Chapter 5 - THE ASHES OF OAKRIDGE
The headlights swept across the shed’s rotted timber like searchlights over a prison yard. Victoria froze, the gas can suspended in her gloved hands, fuel dripping steadily from the nozzle onto the sawdust at my feet.
A car door slammed open with explosive force.
“Megan!”
Ryan’s voice cut through the night air, high and ragged with panic. He was running toward the shed, his heavy work boots hammering against the frozen turf. “Megan, are you in there? The front door was wide open—!”
“Ryan, run!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, thrashing violently against the hemp ropes that held me to the wooden chair. “Get out of here! Call the police!”
Victoria didn't hesitate. She dropped the half-empty gas can, reached into her coat pocket, and pulled out an antique brass lighter. The wheel struck flint with a bright, violent hiss of sparks.
A tiny orange flame flickered to life, reflecting in her dark hazel eyes.
“You ruin everything,” she hissed through clenched teeth.
She flicked her wrist, sending the burning lighter spinning through the air directly toward the puddle of gasoline spreading beneath my boots.
Time slowed down. The flame met the fumes with a hollow, concussive whump. A wall of blazing orange light erupted across the floorboards, searing my face with instantaneous, blistering heat. The ropes around my ankles caught immediately, the fire licking up the denim of my jeans.
I screamed as the smoke filled my lungs, choking on the toxic fumes of burning varnish and gasoline.
The shed door flew off its hinges with a sickening splinter of wood.
Ryan crashed through the smoke, holding his heavy canvas winter coat out before him like a shield. He didn't look at Victoria, who had already shoved past him into the shadows of the backyard; he threw himself directly onto the floor, wrapping the thick canvas around my burning legs, smothering the flames with the weight of his own body.
“Hold still, Meg! Hold still!” he coughed violently, his hands blistering as he tore at the hemp ropes binding my wrists to the chair spindles.
“She’s getting away!” I wheezed, my eyes streaming tears from the acrid black smoke pouring from the ceiling. “The box—she has the box!”
“Forget the damn box, the whole roof is going!” Ryan roared.
The rope snapped. My arms came free, skin peeled raw around my wrists. Ryan hauled me to my feet, throwing my left arm over his shoulder, dragging me toward the doorway just as a burning crossbeam collapsed behind us, showering the workbench in an explosion of white-hot embers.
We tumbled out into the cold night grass, gasping for air as the shed was completely swallowed by an inferno. The heat was immense, pushing us back across the lawn.
Fifty yards away, the red taillights of an unmarked black SUV tore out of the driveway, spitting gravel against the side of my parked sedan as it rocketed down the dirt road and vanished into the darkness toward the state highway.
“Are you okay? Did she hurt you?” Ryan knelt beside me on the grass, trembling, his hands blackened with soot, his jacket smoking.
“I’m fine… my legs just burn,” I gasped, clutching my chest, coughing up gray phlegm. “How did you find me? How did you know to come back?”
Ryan reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. The screen was cracked, but a voice was still speaking through the speakerphone—a trembling, weeping voice that I knew better than my own.
“Megan?” Mom sobbed through the speaker. “Megan, please tell me you're alive!”
I took the phone from Ryan with shaking, soot-stained fingers. “Mom… what did Grandpa do? Who was William Hale?”
A long, agonizing silence fell over the line, broken only by the distant wail of sirens approaching from the county road.
“William Hale was an executioner, Megan,” Mom cried softly. “He killed your biological mother the day you were born because she threatened to expose his criminal syndicate to the FBI. Your grandfather didn't kidnap you for money. He broke into that hospital room with Rebecca to save a baby girl from being executed in her crib.”
“And Victoria?” I pressed, looking back at the roaring fire consuming the shed. “He left Victoria there!”
“Arthur didn't know William’s men had already taken Rebecca’s child,” Mom whispered, her voice breaking completely. “He thought he was leaving William with his own daughter. He didn't realize until months later that the babies had been mixed up before he even entered the room. By the time Arthur understood what had happened, William had buried all the records and gone underground. Arthur spent the rest of his life waiting for the devil to come collecting.”
“The devil isn't coming, Mom,” I said, looking out toward the empty road where the SUV had disappeared. “She’s already here. And she has everything she needs to erase me forever.”
“Not everything,” Mom said, her tone suddenly hardening with an authority I had never heard from her before. “Arthur knew this day would come if he died first. He didn't keep the original proof in the shed, Megan. The shed was the decoy.”
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I blinked through the smoke. “What?”
“Go to Oakridge Cemetery,” Mom said. “Arthur’s tombstone. Before the concrete was poured around the vault, he buried the iron strongbox inside his own grave.”
