At approximately 4:20 a.m., I woke coughing.
Smoke filled the hallway.
I ran outside.
Neighbors called 911.
Then I realized Derek hadn’t followed me.
I remember someone grabbing my arm.
“Don’t go back!”
I pulled free.
“My husband is inside!”
I covered my mouth and ran in.
The heat was unbearable.
I crawled.
I found Derek unconscious near the guest-room doorway.
I dragged him.
A burning section of curtain fell.
Flames struck the left side of my body.
I screamed.
But I kept pulling.
Somehow we reached the front door.
Firefighters took over.
Derek spent one night in the hospital.
I spent thirty-six days.
When I woke after the first surgery, he was sitting beside me.
He cried.
“You saved me.”
I couldn’t speak because of the breathing tube.
He held my hand.
“I’ll be here through every surgery.”
For one month, he kept that promise.
Then something changed.
He stopped touching me.
He moved into another room.
He began traveling.
His parents stopped visiting.
Before the fire, Brenda Vaughn called me her “model daughter.”
Afterward, she always had an excuse.
Migraine.
Church meeting.
Travel.
Cold.
Anything.
I told myself people were uncomfortable with trauma.
I never considered that they might be uncomfortable with guilt.
PART 3 — THE WOMAN WITH THE FLOWERS
Her name was Simone Blake.
I had met her twice before the fire.
She worked with Derek.
Officially, she was a business-development consultant.
Unofficially, I later learned, she had been sleeping with my husband for nearly a year.
Simone visited me once in the hospital.
She brought white lilies.
I remember because I hated their smell afterward.
She stood beside my bed.
“Elena, I’m so sorry.”
Her eyes moved over my bandages.
Not pity.
Something else.
Fear.
At the time, I thought I was imagining it.
After Derek asked for a divorce, my attorney, Priya Shah, began reviewing our finances.
Three days later, she called.
“Did you know Derek increased the insurance coverage on the rental house?”
“No.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before the fire.”
I sat very still.
“Is that unusual?”
“Maybe.”
Then Priya asked:
“Did you know there was a life-insurance policy on you?”
My stomach tightened.
“We both had policies.”
“This is a different one.”
“How much?”
“Two million dollars.”
I stopped breathing for a second.
“Beneficiary?”
“Derek.”
“When was it opened?”
“Five weeks before the fire.”
I tried to laugh.
Nothing came out.
“That doesn’t mean anything.”
“No,” Priya said carefully. “By itself, it doesn’t.”
Then she told me something else.
The fire investigation had never been fully closed.
The initial report listed probable electrical failure.
But a supplemental laboratory analysis had detected an accelerant near the rear hallway.
The report had been delayed.
The fire might have been deliberately set.
I looked at my scarred hand.
“Priya.”
“Yes?”
“Call the investigator.”
PART 4 — THE VOICEMAIL
Detective Marcus Reed arrived at my parents’ house the next afternoon.
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