Chapter 6
“Your initials?”
King nodded.
I stared at him.
“Then you did know the apartments were occupied.”
“I knew the building was occupied. I didn’t know the restricted doors served those apartments.”
“That sounds like a very careful distinction.”
“It is.”
“Because it protects you?”
“Because it’s what happened.”
I looked away.
Part of me wanted to believe him immediately.
Another part remembered how easily I’d believed my boyfriend in Detroit whenever he told me I was overreacting.
I’d spent years accepting explanations that made me doubt my own judgment.
I wasn’t going to do that again.
“Show me the document,” I said.
King studied me.
“I will.”
“When?”
“As soon as Marisol has the records.”
“Not when you decide I’m ready?”
He flinched slightly.
“No.”
I stood.
“Good.”
Outside the hospital room, Nolan was sitting beside a vending machine with a paper cup of coffee.
He stood when he saw me.
“How is he?”
“Alive.”
Nolan nodded.
“That’s enough for tonight.”
“No,” I said. “It isn’t.”
He looked at me.
I continued.
“King told me about Hawthorne House. About the doors. About the people who died.”
Nolan lowered his eyes.
“You were working for him then.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know what was happening?”
He hesitated.
“I knew there were complaints about the renovation. I wasn’t assigned to the property.”
“Did you ever ask questions?”
“Not enough.”
I was getting tired of hearing that answer from powerful men.
The following morning, Marisol arranged an interview at June’s studio.
Mara Ellis had agreed to attend.
She arrived wearing the same tan coat from my photograph.
She was in her late fifties, with tired eyes and the kind of careful movements I associated with people who’d spent years trying not to attract attention.
She carried a canvas shopping bag.
And she didn’t smile when she saw Nolan.
“You work for Moretti.”
“I do.”
“Then I’d rather you leave.”
Nolan looked toward Marisol.
She nodded.
He left without argument.
Mara sat across from me.
“You’re the photographer?”
“Yes.”
She studied my face.
“You look younger than I expected.”
“I’m twenty-seven.”
She gave a sad little smile.
“My daughter would’ve been thirty this year.”
I didn’t know what to say.
Marisol quietly asked whether Mara wanted some water.
She declined.
Then she opened her bag.
Inside was a red folder.
The same folder I’d photographed beside Graham Voss.
I leaned forward.
Mara noticed.
“Yes,” she said. “It’s the one from your picture.”
“Why were you meeting him?”
“I wasn’t meeting Voss. I was meeting Peter Grady.”
“Why?”
“Because he finally agreed to give me copies of the inspection records he’d kept.”
Marisol frowned.
“He approached you?”
Mara shook her head.
“I approached him. Several times. He finally agreed to meet, then brought Voss without warning.”
My stomach tightened.
“What happened?”
“Voss offered me money to stop asking questions.”
“How much?”
“Enough to pay my mortgage and move somewhere nobody would recognize me.”
“Did you accept?”
Mara looked almost offended.
“No.”
She opened the folder.
“I’ve been trying to prove what happened to those people for seven years. I’m not selling their names.”
Marisol studied the documents.
“Are these the original maintenance logs?”
“Copies of the records I kept while managing the building.”
Mara placed one page on the table.
There were dates, apartment numbers, and handwritten notes.
Complaints about blocked doors.
Broken exit signs.
Construction debris in stairwells.
I read one entry aloud.
“September fourteenth. Resident unable to open east stairwell door. Reported to contractor.”
Mara nodded.
“Thomas Bell reported that.”
“The man who died?”
“Yes.”
She looked down.
“He lived on the fourth floor. He was a widower. He used to bring little bags of peppermint candy to the maintenance office because he said nobody should have to work all day without something sweet.”
Her voice trembled.
“He was seventy-one years old. And he died because he couldn’t get out of his own building.”
I stared at the paper.
For the first time, the fire became more than a story about money and criminals.
It became an elderly man with peppermint candy in his pocket.
A woman who never got to see her daughter’s thirtieth birthday.
People who should have gone home at the end of an ordinary day.
Mara pulled out another document.
“This is the version of the access order I received before the work began.”
Marisol examined it.
Then Mara placed a second version beside it.
“And this is the amended order that contractors were using.”
The first document described temporary restrictions on an unoccupied service corridor.
The second contained additional instructions.
Secure east stairwell access until full turnover of occupied units.
I stared at those words.
“Occupied units?”
Mara nodded.
“Someone changed the instructions.”
Marisol compared the two pages.
“Who approved the amendment?”
Mara pointed to the bottom.
There were initials.
King Moretti.
I felt a terrible pressure in my chest.
Mara looked at me.
“I didn’t know you were involved with him when I agreed to come.”
“I didn’t know about any of this until yesterday.”
She studied me.
Then she nodded.
“I believe you.”
I looked down at King’s initials.
“Could somebody have added those afterward?”
“Of course,” Marisol said. “That’s one of the questions we have to investigate.”
Mara reached into the folder again.
She removed a small envelope.
Inside was a copy of a handwritten complaint she’d delivered to King’s office after the fire.
The date was clearly marked.
I remembered what he’d told me.
Mara had asked for help.
He’d sent her away.
I looked at the note she had written at the bottom.
Please don’t let them say nobody warned you.
My throat tightened.
Mara saw me reading.
“I waited outside his office for three hours that day.”
“Did you see him?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
She looked down.
“He said his people would review the matter.”
“And did they?”
“Not that I ever heard.”
She closed the folder.
Then she looked directly at me.
“Harper, I don’t know whether King ordered those doors locked. But I know he had the chance to help us after the fire. And he chose his business instead.”
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