Their Favoritism Resulted In A Cruel Outcome Chapter 04
My father swayed when he read the second line.
“What death penalty?”
“We were home all night.”
James snatched the paper away, his hands shaking so badly the page rustled.
“Who told them they were being secretly transferred?”
One of the guards lowered his head.
“The man who read the fake order.”
“He said the Worthington men were involved in terrorism. The women were all accomplices and would be taken away at dawn.”
“No one told the old woman it was all a lie.”
The children’s thermos in Luke’s hand fell, its plastic lid rolling into the black water on the floor.
Henry looked as though he couldn’t understand what he was hearing. He kept asking, “Where’s my daughter?”
“She’s only six.”
“She can hide in very small places. She must be hiding somewhere, right?”
No one answered him.
The firefighters cut open the first door, and hot smoke burst out.
My grandmother lay beside a concrete pillar, a deep wound in her forehead, her hand still clutching her bent cane.
The lumbar cushion my father had brought fell to the floor.
He dropped to his knees and crawled toward her, gathering the already cold old woman into his arms.
“Mom.”
“I came to take you home.”
“Open your eyes. Please, look at me.”
My grandmother didn’t respond.
In the second cell, my mother was pinned in the corner by the sheet-rope and the vent cover. Her fingers were scraped raw, her nails packed with metal filings.
My father looked up at her, and a low, broken sound tore from his throat.
My three brothers ran toward the wash area.
Several pairs of high heels lay abandoned there.
The women had kicked them off to climb toward the ventilation duct.
James recognized Lauren’s pair at a glance.
The small scuff on the leather was from their second anniversary, on a trip to Boston.
The shoes were still there.
Lauren lay behind a charred mattress.
Luke lunged toward the deep basin where they had tried to collect water, but a firefighter caught him and held him back.
In the corner, Henry found Hannah and Molly.
Hannah had curled herself around her daughter.
One hand covered Molly’s eyes, and the other still clenched half a white satin ribbon.
Molly had secretly cut it from the back of one of the wedding chairs.
She had said she wanted to tie it around her teddy bear.
The cinnamon candy spilled from Henry’s pocket, scattering across the floor.
No one bent to pick it up.
Connor stood outside the last cell, unable to move.
A corner of a wedding dress showed beneath the door.
He knew that skirt.
He had helped me choose the pearls sewn into it during a fitting in New York. He had imagined me walking toward him in it.
He had never imagined seeing it here.
The firefighter pushed the door open.
I was curled up on the damp concrete.
My hair clip lay shattered beside me.
The wedding dress was blackened by smoke, and the neckline bore the unmistakable marks of having been torn open.
Connor saw those marks and froze.
The three men who had fled the night before had just been brought back by the state police.
One of them, trying to save his own skin, told the whole story.
“It was Blair.”
“She paid us to ruin Willa’s wedding dress and get a video of her being humiliated.”
“She said Connor couldn’t let go of Willa’s perfect image. If the video got out, he’d never want to marry her.”
“But those women protected her like crazy. We didn’t get the video.”
“The cash James prepared was intercepted by Blair’s people, too. She wouldn’t allow food or heaters to be delivered. She said no matter what happened in there, that door wasn’t to be opened.”
“We didn’t start the fire on purpose. The heater tipped over. We just ran.”
With every word, the safe, controlled arrangement they had planned the night before crumbled into ash.
Only then did they understand. My grandmother would never get the chance to chase them with her cane.
My mother would never hear their explanation.
Their wives would never eat the pastries, and Molly would never get her candy.
They had thought the women would only be afraid for one night.
And in that one night, every woman and child in the Worthington family had died.
Connor dropped to his knees beside me and reached out to straighten the torn neckline of my dress.
The moment his fingers brushed my cold face, he flinched.
“Willa.”
“Get up.”
“I came to take you home.”
“Didn’t you always want this wedding?”
“You don’t have to sign anything. Forget canceling the engagement.”
“I’m taking you back now.”
He draped the thick coat over me and gathered me carefully into his arms.
My hand hung limp over his arm.
In my palm, I was still clutching the towel, now completely dry.
Outside the detention center, day had fully broken.
The cars were lined up neatly at the entrance.
The coffee was still warm, and the hand warmers hadn’t gone cold.
At the house on Sullivan’s Island, the first hydrangea had already bloomed.
Everyone had come.
But the people they had come to take home would never return.