Chapter 3 - THE FIRE THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE STARTED
Grant's words followed me through the night.
The warehouse fire that killed Owen was never supposed to happen.
I repeated them silently while nurses checked my blood pressure, while Hope's oxygen levels were monitored, and while I stared at the empty space beside my hospital bed.
At dawn, I called the fire department.
Captain Michael Brennan answered.
He had been Owen's supervisor for seven years.
“Hannah?”
“Mike, I need to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
I swallowed.
“Was the warehouse fire an accident?”
Silence.
Then he said, “Why are you asking?”
I closed my eyes.
“Because Grant Wexler just told me it wasn't supposed to happen.”
Another silence.
Longer.
“Hannah, where are you?”
“In the hospital.”
“What happened?”
I told him.
The slap.
The emergency delivery.
Hope.
By the time I finished, his voice had changed.
“I'm coming.”
Captain Brennan arrived two hours later carrying a small paper bag.
Inside was a knitted yellow blanket.
His wife had made it for Hope.
I held it against my chest.
“Thank you.”
He sat beside me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then I asked again.
“Was it an accident?”
Mike looked down.
“The official report said an electrical fault started the fire.”
“But?”
He rubbed his face.
“But Owen thought something was wrong.”
My stomach tightened.
“What?”
“He called me before he went inside.”
I stared.
“He said the building had been cleared earlier that day. Yet someone reported a janitor trapped in a locked storage section.”
I remembered the news reports.
Owen had gone back inside for the janitor.
A man named Luis Ortega.
Luis survived.
Owen didn't.
Mike continued.
“Owen told me the fire doors weren't working.”
I felt cold.
“He said they appeared to have been deliberately disabled.”
I gripped the blanket.
“Did you investigate?”
“We did.”
“And?”
“Some of the evidence disappeared.”
I stared.
“What do you mean disappeared?”
“Security footage. Maintenance records. Access logs.”
My throat tightened.
“Who had access?”
Mike looked at me.
“The building's management company.”
“Wexler?”
He nodded.
I closed my eyes.
Owen had died in a warehouse owned by Grant Wexler's family.
And the records that might explain why had vanished.
That afternoon, a woman entered my room carrying a small leather handbag.
She was in her seventies, with silver hair and a face marked by years of grief.
“Mrs. Reed?”
I looked up.
“Yes?”
“My name is Margaret Wexler.”
Grant's mother.
I stiffened.
She stopped near the door.
“I understand if you don't want to see me.”
I stared.
“What do you want?”
Margaret looked at the yellow blanket on my lap.
Then at my face.
“I came to tell you something my son doesn't know.”
My heart began pounding.
She stepped closer.
“Five months ago, on the morning your husband died, I received a phone call.”
“From whom?”
Margaret swallowed.
“From the man your husband rescued.”
Luis Ortega.
I sat straighter.
“What did he say?”
Her eyes filled.
“He said someone had locked him inside that warehouse.”
May you like
I couldn't breathe.
“And he said the person who locked him in was wearing a Wexler security badge.”
