Chapter 2 - The Hidden Truth
I locked the deadbolt on my apartment door and immediately closed all the blinds.
My hands were shaking as I booted up my personal laptop.
I disconnected the computer from the Wi-Fi network just to be safe.
I did not want Daniel or his sleazy attorney tracking my digital footprint.
I took a deep breath and inserted Mom’s flash drive.
The folder labeled ‘BRIARWOOD PROPERTY’ sat right in the center of the screen.
I double-clicked it, and dozens of scanned documents populated the window.
The first document was an old police report from twenty years ago.
It detailed the night of the fire at the summer estate.
According to the official record, the guest house was empty when it burned down.
But the next document was a private investigator’s report commissioned by my mother three months ago.
I opened it and felt the blood drain from my face.
The guest house had not been empty that night.
There was a caretaker living there, a young man named Samuel Thorne.
Samuel Thorne did not die in the fire, but he had suffered severe burns.
More importantly, the fire was not caused by a lightning strike.
Mom had found an old insurance assessment hidden in Dad’s private safe.
The assessment concluded that an accelerant, specifically gasoline, had been poured around the perimeter of the guest house.
Daniel was seventeen years old at the time of the fire.
I opened an audio file titled ‘Daniel Confession’.
It was a recorded phone call between my mother and my brother.
“You have to stop paying them, Daniel,” Mom’s voice pleaded through the speakers.
“I know what you did at Briarwood, and draining the company to pay blackmail will ruin our family.”
Daniel’s voice hissed back through the recording.
“If I stop paying Samuel’s family, they go to the police, Mom.”
“They have proof I started the fire, and they know Claire was in the guest house with him.”
I paused the recording, my heart hammering against my ribs.
I had been in the guest house?
I touched my forehead, trying to push past the dark wall of childhood amnesia.
May you like
I had absolutely no memory of that night.
Daniel had tried to burn down the guest house while I was inside it.
