Chapter 4 - THE FIRE WASN’T AN ACCIDENTI had imagined the fire beginning a dozen different ways.
Bad wiring.
A stove left on.
An overloaded outlet.
Anything ordinary.
Arson was different.
Arson meant someone had stood near a home containing children and made a deliberate choice.
Rebecca explained that investigators had found traces of an accelerant near the rear stairwell.
The fire had started in a storage area beneath her apartment.
“Do they know who did it?”
“No.”
“Was anybody threatening you?”
Another pause.
“My father’s company owns the building.”
That was the first detail that made everything more complicated.
Walter had purchased the aging apartment complex eighteen months earlier and planned to renovate it without displacing existing tenants.
A contractor had been hired.
Permits were delayed.
Tensions had grown.
Some tenants believed renovations were an excuse to raise rents.
Walter insisted rents would remain protected for existing residents.
Then the fire happened.
By Tuesday, reporters learned about the arson investigation.
The same people who had accused me of staging a rescue found a new theory.
Maybe Walter had arranged the fire.
Maybe it was an insurance scam.
Maybe I had been hired afterward as payment for staying quiet.
It was ridiculous.
But ridiculous things spread fast when they sounded dramatic.
Walter’s communications team wanted a press conference.
He refused.
“Let investigators investigate.”
I respected that.
But Harbor House suffered.
A corporate donor postponed a six-figure contribution.
Two board members demanded answers.
I had been working there forty-eight hours.
Already the place might lose funding.
“Welcome to management,” Walter told me.
My first actual assignment was embarrassingly small.
The kitchen’s delivery schedule was a disaster.
Three vendors arrived simultaneously, blocking construction crews.
I reorganized deliveries based on restaurant experience.
Then I noticed food costs in the proposed budget were too high.
“You’re planning meals like a hotel,” I told the kitchen consultant.
She bristled.
“We need quality.”
“Quality doesn’t mean waste.”
We redesigned menus around flexible ingredients.
Chicken became soup the next day.
Vegetables could rotate.
Bread came from local bakeries at closing instead of industrial suppliers.
Within two days, projected monthly expenses dropped fourteen percent.
Walter looked over the numbers.
“You said you only carried plates.”
“I lied.”
He laughed.
For the first time since the fire, I felt useful instead of famous.
Then Thursday afternoon, Ronald Briggs walked into Harbor House.
I froze.
He looked terrible.
Unshaven.
Wrinkled shirt.
Dark circles beneath his eyes.
Security approached him.
I raised a hand.
“It’s okay.”
Ronald stopped ten feet away.
“I need five minutes.”
Walter happened to be standing nearby.
He looked at me.
My decision.
“Conference room.”
Ronald sat across from me.
He couldn’t meet my eyes.
Murphy’s corporate office had fired him.
Not because he fired me, he claimed.
Because he spoke publicly without authorization and released employee information.
I felt no satisfaction.
He placed a flash drive on the table.
“What’s that?”
“Security footage.”
“From Murphy’s?”
He nodded.
“Why bring it to me?”
“Because the police need it.”
My skin prickled.
Ronald explained that the restaurant’s rear camera faced the alley behind the apartment building.
Nobody had thought to check it initially because the main fire activity was across the street.
Ronald had reviewed archived footage trying to prove emergency vehicles had already arrived before I left.
Instead, he saw a man leave the apartment’s rear entrance twelve minutes before smoke appeared.
The man carried a red fuel container.
“Did you call police?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you here?”
Ronald stared down at his hands.
“Because I recognize him.”
Walter stepped closer.
“Who?”
Ronald looked at Walter.
“His name is Calvin Rusk.”
Walter’s face changed.
I had never seen him afraid before.
“You know him?” I asked.
Walter nodded.
“Former subcontractor.”
Rusk’s company had been terminated from the renovation project three months earlier for falsifying invoices.
He had threatened lawsuits.
According to Walter, he blamed Hayes Development for bankrupting him.
Ronald pushed the drive forward.
“I thought maybe you should have a copy.”
“You should give this to investigators.”
“I did.”
“Then why give me one?”
His eyes finally met mine.
“Because I was wrong.”
The room went silent.
Ronald swallowed.
“About you.”
I didn’t answer.
“I was scared,” he continued. “Corporate had been hammering us over labor costs. We were understaffed. Sales were down. I saw you walking out and all I could think about was another shift falling apart.”
“That explains why you were angry.”
“I know.”
“It doesn’t explain television.”
He flinched.
“No.”
“Or leaking my file.”
“I didn’t leak it.”
“Somebody did.”
“I sent it to corporate. I don’t know who released it.”
I believed he might be telling the truth.
But I didn’t trust him.
Ronald rubbed his face.
“When the story exploded, I panicked. I thought if everybody decided you were a hero, then I had to be the villain.”
He gave a bitter laugh.
“So I tried to prove you weren’t a hero.”
I leaned forward.
“Ronald, I never asked anybody to call me one.”
“I know that now.”
He stood.
“I’m sorry.”
Then he walked toward the door.
I stopped him.
“What are you going to do?”
He shrugged.
“Find work, I guess.”
“You have kids.”
His face hardened with embarrassment.
“Two.”
I remembered a photograph from his office.
Twin girls.
Nine or ten.
I hated what he had done.
But hatred was heavy.
I had enough to carry.
“Harbor House needs temporary warehouse help.”
Walter looked at me sharply.
Ronald stared.
“You’re joking.”
“No.”
“You’d hire me?”
“I didn’t say that.”
I looked at Walter.
“I said we need help.”
Walter understood.
“Report tomorrow at eight,” he told Ronald. “You’ll speak to HR. No promises.”
Ronald’s mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
He nodded and left.
Walter waited until the door closed.
“Interesting choice.”
“Bad?”
“Ask me in six months.”
The arson investigation moved quickly after that.
Police identified Calvin Rusk.
But they couldn’t find him.
His apartment was empty.
His phone was off.
His truck had disappeared.
For three days, nothing.
Then Saturday evening, while Sarah and I were having dinner with Lily, someone knocked on our door.
I looked through the peephole.
Nobody.
I opened it.
An envelope lay on the porch.
Inside was a photograph of me carrying Noah from the burning building.
Across my face, someone had drawn a red X.
May you like
On the back were seven words.
YOU SHOULD HAVE STAYED OUT OF IT.
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