Chapter 12 - SOMEONE WANTED THE PROJECT DEADBy midnight, rain had begun falling over Tacoma.
Claire stood behind a police barrier watching smoke rise from the east construction wing.
The building was supposed to become affordable apartments.
Tonight, half the first floor was blackened.
Firefighters moved through shattered windows.
Ambulance lights painted the wet pavement red.
Claire felt sick.
“Names?”
Hannah approached holding her phone.
“Three injured. All alive.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Thank God.”
“One has serious burns.”
“Family?”
“Already contacted.”
Ethan stood twenty feet away speaking with investigators.
Claire watched him.
He was not taking over.
Not issuing commands.
Not turning her project into his crisis.
When the detective asked questions belonging to Northline, Ethan pointed toward Claire.
Small thing.
Important thing.
Detective Lena Ortiz approached.
“Mrs. Bennett?”
“Claire is fine.”
Ortiz opened a notebook.
“Your security footage shows someone entering the east service corridor at 9:17.”
“Employee?”
“No.”
She showed Claire a grainy photograph.
A man wearing a hooded raincoat.
His face was hidden.
“What did he do?”
“We don’t know yet.”
Ethan joined them.
Ortiz looked between them.
“The fire investigator found evidence of an accelerant.”
Claire’s stomach dropped.
“So this was intentional.”
“We believe so.”
“Why?”
Ortiz closed the notebook.
“That’s what we need to determine.”
By morning, reporters were outside.
By noon, social media had decided everything.
Northline was negligent.
Bennett Urban Development had cut costs.
Claire’s affordable-housing model was unsafe.
Ethan had secretly controlled the project.
None of it was true.
Truth moved slower than outrage.
At 2:00 p.m., Northline’s board convened.
One investor wanted construction suspended indefinitely.
Another wanted Claire removed temporarily.
Hannah nearly exploded.
Claire remained calm.
“If removing me makes the investigation easier, I’ll step aside.”
“No,” Hannah said.
A board member frowned.
“This project is becoming reputationally dangerous.”
Claire looked at him.
“Three workers are in the hospital and you’re worried about reputation?”
Silence.
Claire stood.
“Then perhaps we have different definitions of danger.”
Outside, Ethan waited.
“You heard?”
“Yes.”
“You were listening?”
“The walls are glass.”
Claire exhaled.
“I may lose the project.”
“No.”
She looked at him sharply.
Ethan corrected himself.
“Sorry. You may.”
“Better.”
“But if you do, we’ll figure out what comes next.”
Claire studied him.
“You’re disturbingly emotionally healthy lately.”
“I pay someone two hundred fifty dollars an hour.”
“Worth every penny.”
His phone buzzed.
He read the message.
Then stopped smiling.
“What?”
Ethan turned the screen toward her.
An anonymous email.
One sentence.
YOUR FATHER SHOULD HAVE WALKED AWAY WHEN HE HAD THE CHANCE.
Claire stared.
“This is about Richard.”
Ethan’s jaw tightened.
Which meant the explosion might not have been about the Tacoma project at all.
May you like
It might have been about him.
And someone had just reached twenty years into Ethan Bennett’s past to prove it.
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