Chapter 4 - The Greenhouse Ashes
The grand conservatory at the rear of Blackwood Manor was a sprawling structure of Victorian glass and wrought iron, housing thousands of rare exotic plants, orchids, and tropical trees that Eleanor Blackwood had lovingly cultivated during her lifetime.
Now, thick, black plumes of acrid smoke were billowing into the grey autumn sky through shattered glass panes.
When Victor, Emma, and four armed guards rounded the stone pathway leading into the gardens, the heat hit them like a physical blow. Flames roared inside the central glass dome, turning the lush green leaves into crackling orange ash.
Servants and groundskeepers were running frantically back and forth with fire extinguishers and water hoses, but the manual override valves had been destroyed, leaving the automated sprinkler system completely dead.
“Where is Knox?” Victor roared over the deafening crackle of the blaze.
A terrified young groundskeeper pointed a trembling finger toward the burning structure. “Inside, sir! He ran in five minutes ago! He said someone locked the secondary storage room from the outside!”
Victor didn't hesitate. He grabbed a heavy wool fire blanket from a safety station near the entrance, wrapped it around his broad shoulders, and marched straight into the burning building.
“Mr. Blackwood, wait!” Emma screamed, running after him instinctively.
Marcus tried to grab her shoulder, but Emma was smaller, faster, and far more agile. She ducked beneath his heavy arm and followed Victor through the shattered glass doors into the inferno.
The heat inside the conservatory was blinding. Smoke hung thick in the air, stings Emma’s eyes and burning her throat. Flames licked up the wrought-iron pillars, incinerating decades of rare flora.
Through the thick haze of grey smoke, Victor kicked open a heavy metal door at the back of the greenhouse.
Inside the small, windowless tool room, a man was collapsed on the stone floor, coughing violently, his hands clawing at the wooden doorframe. It was Thomas Knox, the sixty-year-old head groundskeeper. His face was covered in soot, his clothes singed, and a heavy wooden workbench had been dragged across the door from the outside, trapping him in the growing oven.
Victor grabbed the heavy workbench with one arm, his veins bulging against his suit jacket, and shoved it aside like a piece of cardboard. He reached down, grabbed Knox by the collar of his denim shirt, and dragged the gasping old man out into the central aisle.
Emma rushed forward, grabbing Knox’s arms to help Victor drag him through the falling embers. Together, they burst back out into the cool, damp autumn air, collapsing onto the manicured lawn just as a massive section of the glass roof collapsed inside with a deafening crash.
Knox lay on the grass, clutching his chest, taking deep, desperate gulps of oxygen. Groundskeepers rushed over with wet towels and water bottles, but Victor pushed them all back, standing over Knox like a judgment god.
“Why were you in there, Thomas?” Victor demanded, his chest heaving, his face covered in soot.
Knox coughed up black phlegm, his eyes wide with fear as he looked up at his employer. “I... I saw someone, Mr. Blackwood! I was working near the east rose bushes when I saw a figure in a black coat sneaking into the greenhouse basement!”
Victor’s eyes narrowed. “Who was it?”
“I couldn't see their face!” Knox wheezed, clutching his throat. “They had a hood pulled up! I followed them down to the old boiler room beneath the conservatory. When I got down there, I saw... I saw an old iron box sitting on the workbench. It was open!”
Emma leaned in, her instincts firing rapidly. “What was inside the box, Mr. Knox?”
Knox looked at Emma, his eyes trembling. “Audio tapes. Dozens of old reel-to-reel magnetic audio tapes, marked with dates going back twelve years! Before I could touch them, someone struck me from behind with a heavy pipe! I fell into the storage room, and then I heard the door lock and smelled the gasoline!”
Marcus rushed up to the scene, holding a high-powered tactical flashlight. “Boss! My men just checked the subterranean tunnel beneath the conservatory! The fire was started in the old boiler room with military-grade thermite! The entire basement is completely incinerated!”
Victor closed his hands into tight fists.
The traitor hadn't just used a modern wireless receiver to collect data from the dining room chair; they had been archiving twelve years of recorded audio on physical tapes, storing them in a hidden subterranean vault beneath the greenhouse. And the moment Emma found the bug, the traitor had rushed to the conservatory, set thermite to destroy the master archive, and attempted to burn Thomas Knox alive to cover their tracks.
“They’re purging the evidence,” Emma whispered, looking at the dying flames of the conservatory. “Everything they stole from your family for twelve years... they’re burning it before we can trace the signal.”
Victor turned his cold, soot-stained face toward Knox. “Who had access to the boiler room key, Thomas?”
Knox shook his head helplessly. “Only three people, sir. Me... Arthur Vance... and Dr. Julian Vance. The doctor keeps his medical supply crates stored in the cool cellar right next to the boiler room.”
Victor stood up slowly. The soot on his dark face gave him the appearance of a demon risen from the ashes.
He looked down at Emma. She was standing in her ash-stained apron, her face covered in smudges, her breathing ragged, but her eyes were bright, focused, and fearless. She hadn't run away when the fire broke out. She had run in.
“You have good instincts, Emma,” Victor said softly, his voice cutting through the noise of the emergency sirens echoing in the distance.
“I know what it’s like to fight for survival, Mr. Blackwood,” Emma replied, wiping a streak of black soot from her forehead. “When my sister got sick, I learned that people who hide in shadows are always afraid of the light.”
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Victor let out a low, cold breath. “Then let’s give them a sunrise.”
He turned to Marcus. “Bring Arthur Vance and Dr. Julian Vance to the subterranean vault beneath the main estate. Tell them that if either of them refuses, I will consider it a full confession.”
