Chapter 4 - THE TWENTY MINUTES HE COULDN'T EXPLAIN
“I was at the hospital.”
Vincent said it as though he were trying to convince himself.
Sophia watched him carefully.
“At two nineteen,” I repeated?
He nodded.
“The children's hospital on the North Side. I was meeting with a donor.”
“Do you remember who?”
“Yes. Eleanor Whitcomb.”
I knew that name.
Eleanor had been one of the earliest donors to Vincent's medical foundation.
She had also been close to his father.
“What time did the meeting end?” I asked.
“Just before two.”
“Then why did you arrive at the laboratory almost forty minutes later?”
Vincent rubbed his jaw.
“I got a message about a security problem.”
“From whom?”
He looked at Sophia.
She looked away.
“From my father's old office,” he said.
My stomach tightened.
His father had been dead for years.
The room seemed colder.
Dr. Bell examined the maintenance entry.
“Someone using Mr. Moretti's authorization could have overridden the door without his knowledge.”
Sophia gave a bitter laugh.
“You make it sound simple.”
“Was it you?” Vincent asked her.
She looked wounded.
“After everything I've done for you?”
“That isn't an answer.”
“No. I didn't use your credentials.”
I stepped closer.
“Did you lock the laboratory door?”
Sophia met my gaze.
For seven years, I had replayed the sound of that lock.
Now I wanted the truth spoken aloud.
“Yes,” she said.
Vincent went still.
I could hear music drifting from the ballroom.
The auction had resumed without us.
For a moment, it seemed obscene that anyone could laugh or applaud while my life was being pulled apart.
“You admit it?” Vincent asked.
Sophia swallowed.
“I closed the door.”
“You locked it,” I said.
“I thought it would keep you there long enough for us to talk.”
I stared at her.
“You watched smoke fill the room.”
Her eyes glistened.
“I didn't know there would be a fire.”
“You walked away.”
“I went to find help.”
“No,” I said. “You walked away after telling me I'd had eight years with him.”
Sophia lowered her head.
Vincent looked physically ill.
“Why?” he whispered.
She raised her eyes.
“Because I was losing everything.”
“You were never married to me.”
“You know that's not what I mean.”
Her voice cracked.
“My whole life, people told me we'd end up together. Your father practically raised me alongside you. When you married Claire, I lost more than the future I'd imagined.”
“That didn't give you the right to hurt her.”
“I know.”
For the first time, she sounded like a person rather than an accusation.
But remorse wasn't the same as truth.
I looked at Dr. Bell.
“Where did the fire start?”
He hesitated.
“In the chemical storage room.”
I frowned.
“That room was on the opposite side of the laboratory.”
“Yes.”
“Then why did I see flames behind the equipment less than a minute after Sophia locked the door?”
Dr. Bell's expression tightened.
“That's what troubled me about the investigation.”
Vincent stepped closer.
“Explain.”
“The original fire analysis indicated two separate ignition points.”
Two.
The word hung between us.
Sophia stopped breathing for a moment.
I remembered the old photograph.
The message on its back.
The second explosion.
Suddenly, a terrible pattern began taking shape.
“Were both fires deliberate?” I asked.
Dr. Bell glanced toward the ballroom doors.
“Investigators believed at least one was.”
Vincent's voice turned cold.
“And someone changed that conclusion?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
Dr. Bell studied him.
“Your company's legal department.”
Vincent shook his head.
“I never authorized that.”
“Someone did.”
Sophia sank into a chair.
I watched her carefully.
She was frightened.
But not of me.
Of something else.
“Who are you protecting?” I asked.
She stared at the carpet.
“Nobody.”
“Then look at me.”
Slowly, she did.
“Someone tried to kill me, Sophia. Whether you intended the fire or not, you left me locked inside.”
A tear slipped down her cheek.
“I know.”
“Then help me understand.”
Her lips trembled.
“I received instructions to keep you in the building.”
Vincent went rigid.
“From whom?”
Sophia looked at him with unmistakable fear.
“I thought it was you.”
For several seconds, nobody spoke.
Then Vincent laughed once.
A terrible, disbelieving sound.
“You thought I wanted my wife trapped in a laboratory?”
“They said you needed her to stay until an internal audit was completed.”
“What audit?” I asked.
Sophia wiped her cheeks.
“The one Claire requested.”
I froze.
I had requested an audit.
Three days before the fire, I had discovered irregularities in the laboratory's charitable research funding.
Large transfers had been approved without supporting invoices.
Equipment purchased for children's medical research had vanished from the inventory.
I had asked the finance department for an explanation.
They had promised answers by Friday.
The fire happened Thursday.
I looked at Vincent.
“Did you know I was investigating missing grant money?”
“No.”
Sophia's expression told me she believed him.
That frightened me more than anything.
Because if Vincent hadn't known, someone had been operating inside his company without his knowledge.
Someone who had enough authority to forge his approval.
And enough reason to silence me.
Dr. Bell spoke quietly.
“Mrs. Moretti, I believe the fire was meant to destroy the audit records.”
“And me with them?”
He did not answer.
He didn't need to.
Vincent reached toward me.
I stepped back.
“Don't.”
His hand fell.
“Claire, I swear I didn't know.”
“You didn't know Sophia locked me inside. You didn't know the report was changed. You didn't know about the audit.”
Every word grew heavier.
“What exactly did you know about your own company?”
He stared at me.
Then he said something I had never expected from Vincent Moretti.
“Not enough.”
The admission was quiet.
But it was real.
Before I could answer, Margaret Ellis appeared at the doorway.
Her expression was troubled.
“Mrs. Moretti?”
I turned immediately.
“Are the children all right?”
“Yes. They're perfectly safe.”
She glanced at Vincent.
“But your son found something in the family room that I think you should see.”
I hurried down the corridor.
Noah stood beside a low bookshelf.
Lily sat nearby, coloring.
In Noah's hand was an old framed photograph.
“Mom,” he said, “isn't this your bracelet?”
I took the frame.
It showed a young woman standing beside Dominic Moretti at a charity event fifteen years earlier.
She wore a silver bracelet with a blue stone.
My bracelet.
But the woman wasn't me.
And she wasn't Sophia.
I turned the frame over.
An inscription identified her.
EVELYN BENNETT — SENIOR RESEARCH ACCOUNTANT.
My mother's name.
My mother, who had died when I was sixteen.
Underneath the photograph, someone had written a date.
The exact day of the industrial explosion when I first saved Vincent.
May you like
And beneath it, four words:
EVELYN REFUSED TO SIGN.
