Chapter 5: The Question Nobody Had Ever Asked Out Loud
Eleanor did not answer immediately.
She rose from her chair and walked to the window at the far end of the dining room.
Outside, the estate grounds were dark, the garden lights casting long pale shapes across the lawn.
She stood with her back to the room, one hand resting on the window frame.
"It was an electrical fault," she said.
"The fire investigator's report said so."
"I know what the report said," Lila replied.
"I read it.
It's in the folder." She paused.
"I also found the investigator's original handwritten notes.
The ones that weren't included in the final report."
Eleanor's hand tightened on the window frame.
"The notes mention accelerant," Lila said.
"A small amount.
Near the kitchen storage room, which is where the fire started.
The investigator flagged it as inconclusive.
He wrote that the property owner had been cooperative and that the physical evidence was consistent with either accidental or deliberate origin." She set the notes on the table.
"He chose accidental.
The report was filed within forty-eight hours."
"Fires are complicated," Eleanor said.
She had not turned around.
"They are," Lila agreed.
"So is the fact that the investigator's firm received a consulting contract from the Hargrove estate six months after the fire.
A two-year contract.
Renewable."
The room was very still.
Sam had not moved.
He was sitting with both hands flat on the table, looking at the back of Eleanor's head.
"Clara called me that night," he said.
"Before the fire.
She said someone had come to the kitchen after closing.
She said she didn't recognize him, but he knew her name.
He knew she was pregnant." He stopped.
"She said he told her the family had decided she needed to leave.
That there would be money.
That she should take it and go quietly and not cause trouble for anyone."
Eleanor said nothing.
"She told him no," Sam continued.
"She said she told him we were married and that she wasn't going anywhere.
She laughed about it, actually.
She thought it was ridiculous.
She said, 'Sam, they sent someone to frighten me and I told him to get out of my kitchen.' She was laughing." His voice had gone very quiet.
"That was the last time I spoke to her.
Two hours later, the kitchen was on fire."
Eli had gone very still beside him.
"Are you saying," the boy said carefully, "that someone started the fire on purpose?"
"I'm saying," Lila said, "that there are questions that were never properly asked.
And that the people who should have asked them had a reason not to."
Eleanor turned from the window.
Her face had changed.
The composure was still there, but it was thinner now, like paint on old wood.
Something underneath was showing through.
"I did not order that fire," she said.
"I want that stated clearly.
Whatever you think of me, I did not do that."
"Then who did?" Sam asked.
"I don't know."
"Eleanor."
"I don't know who started it." Her voice rose slightly.
"I knew someone had gone to speak to the girl.
I knew the conversation had not gone well.
I did not know what happened after.
When I was told about the fire, I was—" She stopped.
"I was shocked."
"But not shocked enough to ask questions," Lila said.
Eleanor looked at her.
"No," she said, after a long pause.
"Not shocked enough to ask questions."
The admission sat in the room like something physical.
"Who sent the man to the kitchen?" Sam asked.
"Who gave that order?"
Eleanor folded her hands in front of her.
"My husband," she said.
"My late husband, Gerald.
It was Gerald's decision.
I disagreed with the approach.
I told him it was unnecessary.
He didn't listen to me." She looked at Sam.
"He rarely did."
"And when the fire happened?"
"Gerald told me it was an accident.
I chose to believe him." She looked down at her hands.
"I was very good, for a very long time, at choosing to believe the things that were easier to believe."
Eli stood up again.
"But you took the money," he said.
"After.
You took my mother's money."
"Yes," Eleanor said.
"I did."
"And you took me."
"Yes."
"And you told my father I was d*ad."
Eleanor looked at the boy for a long time.
"Yes," she said.
"I did all of those things."
Eli nodded slowly, as though he was cataloguing something.
"Did you love me?" he asked.
"Or was I just something you kept because throwing me away would have been too obvious?"
Eleanor's breath caught.
It was the first involuntary thing she had done all evening.
"I loved you," she said.
"Whatever else I did — I loved you."
"Okay," Eli said.
He sat back down.
"Then I need you to fix it."
"Eli—"
"All of it," the boy said.
"Whatever can be fixed.
I need you to fix it." He looked at Sam.
Then back at Eleanor.
"Because he's my father.
And I'd like to know him.
And I don't want to spend the rest of my life being angry about something that could still be made right."
The silence that followed was the longest of the evening.
Then Lila's phone buzzed on the table.
She looked at the screen.
Her face changed.
"Sam," she said.
"There's someone outside.
May you like
Someone who says they've been waiting for thirty years to give you something." She looked up.
"They say they were there the night of the fire."
