CHAPTER SIXTEEN #2
Sophie shook her head.
“She did it. She scratched herself too.”
Damian looked toward the hall.
Elena stood beyond the glass.
Her hand covered her mouth.
She had heard enough.
“Then Mom took me in the room,” Sophie said. “She poured the gasoline. She called the police from another phone and said Mr Vader had a gun.”
“Did he have a gun?”
“No.”
“Where was the phone?”
“In her purse.”
“Did she take it when she left?”
Sophie thought.
“Yes.”
“What color was it?”
“Blue.”
Vanessa’s phone at the gala had a black case.
Another device.
Prepared complaints.
Prepared exits.
Prepared witnesses.
Alyssa’s voice stayed soft. “When the fire started, what did your mother do?”
Sophie began crying.
“She left me.”
Alyssa rose and gathered her into her arms.
The child clung to her.
No one spoke while she sobbed against Alyssa’s shoulder.
Damian looked at his wife holding the girl who had falsely accused her in front of cameras and police.
Alyssa stroked Sophie’s hair.
“You are safe,” she said. “None of this is your fault.”
The sentence broke whatever remained of Damian’s control.
He turned toward the window.
His chest hurt beyond the smoke.
Dana gave Sophie several minutes before continuing.
“Do you know where your mother might go?”
Sophie shook her head against Alyssa.
“She said she had a place where nobody could find us.”
“Did she describe it?”
“A high building. She said we could see the water.”
Miami contained thousands.
Dana asked whether Vanessa had friends, other phones or names she used. Sophie remembered a woman named Celeste from a salon and a man who brought envelopes. She recalled a key card with a gold bird on it.
Julian wrote every detail down.
By late afternoon, police had issued an arrest alert.
The estate service records showed Vanessa leaving in the maintenance cart, abandoning it near a side street and entering a waiting rideshare booked under another name.
The route ended at a shopping center.
Security footage showed her changing clothes inside a bathroom.
After that, she vanished.
Sophie fell asleep shortly before six.
A hospital social worker arranged temporary protective custody while Charles and his sister traveled from Naples. Charles remained under investigation, but the original allegations against him were collapsing.
Alyssa left the child’s bedside and stepped into the corridor.
Damian followed.
He should have remained seated. The walls tilted each time he moved.
Alyssa stopped near a vending machine.
“Go back to bed.”
“I need to speak to you.”
“No.”
The answer came without cruelty.
“You came for Sophie,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Thank you.”
“She asked.”
“I know.”
He looked at her bare hand.
The pale ring mark had begun to fade.
“Alyssa, I’m sorry.”
She gave him a tired look.
“That sentence is too small.”
“I know.”
“You believed her.”
“I did.”
“You believed her every time.”
“I know.”
“You are not allowed to make this simple because she set a fire.”
“I’m not.”
“Her guilt does not create your innocence.”
“No.”
Damian’s voice scraped.
Alyssa glanced at the oxygen tube.
“You should sit.”
“I asked you whether you remembered signing forged papers.”
Her face tightened.
“I treated your grief as evidence against you. I made you leave your gala. I barred you from our home.”
“Our former home.”
He absorbed the correction.
“I was wrong.”
“You were disloyal.”
“Yes.”
The word left him before pride could interfere.
Alyssa looked at him.
“You didn’t sleep with her,” she said. “You’ll probably cling to that when this reaches the lawyers.”
“I won’t.”
“You kept telling me there was nothing between you.”
“There wasn’t.”
“There was trust.”
Damian said nothing.
“You gave it to her,” Alyssa continued. “You made me earn the trust I already had after eleven years, while Vanessa received it because she arrived bruised and crying.”
“I know.”
“No. You know now because police found the files.”
He flinched.
“You know because Carmen spoke. Julian found photographs. Sophie told the truth. You still needed everybody except your wife.”
Each sentence landed without raised volume.
Alyssa had spent weeks shouting in rooms where he heard only tone.
Now she spoke quietly, and he could not escape a word.
“I loved you,” she said.
The past tense frightened him more than the fire.
“I love you.”
“That doesn’t change what you did.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I have no defense.”
“Good.”
She stepped around him.
Damian turned.
“May I call you?”
“No.”
“May Martin update you about the investigation?”
“Yes.”
“Will you let me know you’re safe?”
Her expression hardened.
“You removed me from my home in front of six hundred people. You don’t get to request reassurance because being unable to find me is uncomfortable.”
He lowered his head.
“You’re right.”
Alyssa walked back into Sophie’s room.
Damian remained in the corridor until the nurse ordered him to lie down.
* * *
Alyssa returned to the apartment after ten.
Martin walked her upstairs.
Police had advised her to use security, but Alyssa refused Damian’s personnel. Martin arranged two off-duty officers through his firm instead. One checked the building entrance. The other waited in the underground parking garage.
The hallway outside the apartment smelled faintly of floor cleaner.
“Call me when you lock the door,” Martin said.
“You’ll hear it from here.”
“I enjoy documentation.”
Alyssa opened the apartment.
Darkness filled the small living room.
She reached for the switch.
A lamp came on beside the leather chair.
Vanessa sat with a knife across her lap.
The forged foundation files covered the table.
“Close the door,” she said.