Chapter 2 - THE WALLS OF FIRE
The match hit the Persian rug.
A line of orange flame hissed across the wool.
Accelerant caught instantly.
A wall of heat slammed against the back of the oak bookcase.
Smoke rose in a thick, greasy wave.
Clara did not scream.
She pressed Oliver’s face deeper into her collarbone.
Owen let out a muffled whimper.
She rocked him with her left forearm, matching her breathing to the dark.
“Hurry up,” a voice shouted from the nursery hallway.
“The whole east wing is going up!”
Heavy boots pounded away down the corridor.
Glass shattered inside the bedroom.
The heat was already bleeding through the plaster.
The wood behind Clara’s shoulder groaned.
The air inside the wall cavity grew thin.
Ash drifted through the cracks like black snow.
She had to move now.
Before the ceiling collapsed into the shaft.
Clara turned toward the narrow wooden stair.
The steps were barely twelve inches wide.
Built over a century ago for servants carrying laundry.
She tested the first step with her bare heel.
The wood bent, but it held.
She took a slow, deliberate step down into the pitch black.
Both arms were locked around the babies.
She had no free hand to balance against the wall.
Her shoulder grazed rough brick.
Mortar scraped her skin through the thin cotton of her uniform.
Above her, the bookcase groaned.
A deafening crack echoed down the shaft.
The nursery floor was giving way.
Flaming debris crashed into the hollow void above her head.
A shower of orange sparks cascaded down the brick chimney.
One landed on Clara’s bare shoulder.
Pain flared like an open blade.
She bit her tongue until copper flooded her mouth.
She did not flinch.
She did not drop the boys.
She took another step down.
Then another.
Oliver was trembling against her chest.
His small fingers clutched the fabric of her torn blouse.
Owen had gone deathly still, his forehead damp with sweat.
“Hold on,” she whispered into the dark.
Her voice was barely a breath.
“We’re almost down.”
The air grew cold and damp.
The smell of smoke gave way to wet earth and rotting limestone.
Her feet touched the cracked concrete of the drainage tunnel.
This was the old storm runoff beneath the coastal estate.
It emptied onto the rocky beach below the cliffs.
Ahead of her, moonlight cut through a rusted iron drainage grate.
Cold ocean wind rushed into the tunnel.
It felt like ice against her burning skin.
She hurried toward the opening.
The grate was unlatched.
Left open by the maintenance crew during the storm repairs.
Clara pushed through the iron bars with her back.
The Atlantic rain struck her face like needles.
She stood on the slippery black rocks of the cove.
Fifty feet above her, the Costello mansion burned against the night sky.
Flames devoured the roof.
Black smoke billowed out over the dark ocean.
Suddenly, a flashlight beam swept across the rocks.
A figure stood near the private dock fifty yards away.
Briggs.
He was untying a high-powered offshore speedboat.
And standing beside him on the dock was Victoria Costello.
Victoria was not running in terror.
She was smoking a thin cigarette, watching the mansion burn.
She checked her gold wristwatch.
Then she spoke into a satellite phone.
Clara could hear her voice over the roar of the surf:
“The fire took care of the evidence, Salvatore.”
Clara froze behind a granite boulder.
Salvatore Russo.
Damian Costello’s bitterest enemy in Boston.
“The boys are gone,” Victoria said smoothly into the phone.
“Damian will return to ashes. Meet me in Montauk with my cut.”
Clara’s heart hammered against her ribs.
Victoria hadn't just abandoned her children.
She had sold them to the butchers.
Beside Clara, Oliver took a deep, shuddering breath.
Then he let out a loud, piercing scream.
May you like
On the dock, Victoria snapped her head toward the rocks.
Briggs raised a silenced submachine gun into the dark.
