Chapter 6: The Drive to Ruth's House
Marcus drove.
I sat in the passenger seat and watched the city move past the window — the streets I had grown up in, the buildings I had passed a thousand times before the fire changed everything.
They looked the same.
That was the strangest part.
Three years of my life had been taken, and the city had not noticed.
"You should eat something," Marcus said.
"I'm fine."
"You haven't eaten since yesterday."
"Marcus."
He stopped.
We drove in silence for a few minutes.
Then he said, "Pell gave us everything.
The emails, the transfers, the name of the notary who witnessed the forged certificate.
Reyes has enough to charge Juliette tonight."
"What about the estate transfer?"
"That's civil, not crjminal.
You'll need an attorney.
But the transfer was based on a fraudulent death certificate, so the legal foundation is gone." He glanced at me.
"It can be reversed.
It will take time, but it can be reversed."
I nodded.
"There's something else," he said.
I looked at him.
"The fire." He kept his eyes on the road.
"Pell didn't know about the fire itself.
He only knew what Juliette told him — that you had been in an accident and that the family wanted the situation handled quietly.
He didn't ask questions because she paid him not to." Marcus paused.
"But the fire investigator's original report — the one that was replaced with the official version — I found a copy."
"Where?"
"The investigator kept one.
He retired two years ago and moved to Florida.
He called me eight months back.
Said he'd been thinking about it for a long time." Marcus reached into the back seat without looking and dropped a manila envelope on my lap.
"He says the fire started in two places simultaneously.
The kitchen and the hallway outside your bedroom door."
The envelope sat in my lap.
"Two points of origin," I said.
"Two."
I didn't open the envelope.
Not yet.
I already knew what it meant.
A fire that starts in two places at once does not start by accident.
"Does Reyes have this?"
"She has a copy.
She's been working the arson angle separately.
She didn't want to tell you until she had more." He paused.
"She has more now."
The car turned onto a quieter street.
Older houses.
Trees that had been growing for decades.
I recognized the neighborhood.
Ruth had lived here since before I was born.
"Marcus," I said.
"Yeah."
"Thank you.
For not stopping.
For three years."
He was quiet for a moment.
"You would have done the same."
"I was unconscious for four months."
"Before that," he said.
"You always did the same."
I didn't know what to say to that, so I said nothing.
The car slowed.
Ruth's house came into view — white paint, green shutters, a bicycle leaning against the front porch railing.
A boy's bicycle.
My throat closed.
Marcus stopped the car.
"Take as long as you need," he said.
I opened the door.
The evening air was cool and smelled like cut grass and something cooking inside the house.
I stood on the sidewalk and looked at the front door.
It opened before I reached the porch steps.
Ruth stood in the doorway.
She was older.
Her hair was fully gray now.
Her eyes went to my face — to the scars — and she didn't flinch, didn't look away, didn't do anything except press one hand over her mouth.
Then she stepped aside.
And Daniel was standing in the hallway.
He was taller than I remembered.
His hair needed cutting.
He was wearing a blue sweater with a small hole near the left cuff, and he was looking at me the way children look at something they have been told cannot be real.
"Mom?" His voice cracked on the word.
I couldn't speak.
He crossed the hallway in four steps and hit me hard enough that I had to grab the door frame to stay upright, and I held on to him with both arms and did not let go, and the sound he made against my shoulder was the sound of three years of not understanding where I had gone.
May you like
Ruth put her hand on my back.
Nobody said anything for a long time.
