Chapter 5
THE FIRE THAT FOLLOWED US
By morning, my face was on three local news sites.
The photograph had been cropped from an employee identification badge. In it, I was smiling with the embarrassing confidence of someone on her first day at a good job. Beneath it, a headline asked whether a Moretti housekeeper had stolen priceless jewelry and corporate documents.
I sat in Mara's office with the window blinds half closed while her assistant read out the statements we needed to correct. The coffee on the desk went cold. Every few minutes my phone lit up with a message from someone I hadn't heard from in years.
I stopped reading after my high school friend wrote, Is it true?
"You can turn that off," Mara said. "You don't owe anyone an explanation right now."
"They'll think I did it if I don't say anything."
"Some will think it no matter what you say. Our job isn't to win every comment section. It's to preserve what actually happened."
The detectives had taken a formal statement from house security and collected the brooch. The bag remained sealed as evidence. Mara had established that I hadn't returned to the estate after the dinner and that staff keys and a security camera controlled by Victor's contractor could both have been used to access my locker. That didn't immediately prove who planted the jewelry. It did mean the accusation wasn't nearly as simple as the headline suggested.
"There's more," Mara said. "June found footage from a delivery entrance showing the security officer carrying your bag. The timestamps don't match his written statement. We're preserving the original source."
"Will they arrest me?"
"I can't promise they won't. I can tell you we have facts to challenge the allegation, and you won't face it alone."
At ten, Luca appeared at the office door with two paper cups and an expression like he'd been walking through a storm for a week. He put a tea in front of me, not coffee. Rosa had apparently told him I liked it with honey.
"The foundation suspended Ben's placement," he said.
My fingers tightened around the cup.
"Victor sent a disciplinary notice yesterday, after he took him," Luca continued. "June saved the email before it could be withdrawn. It says Ben abandoned his shift."
I looked at him. "They kidnapped him, then fired him for missing work?"
"Yes."
The simple answer was worse than any speech.
Luca sat across from me. "I have authorized independent financial review of the foundation accounts and notified the trustees. The board may use that against me. I don't care."
"You might care on Friday."
"I might. But I'm going to do it anyway."
Mara's phone buzzed. Her assistant appeared at the doorway, pale.
"There's a fire at Riverside. The old hotel wing."
Tessa had gone there with two police investigators to continue reviewing evidence after the mannequin stunt. An alarm had sounded, then a blaze started near the former records room. The fire department was responding. The annex's exterior cameras showed smoke rolling over the roof.
Luca was already dialing. Sofia had been at a workers' meeting in the adjacent office building, speaking with people who knew her father. When I reached her, she answered in a gasp.
"I'm outside," she said. "But Mr. Haskins is still in there. He's the night porter. He was collecting his retirement paperwork."
"Are firefighters with you?"
"Yes. They're going in. Emma, those are the only originals of the safety forms my dad tried to submit."
"Don't go back," I said. "Please. Paper isn't worth you."
Her breathing steadied slightly. "You sound like my dad."
We drove to the public perimeter because Sofia needed someone she trusted and because Tessa asked Mara to bring the witness documents already copied. We stayed behind the barricade. The building looked like a dark ship taking on water, smoke leaking from its seams. Fire engines blocked the street. Sirens reflected in the puddles, turning the asphalt red.
Workers stood together outside in their safety vests. Some cried. Others stared at the doors with the stunned silence of people who had been told their workplace was safe until the day it wasn't.
Tessa came through the crowd with soot on her jacket. "The fire started in a locked storage closet," she said. "The investigators think someone accelerated it. Nobody should draw conclusions before the lab results, but it's suspicious."
"Ben?" I asked.
She shook her head. "No sign he was brought back here. We're checking transportation records and working with police on other leads."
At that moment two firefighters emerged guiding an older man under the arms. A crowd surged forward, then stopped as medics took over. Sofia recognized him as Mr. Haskins. He was coughing but conscious.
I watched her run toward him and felt the sick relief that comes when a rescue isn't quite a tragedy.
