Chapter 8
The deafening roar of collapsing timber shook the entire burnt skeleton of the house, sending a massive tidal wave of black ash and glowing embers rolling across the second-floor landing. Vance threw his body over Mark, shielding him with his own torso as jagged pieces of lath and plaster rained down around them like frozen shrapnel. For a terrifying ten seconds, the world was reduced to blinding darkness and the suffocating smell of burnt cedar.
When the dust finally began to settle, heavy coughing echoed through the ruined hallway as Vance pushed himself up from the debris, spitting out a mouthful of soot.
“Mark! Are you alive?” Vance yelled, coughing harshly as he frantically patted Mark down for injuries.
Mark groaned, pushing a heavy, charred wooden beam off his legs with a surge of desperate adrenaline, his eyes wide with frantic panic as he stared at the freshly exposed abyss in front of them.
“Lily! Where is she? Did you see where she went?” Mark demanded, grabbing Vance by the shoulders and shaking him violently.
Vance grabbed Mark’s wrists, his face hardened by exhaustion and cold reality.
“There was no one there, Mark! Look at this hole! The whole floor gave way!” Vance shouted over the whistling wind blowing through the broken roof. “You hallucinated her because your brain is trying to rewrite the tragedy!”
Mark shook his head wildly, ignoring the sharp, stabbing pain in his bruised ribs as he crawled toward the edge of the newly formed crater. Down below, amidst the smoking ruins of the ground floor, something small and pink was caught on a jagged piece of iron rebar.
“She was right there,” Mark whispered, tears finally cutting clean tracks through the thick layer of soot staining his cheeks. “I saw her face, Vance. I saw her look right at me.”
Vance knelt beside him, shining his flashlight down into the deep cavity of the basement stairs.
“Mark, the fire report from six months ago... it stated the fire started in the master study directly above this spot,” Vance said quietly, his tone softening into something deeply tragic. “Your wife Clara locked herself in there with Lily after you threatened divorce. You were downstairs when the accelerant ignited.”
Mark froze, the blood draining completely from his face as a massive, agonizing wave of repressed memories violently forced their way past his mental barricades. The smell of gasoline. The shouting match in the hallway. The sound of Clara sobbing hysterically as she poured lighter fluid across the antique Persian rug in the study.
“No... no, I didn’t want that,” Mark choked out, pressing his palms hard against his temples as his vision blurred violently. “I just wanted her to stop lying about the money.”
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“You didn’t start the fire, Mark. Clara did,” Vance said gently, resting a steadying hand on Mark’s shaking shoulder. “She made sure nobody could get out of that room until it was too late.”
Mark stared down into the dark basement hole, the memory of that fateful night playing back in high definition behind his closed eyes. But as he watched the smoke rise from the wreckage below, a distinct pair of small, muddy footprints suddenly appeared in the fresh ash at the edge of the crater, leading straight down into the dark basement.
