No One Is Buying Her Bike

Chapter 3: The Fire That Lied

Adrian did not remember crossing the room, but suddenly he had Caldwell by the collar and slammed against the hallway wall. The old building shuddered with the impact. One of the guards reached for Adrian, then wisely stopped when he saw his face.

"What did she mean?" Adrian said.

Caldwell's expression remained controlled, but the artery at his temple pulsed. "She is feverish."

Emily's voice came from the bedroom, weak but sharp. "He told me you died in the fire. He brought me your ring. Your father signed the papers."

Adrian's grip tightened. "What papers?"

Caldwell looked toward Sophie, then back at Adrian. "Not in front of the child."

That was enough.

Adrian released him and stepped back. "Take him downstairs. If he moves, break something expensive."

His guards obeyed instantly. Caldwell did not resist, but as they led him away, he looked at Sophie with a strange, assessing calm that made Adrian's skin crawl.

Adrian returned to the bedroom.

Emily was trying to sit upright, but she was too weak. Sophie held a glass of water to her lips. The sight hit him with an emotion he had no category for. He had spent half his life believing Emily was dead, the other half becoming exactly the kind of man she used to mock when they were young.

"Do you need a doctor?" he asked.

"I needed one three weeks ago," Emily said bitterly. "But your hospital turned me away when the charity coverage disappeared."

Adrian flinched. "My hospital?"

"The Marlowe Foundation Clinic." She coughed hard enough that Sophie started crying. Emily squeezed her daughter's hand. "I'm all right, baby."

"You are not," Sophie whispered.

Adrian looked at the medicine bottles on the counter. He recognized one name because his company manufactured it. The price had tripled last year under a restructuring plan he had approved without reading beyond the summary.

He pulled out his phone and called Dr. Lorne himself. "I need an ambulance at 417 Mercer Street. Apartment 3B. No paperwork delays. No billing questions. If anyone asks, she is under my personal guarantee."

Emily watched him with a strange mixture of hatred and exhaustion. "You still give orders like the world owes you obedience."

"It usually does."

"That isn't a virtue, Adrian."

He almost smiled. The Emily he remembered was still there, buried beneath fever and years.

Sophie sat very still between them. "Mom, you know him?"

Emily closed her eyes.

Adrian answered because she could not. "A long time ago, your mother and I were friends."

Emily opened her eyes. "We were more than friends."

Sophie looked at him, then at her mother.

Adrian felt the air change.

He should have asked then. The question was there, sharp and unavoidable. But cowardice sometimes wore the face of restraint.

Instead, he picked up the face-down photograph from the table.

It showed Emily holding a newborn baby.

Sophie.

Beside her stood an older woman Adrian did not recognize, and behind them, half-visible on the edge of the photo, was the chipped pink bicycle. E.M. and the little crown carved into the frame.

Adrian looked at the bicycle leaning in the corner of the apartment.

"Why keep it?" he asked.

Emily followed his gaze. "Because it was the only proof I had that my old life was real."

"What happened that night?"

Her face hardened.

"You tell me."

He sat slowly on the edge of the chair beside the bed. For the first time in years, Adrian Marlowe felt like a man entering a room without armor.

"There was a fire at my father's garage," he said. "They told me you were inside. They found remains. My father said your aunt took care of the funeral. I was seventeen. He sent me to Switzerland two days later. When I came back, everything was gone. The garage, your house, the records."

Emily stared at him.

"They told me you started the fire," she said.

Adrian went cold.

"What?"

"They said you panicked after your father found out about us. That you wanted me gone. Caldwell came to me while I was in the county clinic. He told me your family had paid to hide it, but that you were dead because you drove drunk into the river the next night."

Adrian stood, unable to remain seated.

"My father told me you died."

"Your father told everyone whatever protected him."

The ambulance siren wailed outside.

Sophie looked frightened, but Adrian knelt in front of her. "Your mother is going to the hospital. You are going with her. No one will stop you."

"Are you coming?"

The question struck him harder than it should have.

Emily looked away.

Adrian answered quietly. "Yes."

As paramedics arrived, Caldwell remained downstairs under guard. Adrian descended last, intending to question him before leaving for the hospital.

But Caldwell was gone.

Both guards lay unconscious in the lobby.

On the cracked tile floor, written in black marker on a torn piece of cardboard from Sophie's sign, was one message.

Ask your father what burned.