Chapter 8 - FIRE AT HAWTHORNE POINT
I called Detective Ward before I called Luca.
It felt important to make that choice.
Within minutes, patrol units were sent toward Hawthorne Point. The fire department was alerted, and an officer contacted the trust administrator to confirm which buildings were accessible. Theo sat beside me, watching the rain batter our kitchen window while I forwarded the email and its complete headers to investigators.
“Do you think someone is really going to burn it?” he asked.
“I don't know.”
The uncertainty was worse than a clear threat. The last physical records Sarah had hidden were at the boathouse. Ward had already taken the tin and recorder into evidence, but the site itself might contain something no one had discovered. Victor and Rizzo had good reason to destroy it.
Luca called ten minutes later. “I know about the email,” he said. “Dario wanted to send men to the pier.”
“Please tell me you stopped him.”
“I did. The police are on their way. My people will stay clear.”
I exhaled. “Thank you.”
“Thank me when everyone comes home safely.”
A police helicopter moved over the southern end of the lake. From my apartment, I couldn't see the point, only the restless lights of the city, but the radio reports gave us fragments. A maintenance vehicle had entered the property after hours. Someone had cut electricity to the old building. The fire department found smoke pouring from a rear storage room.
For one awful moment, I pictured Sarah's photograph burning, her handwriting curling into ash.
Then Ward called back.
“There was a fire,” she said. “It appears deliberately set. Fire crews contained it to the rear storage room. Nobody is reported injured. We have one person in custody for questioning, and we're still searching the grounds.”
“Was it Rizzo?”
“We can't confirm that yet.”
“Did they save the boathouse?”
“The blue door is damaged, but most of the structure is standing.”
I covered my face and cried. It wasn't only relief. I was tired of living in a world where a child's memories needed armed protection.
At eleven, my phone rang again. The caller ID displayed Evelyn Hawthorne.
“Claire,” she said, her voice tight, “someone called me just before the fire. They told me to stay home and forget the dock.”
“Who?”
“I don't know. But I recognized the way the man said my name. He sounded like Anthony Rizzo.”
“Have you told Ward?”
“Yes. She asked me to remain at my sister's place for the night.”
Evelyn paused, then said, “There's something Sarah never told Luca. I should have said it sooner.”
I felt the familiar cold pull in my stomach.
“She thought the documents were worth more than they appeared,” Evelyn continued. “She believed someone was laundering money through the cleanup contracts. Not merely stealing land. She said if the original books were compared with the bank records, the whole operation would be exposed.”
“Where are those books?”
“Luis had one copy. The tin held another. But Sarah stored the ledger she called the master account somewhere away from the pier. She didn't tell me where.”
I looked around our apartment. The blue ribbon. The rosewood box. The birthday letters. A chain of careful hiding places made by a woman who feared she wouldn't live long enough to explain them.
“What does the master account look like?”
“A small green book. The kind used by dock clerks in the seventies.”
Suddenly I remembered Sophie's drawing of the gull. Beneath the circles she'd drawn near the boathouse, she had written one word in tiny letters: LIBRARY.
“Evelyn,” I asked, “did Sarah ever take Sophie to a library near the pier?”
“She took her to the public library almost every week. Sarah loved the old maritime collection.”
“What if she left it there?”
“Then we'd need to know which volume she trusted with it.”
I sent the idea to Ward, expecting her to tell me to rest. Instead, she thanked me and said investigators would contact the library to check for relevant archival deposits. It was not glamorous detective work. It was one small question passed to someone with the authority to ask another.
The next morning brought answers we weren't expecting.
A man named Ellis Grant, a former Bellini Logistics driver, had been arrested near the fire scene after attempting to leave in a maintenance van. He had no visible injury and declined to speak without counsel. The investigators found empty fuel containers near the burned storage room. Meanwhile, a second vehicle registered to a Rizzo-controlled company was spotted leaving the industrial district.
Rizzo himself remained missing.
At the mansion, Luca received a call from an old associate demanding he handle the problem “the traditional way.” He told me about it that afternoon, while Sophie was attending a therapy session.
“Part of me wanted to say yes,” he admitted. “For about five seconds.”
“What happened in the sixth?”
“I imagined Sophie learning what I'd done. I imagined another little girl spending years with questions nobody would answer.”
I said nothing.
“I've profited from fear,” he continued. “I can't pretend I haven't. I'm trying to decide what must change, and what consequences I need to accept.”
“Those are different things from keeping Sophie safe today,” I told him. “Don't use protecting her as an excuse to settle old scores.”
He looked at me across the small screen. “You don't make this easy.”
“I don't think it was ever supposed to be easy.”
Later that day, the public library called Miriam. An archivist had reviewed old correspondence and discovered that Sarah had donated a collection of local harbor histories under the name S. Hawthorne. One of the accession boxes had been sealed with instructions that its contents remain restricted until Sophie Moretti reached adulthood or a named attorney requested access under specified circumstances.
The named attorney was Miriam Ellis.
Miriam met Ward at the library. Together they opened the archive under a documented chain of custody. Inside sat a faded green ledger, wrapped in tissue paper. A separate folder contained invoices, deposit slips, and copied correspondence between Victor, Rizzo, and a series of shell companies.
One entry was dated the week before Sarah died. It showed an unusually large payment to a company described as special security. The reference was not a dock number.
It was a license plate.
The plate matched the North Quay truck seen near Sarah's crash.
Ward sounded cautious when she explained it. “It establishes a financial connection between the operation and that vehicle. We still need to prove the purpose of the payment and identify who authorized the driver.”
“Does it get us closer?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Much closer.”
That evening, Luca came to my apartment alone. He had asked in advance, and Theo left us in the living room with tea. Luca placed an envelope on the table.
“What's this?”
“A letter for you. Not a contract.”
I opened it. His handwriting was neat, a little old-fashioned. He thanked me for protecting Sophie and apologized again for the fear I'd endured in his home. He wrote that whatever happened to the trust, I would never be expected to return to work there. My wages and medical leave would continue under the proper employment process, but I was free to choose my future.
“You didn't need to write all this,” I said.
“I needed to make sure you knew it wasn't a favor I'd ask you to repay.”
I studied him. “And what if I never go back?”
“I'll wish you well. Sophie will miss you. So will I. But you'll decide.”
The admission landed gently between us.
Then his phone rang.
He listened, and the color drained from his face.
“Ward found Rizzo,” he said when he hung up. “He's at the county hospital.”
“Is he hurt?”
“He surrendered after a collision on the expressway. He says he has evidence against Victor. But he won't speak unless he gets protection.”
I set my tea down. “And what does he want in return?”
Luca looked out at the cold Chicago night.
“He wants to tell us who ordered the truck to hit Sarah's car.
Luca didn't call Dario to demand access to the hospital. He didn't reach for the old private channels that had always promised quicker answers. He sat beside my couch instead, his phone faceup on the table, and waited for the detective to tell him what could lawfully be shared.
“Do you think Sarah would have forgiven me for hiding Luis?” he asked.
“I never met Sarah,” I answered. “I won't put words in her mouth.”
He accepted the answer, though it plainly hurt.
“What I do know,” I continued, “is that she wrote all those letters so Sophie could decide what kind of person she wanted to be. Maybe the best thing you can do for their memory is to let the truth come out, even if it exposes things you regret.”
May you like
He looked at the faded ribbon lying beside my notebook. “I can do that,” he said.
In the hallway, Theo was washing dishes too loudly to pretend he hadn't heard. The apartment smelled of tea, rain, and lemon soap. It was nothing like the mansion. I liked it that way.”
