Chapter 8 - The Fall They Planned.
Smoke climbed the walls while Detective Quinn tried the dead elevator controls.
The penthouse sprinklers did not activate.
Lucas had disabled every system designed to save them.
Celeste wrapped a wet towel around Willow's mouth.
"The balcony maintenance ladder reaches the floor below."
Willow remembered standing at that same railing hours earlier with Lucas behind her.
The four officers forced the balcony door open.
Wind scattered smoke into the night.
The maintenance ladder hung outside the glass barrier, narrow and slick with rain.
Twenty floors below, traffic moved like red sparks.
Quinn sent the officers first to secure the lower balcony.
Celeste climbed next with Caroline's letter inside her coat.
Willow swung one leg over the railing.
A hand seized the back of her gown.
Lucas emerged through the smoke.
"You never knew when to stop."
Willow kicked backward, but he pulled her against the railing.
His tuxedo smelled of gasoline.
"You started the fire," she said.
"The report will say you did."
He glanced toward the city below.
"It will also say grief made you jump."
The plan was no longer hidden in a safe.
It was breathing against her neck.
Willow drove her pearl earring pin into his hand.
Lucas shouted and released her gown.
Quinn reappeared over the lower railing and raised her weapon.
"Step away from her."
Lucas lifted both hands.
Then an explosion tore through the study windows.
The balcony buckled beneath them.
Willow fell against the outer rail as glass rained into the dark.
Lucas grabbed her wrist.
For one confusing second, it looked as though he meant to save her.
Then he began peeling her fingers away from the metal.
"Nobody will believe you now," he whispered.
Celeste reached from below and caught Willow's other arm.
Quinn struck Lucas across the shoulder with a rescue hook.
He stumbled back into the smoke.
Celeste and Quinn dragged Willow onto the lower balcony.
Firefighters arrived through the apartment beneath them.
By the time they reached Lucas's floor, he had vanished down a private stairwell.
The fire destroyed the study and most of the safe's remaining evidence.
Willow sat in an ambulance wrapped in gray wool, her blue gown torn to the knee.
Guests from the gala gathered behind police tape and watched the flames.
Several sent messages asking whether Willow needed anything.
None acknowledged that they had done nothing when Lucas struck her.
Willow deleted every message that began with a polite excuse.
She kept the single message from the elderly donor who admitted her cowardice without qualification.
Truth, Willow realized, did not always arrive from fearless people.
Sometimes it began when frightened people stopped pretending they had been helpless.
She sent the donor Lena's photograph and asked for any information about Northbridge.
The reply arrived seconds later with the name of the clinic's silent owner.
Evelyn Sterling.
Celeste handed her Caroline's letter.
The bottom edge was scorched but readable.
Richard called from Northbridge.
"Lena isn't here."
"Get out of that building," Willow said.
A crash sounded through the phone.
Richard shouted at someone, and the line went silent.
Quinn received an alert from highway patrol.
A black sedan registered to Richard had broken through a bridge barrier.
Witnesses saw it fall into the river.
Willow stared at the burning penthouse above her.
May you like
Lucas had planned one fall.
Someone else had just completed another.
