“Yes.”
“She locked us in.”
“We’ll prove what we can prove.”
Lorraine hugged herself against the cold.
“She wanted the files.”
Alvarez looked at her.
“Tell me everything you know about Celia Grant.”
Lorraine stared at the smoke.
“She came to work for us when Travis was ten.”
“Why?”
“Walter hired her.”
“As?”
“Housekeeper at first.”
Travis frowned.
“I thought you hired her.”
“No.”
“You always said she came through your friend Margaret.”
Lorraine shook her head.
“That was what Walter wanted people to think.”
“Why?”
“I never asked.”
Alvarez’s eyes sharpened.
“Your husband secretly hired a woman who later became involved with Victor Hale.”
Lorraine swallowed.
“Yes.”
“And you never questioned it?”
“Celia was efficient.”
That might have been the most Lorraine answer imaginable.
The fire department contained the blaze before it destroyed the house.
The dining room and adjacent sitting room suffered heavy damage.
The basement survived.
So did Walter’s box.
Investigators found an accelerant.
Arson.
The front-door deadbolt showed fresh scratches.
Someone had locked it from outside.
Security cameras had been disabled.
The system recorded one final frame before losing power.
A woman in a dark coat entering through the side gate.
Face obscured.
But Lorraine recognized the walk.
“So did Travis.”
“Celia,” he said.
Detective Alvarez immediately issued an alert.
By evening, they located an address.
Empty.
Celia had moved out two weeks earlier.
Neighbors said a moving truck came at night.
No forwarding address.
No useful license plate.
She had vanished.
Just like Naomi.
Only Celia had been preparing.
We returned home under police escort.
Zia ran into Travis’s arms.
“What happened?”
He held her tightly.
“Grandma’s house had a fire.”
Her eyes widened.
“Is Grandma okay?”
“Yes.”
“Did my box cause it?”
I almost cried.
“No.”
Travis answered firmly.
“Absolutely not.”
“But if she wasn’t leaving—”
“Zia.”
He crouched.
“Listen to me.”
She did.
“Adults are responsible for adult choices.”
“Even Grandma?”
“Especially Grandma.”
She nodded.
“Okay.”
Then she looked toward Lorraine, who stood awkwardly near the doorway.
Their eyes met.
Lorraine did not move closer.
That mattered.
Zia looked away first.
Elena took her upstairs.
Lorraine remained in our foyer.
“I need somewhere to stay.”
Travis looked at her.
“Maple Ridge.”
“The key was in the box.”
“Where is it?”
Lorraine blinked.
“The box was at Hawthorne House.”
Travis closed his eyes.
“Of course.”
Andrew had a spare.
He brought it over.
Before Lorraine left, she stopped beside me.
“Maya.”
I waited.
“I am sorry.”
“For what part?”
Her face tightened.
“All of it.”
“That is too large for one apology.”
“I know.”
“And right now I’m more interested in keeping Zia safe.”
“I know.”
“So if you remember anything, anything at all about Celia, you tell Alvarez.”
“I will.”
“Not Travis.”
She looked surprised.
“Not me.”
I continued.
“The detective.”
Lorraine nodded.
For once, I wanted her truth documented somewhere outside the family.
After she left, Travis and I opened Walter’s letter.
The fire had scorched one corner but not the writing.
Maya.
If you are reading this, I failed to tell you the truth before it became dangerous.
Aaron trusted me with something bigger than fraud.
Victor Hale is not the person I fear most.
Victor answers to Celia Grant.
And Celia has been inside my family for twenty-two years.
I hired Celia because I was told she needed work.
That was a lie.
She came because she wanted access to Lorraine.
At first I believed she was helping Victor.
Later I understood Victor was helping her.
Celia knew about Naomi before I did.
She knew because Samuel Brooks told her.
Travis stopped reading.
“Samuel Brooks.”
“Naomi’s biological father.”
“Yes.”
“Wasn’t he a high-school boyfriend?”
“According to Mom.”
Walter continued.
Samuel did not disappear after the adoption.
He searched for Lorraine for years.
