Smoke in the Laundry Room
Chapter 10 - Smoke in the Laundry Room
Claire ran.
Guests were moving toward the exits while alarms echoed through the building.
Staff followed emergency procedures.
Within minutes, firefighters arrived.
The smoke came from the basement laundry room.
A dryer motor had overheated.
Nothing more.
No conspiracy.
No deliberate fire.
Claire stood outside in the cold with a blanket around her shoulders and laughed from pure relief.
She had spent so many days discovering lies that she had begun seeing danger everywhere.
Marcus joined her.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
The fire department cleared the building before midnight.
The incident should have ended there.
But the insurance policy still bothered Claire.
The following morning, she read it carefully.
Harbor House was not the only insured asset.
Three properties had been dramatically overinsured.
Each one was heavily leveraged.
Grant had been desperate.
But desperation did not prove criminal intent.
Claire refused to accuse him of something she could not prove.
That decision surprised Richard.
“You’re protecting him again.”
“No.”
Claire closed the file.
“I’m protecting myself from becoming like him.”
Richard studied her.
She continued.
“I won’t build truth out of suspicion just because suspicion is convenient.”
For the first time, Richard smiled.
“You should run this company.”
Claire shook her head.
“I told you. I don’t want his chair.”
“What do you want?”
She looked through the office window at Harbor House.
“I want something that belongs to me because I chose it.”
That afternoon, Vanessa returned.
No red coat.
No luggage.
She placed her phone on Claire’s desk.
“I canceled my flight.”
Claire waited.
Vanessa opened an audio file.
Grant’s voice filled the room.
He was speaking to someone named Leonard.
The recording was months old.
“I don’t care how you do it,” Grant said. “The valuation needs to fall before the acquisition.”
Claire leaned closer.
Then the second man said something that changed everything.
“And your father?”
Grant laughed.
“He’ll be gone soon enough.”
Richard went still.
Vanessa stopped the recording.
“There are eleven more files.”
Claire looked at Richard.
The betrayal in his face was different from hers.
Older.
May you like
Deeper.
For the first time, the father who had spent his life protecting his son understood that Grant had been preparing to remove him too.
