Chapter 16 - Fire on the Hill
The smoke was coming from the caretaker's house. By the time firefighters reached the orchard, orange flames were licking through the porch roof. Nora kept us behind a barricade while her team checked whether anyone remained inside.
"It's where he kept Mom's things," Lucía said. "Jamie told us that. He knows we're looking."
A window broke. Heat rolled across the yard. I could hear the old wood snapping, but beneath it was another sound: an engine revving on the back service road.
"He's leaving," I said.
Nora radioed the description of a dark SUV speeding toward the quarry. Troopers were waiting at the highway exit. She wouldn't send anyone racing through an active fire to catch a car they might intercept safely.
A firefighter returned carrying a dented metal document box rescued from the ground-floor mudroom. Its lid was scorched, but the clasp held. Inside were signed receipts, property surveys, and a sealed envelope addressed in Mom's handwriting to BOTH MY CHILDREN.
I almost ripped it open. Lucía put a hand on mine.
"Not yet," she said. "Let's see him stopped first."
An hour later, the SUV was found abandoned near the quarry fence. Mercer was gone. Daniel was gone. Under the passenger seat lay a pair of brown work boots with metal plates screwed to the heels.
"Pike's shoes?" I asked.
"Possibly," Nora said. "We'll compare them. They may have traded things to confuse us."
Then her radio crackled. Officers had discovered a man near the quarry pump house. He was waving a white shirt, calling for help. From a distance he looked like Mercer.
Nora's team approached carefully. The man shouted that Daniel had locked someone inside the pump house.
"Who?" she called.
He pointed at me. "His son. He said he brought Rafael there."
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I stood behind Nora, very much alive. She looked at the man again.
It wasn't Mercer. It was Daniel, wearing Mercer's jacket and trying to lure the police away from the road below.
