Chapter 7 - The Woman in the Blue Dress.
Vanessa agreed to meet beneath the unfinished east tower of Hale Hearth's parking garage.
She arrived wearing borrowed jeans, a white shirt, and sunglasses too large for her frightened face.
Nora watched from a parked car while Officer Ortiz waited one level below.
Skyley stood alone beneath a concrete beam and let Vanessa approach.
"Tell me everything."
Vanessa removed the sunglasses.
"The affair began four months before the fire."
The admission hurt, but Skyley refused to give Ethan the dignity of another wound.
"Keep going."
"He said you humiliated him because the house and the company were yours."
Vanessa's voice cracked.
"He wanted you frightened enough to sign temporary control to him."
"So he set the fire?"
"He said it would be a small gas flare after you entered."
Vanessa admitted that Ethan had practiced his grief for a camera the week before the fire.
He recorded three versions of a statement asking the public to pray for his wife.
In one discarded version, he accidentally said Skyley had been injured before the fire even happened.
Vanessa had saved that recording too.
Skyley's hands curled at her sides.
"A lesson."
Vanessa nodded miserably.
"I was supposed to make sure the upstairs cameras were offline."
"You helped him."
"I did not know Graham had replaced the safety valve."
The name echoed through the empty garage.
Vanessa pulled a small burner phone from her pocket.
"I kept this because Ethan promised to protect me and then started threatening me."
The phone contained messages, payment records, and a voice memo recorded accidentally before the fire.
It also contained photographs of Graham meeting Ethan at the vacant Phoenix warehouse.
In the clearest image, Graham passed him a box stamped with the model number of the kitchen's gas valve.
Graham's voice was unmistakable.
"Make sure her face is the only thing anyone remembers after tonight."
Ethan answered with a nervous laugh.
"And if she refuses to sign?"
"Pain makes people practical."
Skyley leaned against a pillar as the garage tilted around her.
Her uncle had not intended to kill her.
He had intended something more calculated.
He wanted her visibly injured, publicly pitied, and privately declared incompetent.
The scar had been designed as a corporate strategy.
"Who called the fire department?" Skyley asked.
Vanessa looked away.
Headlights burst to life at the far end of the level.
A black sport utility vehicle accelerated toward them.
Skyley grabbed Vanessa and pulled her behind a support column.
The vehicle struck a parked car, showering them with glass.
Nora sounded the horn while Ortiz raced up the ramp.
The driver reversed and aimed for the exit.
Skyley caught one glimpse through the windshield.
The silver phoenix on the driver's glove flashed against the steering wheel.
Ortiz fired at a tire, but the vehicle disappeared down the service road.
Vanessa shoved the burner phone into Skyley's hand.
"Ethan knows I spoke to you."
"Come with us."
"He has something that can destroy your company tonight."
Vanessa ran toward the pedestrian stairwell before Skyley could stop her.
Nora reached Skyley as Ortiz called for backup.
The burner phone chimed with a live photograph.
Vanessa was already back inside Skyley's kitchen, and Ethan stood behind her holding a knife against the belt of the borrowed robe.
The message beneath the photograph contained six words.
Bring the ring, or she confesses alone.
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ONE HOUR TO VACATE | DOMESTIC SUSPENSE