Luca stood beside me, staring at the smoke.
"My father loved this building," he said. "He bought it before I was born. He told me it was full of good bones."
"Buildings don't have to be good or bad," I replied. "It's what the people in charge choose to do inside them."
He looked at me. "I used to think if I chose good managers, that was enough."
"And now?"
"Now I think I should have listened to the people who weren't invited into my office."
Sofia came back with Mr. Haskins's wife's phone number written on her hand. "He saw two men near the storage closet last night," she said. "He told the fire marshal before they took him to the hospital. One wore a Moretti security jacket."
Tessa wrote it down. "Can he identify the man?"
"He thinks so. But he's scared for his pension."
I looked at the workers behind us. They were all scared of something—wages, rent, health insurance, a boss who knew their children's schools. Victor didn't have to stand over each of them. Fear did his work for him.
Luca's phone rang while we were still at the scene. He answered, then went very still. "It's my uncle," he told Mara.
A man's smooth voice carried faintly from the speaker. "Such an unfortunate morning. You know the board will need someone steady in charge."
"People could have died," Luca said.
"And more people may suffer if you keep making reckless accusations. Perhaps you should reconsider signing."
Mara raised a hand to stop the call from turning into an argument. Luca ended it without agreeing to anything.
"He's using the fire to force the vote," June said over the conference line.
I stared at the smoke. "Then we need the people who worked here, not just papers."
The thought was so obvious that I was embarrassed I hadn't said it earlier. A forged signature could be challenged. A burned office could lose its records. But Luis had friends. Mr. Haskins had eyes. There were fourteen names in Evelyn's packet, and behind those names were families with their own stories.
"We need them to speak together," I said. "Not alone, where Victor can corner them."
Mara nodded. "A protected, voluntary witness process. I can help explain their options."
"I can call the people I know in housekeeping," I continued. "They trust me enough to complain about the coffee machine. Maybe they'll trust me about this."
"You shouldn't have to lead this," Luca said.
"I know. But I want to."
Sofia held out her hand. I took it.
"Then you won't do it alone," she said.
By evening, we'd arranged a meeting in the basement of a neighborhood church. Mara made clear that no one would be asked to risk employment without understanding the possible consequences, and an independent labor advocate offered to attend. June organized secure contact details. Rosa called retired workers who still sent her holiday cards.
Luca's board sent him a formal notice: until the investigation concluded, Victor would seek emergency control over payroll, property records, and the Moretti Foundation.
"If he wins," June said, "we lose ordinary access to almost everything."
"He'll win," Luca said quietly. "Several members owe him favors."
"Then we have two days," I replied.
My phone vibrated. A number I didn't recognize had sent a ten-second video.
It showed Ben sitting against a bare concrete wall, his hands free but trembling. A voice told him to read from a card. He swallowed.
"Emma," he said, "I'm sorry. I found the duplicate account. It doesn't end at Riverside. Ask Mr. Moretti why his signature is on the old payments."
The camera moved closer. Ben's eyes flickered toward something offscreen.
"And tell him," he whispered, almost too softly to hear, "the fire was only the warning."
A door slammed. The video ended.
Luca replayed the words about his signature twice.
For the first time, he looked truly frightened—not of Victor, and not for the company.
He was afraid the trail might lead to something he himself had done.
"I authorize payments every week," he said. "Sometimes a hundred at a time. I sign summaries. I ask questions about totals. I never see the individual names unless someone flags an exception."
"Then we're going to look at the names," I said.
Mara shut the laptop. "And we're going to distinguish what someone signed knowingly from what was put in front of them without the facts. We won't guess."
Luca nodded, but he was staring at the frozen image of Ben's face.
I understood his fear better than he knew. If I were handed proof that my own carelessness had helped a stranger hurt Ben, I wouldn't know how to stand under it either. Yet there he was, still asking for the evidence.
He looked up at me. "Whatever we find, you deserve the truth."
May you like
"So does Sofia," I said. "And everyone else."
"Yes," he answered. "Everyone."