Celia was Samuel’s younger sister.
I stared at Travis.
“Celia is Naomi’s aunt.”
He read faster.
She believed Lorraine’s family stole Naomi from Samuel.
She believed my wife abandoned her niece and then built a perfect life.
Some of that anger was justified.
What Celia did with it was not.
Victor gave her access to money.
Celia gave Victor access to families.
They created a machine together.
The foundation referrals were not random.
They directed vulnerable people into facilities they controlled.
Aaron discovered enough to destroy them.
Naomi discovered even more.
Celia would not allow Naomi to expose Victor because doing so would expose Celia.
Then came the line Walter had underlined twice.
Naomi did not disappear because Victor took her.
Naomi disappeared because Celia helped her escape.
I looked at Travis.
“What?”
Walter’s letter continued.
Celia told Lorraine that Victor had Naomi.
Victor told me Naomi was blackmailing us.
Both statements were lies.
Naomi asked Celia for help leaving town after she became afraid.
Celia agreed.
Then she learned Naomi had copied records that could implicate her.
After that, I do not know what happened.
Aaron believed Naomi was alive.
He saw her once after she vanished.
He refused to tell me where.
That was why we met the night he died.
He intended to move Maya and Zia the next morning.
He believed Celia had discovered their address.
I stopped.
Aaron had planned to move us.
Without telling me until the last possible moment.
The anger returned.
Then the letter became worse.
Celia followed us from the gas station.
She rammed my car.
Lorraine and I ran.
I saw Celia get out of the SUV.
She was not alone.
There was a man with her.
I could not identify him.
Two days later, Celia returned to Hawthorne House as if nothing had happened.
I said nothing because Lorraine begged me not to.
This is the greatest cowardice of my life.
Travis pressed his fist against his mouth.
His father knew Celia tried to kill them.
Then allowed her back into the house.
Because Lorraine begged him.
The family pattern was becoming brutally clear.
Silence.
Image.
Protection of reputation.
Then Walter wrote:
If Aaron is dead, I believe Celia caused it.
But I cannot prove she was driving the vehicle that forced him off the road.
I can prove she knew his route.
I can prove Victor paid someone three days later.
The payment is in the insurance file.
Find account 7714.
We opened the binder from the steel box.
Account 7714 belonged to a contractor.
MORROW TRANSPORT LLC.
A trucking company.
My hands began shaking.
Aaron had supposedly been run off the road by a delivery truck.
We searched public records.
The truck in Aaron’s crash belonged to Morrow Transport.
I could barely breathe.
“They paid the company.”
Travis stared at the page.
“Three days after Aaron died.”
“How much?”
“One hundred fifty thousand dollars.”
The memo line said CONSULTING.
There was no consultation.
There had been a death.
We called Alvarez.
She told us not to touch anything else.
Then she said something that made the room colder.
“Morrow Transport still exists.”
“Who owns it?”
“Not the same person.”
“Who owned it then?”
“A man named Dean Morrow.”
“Can you find him?”
“I already did.”
“Where?”
There was a pause.
“In state prison.”
“For what?”
“Vehicular homicide.”
I closed my eyes.
“Another crash?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“Three years after Aaron died.”
“Can we talk to him?”
“I’m arranging it.”
Travis took my hand.
Alvarez continued.
“One more thing.”
“What?”
“Dean Morrow has requested protective custody twice.”
“Why?”
“He claims someone has been trying to kill him.”
“Who?”
“He would only give investigators one name.”
I already knew before she said it.
“Celia Grant.”
The next morning, Alvarez drove us to the prison.
Dean Morrow entered the interview room in an orange jumpsuit.
He was sixty.
Thin.
Gray.
He looked at me for three seconds.
Then he started crying.
“You’re Aaron Bennett’s wife.”
I could not speak.
He covered his face.
“I knew somebody would come eventually.”
Travis leaned forward.
“Did you kill him?”
Dean looked at me.
“No.”
My lungs loosened slightly.
Then he added.
May you like
“But I was paid to make it look like an accident.”
And the room went completely silent.
