Chapter 2 - THE WOMAN HE LEFT BEHIND
My husband walked into my hospital room carrying white roses and told me he had spent the entire night searching for me.
Then the nurse asked him a question.
“Mr. Bennett, why did you tell the firefighters your wife wasn't home?”
Michael stopped smiling.
I was sitting upright in a hospital bed at Harborview Medical Center, an oxygen tube beneath my nose and a dressing covering the burns on my left forearm.
Twenty-six hours had passed since firefighters carried me from our thirteenth-floor apartment.
My throat felt as though I had swallowed sand.
Every breath reminded me how close I had come to never taking another.
But nothing hurt quite like watching Michael stand beside my bed, pretending to be a devoted husband.
“That's a misunderstanding,” he told the nurse.
The nurse, whose name was Patricia, looked at the chart in her hands.
“The rescue team documented that you identified yourself as the resident's husband and said your wife was visiting relatives.”
Michael glanced at me.
“Honey, there was chaos everywhere. I was confused.”
I remembered the yellow cab.
Sophie's bare foot.
His face turning toward our burning apartment.
“You weren't confused when you found Sophie,” I whispered.
His expression changed.
Not enough for Patricia to notice.
But I noticed.
After seven years, I knew every version of Michael's face.
The charming smile.
The wounded innocence.
The quiet irritation when I asked questions he didn't want to answer.
And the expression he wore now.
Calculation.
“Can we have a moment alone?” he asked Patricia.
She looked at me instead.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
For the first time in years, someone was asking what I wanted before granting Michael his wish.
“Please stay,” I said.
Michael's jaw tightened.
He placed the roses on the windowsill.
“I heard about the fire at the office,” he began. “I rushed over as fast as I could.”
“The office?”
“Yes.”
“At eleven forty-three at night?”
“We were finishing a client proposal.”
I stared at him.
“Was Sophie helping with the proposal?”
He exhaled sharply.
“Claire, you've just survived something traumatic. This isn't the time.”
My name is Claire Bennett.
I'm thirty-four years old.
I spent seven years believing marriage meant fighting for someone even when they stopped fighting for you.
I had finally learned the difference between loyalty and surrender.
“Where is Sophie?” I asked.
Michael rubbed his forehead.
“She had a panic attack. I helped her get medical attention.”
“In a yellow cab?”
His hand dropped.
“How did you know that?”
“I saw you.”
Silence settled over the room.
Outside, a hospital cart rattled along the hallway.
Michael looked toward the window, then back at me.
“You must have misunderstood what you saw.”
“I watched you carry her out.”
“She couldn't walk.”
“She was conscious enough to wrap her arms around your neck.”
“Claire—”
“And you looked up at our apartment before leaving.”
His face lost its color.
Patricia stepped closer to my bed.
“Mrs. Bennett needs rest.”
Michael ignored her.
“You couldn't possibly have seen that clearly through all that smoke.”
I watched him realize what he'd said.
He hadn't denied looking up.
He had questioned how clearly I could see.
“Get out,” I whispered.
“Claire, please.”
“Get out.”
Patricia opened the door.
Michael stood motionless for another moment.
Then he leaned toward me.
“We'll discuss this when you're thinking clearly.”
His voice was soft.
Almost affectionate.
But I heard the warning underneath.
When he left, Patricia removed the roses.
“Would you like these somewhere else?”
“In the trash.”
She nodded without asking why.
Then she sat beside me.
“There's something I need you to understand,” she said. “Fire investigators may want another statement.”
“Why?”
“They're still determining where the fire started. But one of the firefighters mentioned something unusual.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“Your apartment's entry door was locked from the outside when they reached it.”
I stared at her.
“That isn't possible.”
“I'm only telling you what was reported. The investigators will confirm the details.”
Our apartment had an electronic smart lock.
It could be controlled remotely through Michael's phone.
He had insisted on installing it six months earlier.
“For security,” he'd said.
I'd never questioned it.
Until now.
Patricia studied my face.
“Do you have somewhere safe to stay when you're discharged?”
I almost said home.
The word reached my lips before I remembered there was no home anymore.
Our apartment was ruined.
Our marriage was finished.
And the man who controlled our bank accounts had just walked out of my hospital room.
“My sister lives in Tacoma,” I said.
“Can she come?”
I nodded.
Although I hadn't spoken to Rebecca in almost eight months.
Michael didn't like her.
He said she interfered.
He said she encouraged me to distrust him.
Eventually, I'd stopped answering her calls.
I had mistaken peace for happiness.
Patricia handed me the hospital telephone.
Rebecca answered on the second ring.
“Claire?”
Her voice cracked.
“Are you all right?”
I couldn't speak.
“Oh, sweetheart. I've been calling every hospital in Seattle.”
“I need you.”
“I'm coming.”
No questions.
No lecture.
Just those two words.
I'm coming.
I began crying so hard Patricia had to help me adjust the oxygen tube.
An hour later, Rebecca arrived wearing jeans, an old navy coat, and the expression of a woman prepared to fight the entire world.
She wrapped her arms around me carefully.
“I should've come sooner,” she whispered.
“You didn't know.”
“I knew he was hurting you.”
I closed my eyes.
“Not like this.”
Rebecca sat beside me.
“Tell me what happened.”
So I did.
Everything.
The smoke.
The window.
Sophie.
The cab.
The locked door.
When I finished, Rebecca stared at the wall.
Then she reached into her handbag.
“I wasn't sure whether to show you this yet.”
She placed a small padded envelope on my blanket.
Inside was my mother's silver wristwatch.
The one she'd worn every day until her death.
The one I'd kept in a wooden box in Michael's office.
Its crystal was scratched.
Its leather strap smelled faintly of smoke.
“Where did you get this?” I asked.
“A firefighter found it in a coat near the stairwell. Your name was engraved underneath.”
I turned the watch over.
CLAIRE — ALWAYS FIND YOUR WAY HOME.
My mother had given it to me on my eighteenth birthday.
I'd believed it had burned.
I pressed it against my chest.
Then Rebecca said something strange.
“Look at the strap.”
A narrow white strip of paper had been folded beneath the buckle.
I unfolded it.
It was a receipt.
A purchase from a hardware supply store in Bellevue.
Three days before the fire.
The receipt listed an electronic lock override module.
Paid for with Michael's company card.
I looked at Rebecca.
“Why was this inside Mom's watch?”
She swallowed.
“Because I think somebody wanted you to find it.”
At the bottom of the receipt was a handwritten message.
May you like
Four words.
HE PLANNED THE FIRE.
