Chapter 13 - THE INFERNO REDUX"Open the door!" Evelyn screamed, pounding on the heavy wood from the hallway. "Open this door, you little bitch!"
"Let her stay in there," I whispered to myself, repeating the words my sister had said fifteen years ago.
I stood in the center of the dark bedroom. I had prepared everything. I walked over to the closet, opened the secret access panel I had installed, and pulled out a heavy fire-retardant blanket and a specialized oxygen mask.
Outside in the hallway, Evelyn was frantic. She shot the doorknob, but the deadbolt was reinforced steel. She was trapped in the ten-foot corridor between the bedroom doors and the steel shutters.
"I smell smoke!" Evelyn screamed, her voice cracking with genuine, primal terror.
I hadn't started a fire. But I had rigged the HVAC system to pump a highly concentrated, non-lethal smoke into the hallway. It was theatrical smoke, used in movies, but to a panicked mind, it was real.
"Mommy!" I mocked, projecting my voice through the door, imitating a crying seven-year-old. "Mommy, there's smoke! Please open the door!"
"Stop it!" Evelyn shrieked. I heard her drop the gun and fall to her knees, coughing as the thick, gray fog filled the hallway. "Please! Elena, I'm sorry! I'll give you everything! I'll give you the money!"
"It was never about the money," I said quietly, leaning my forehead against the cool wood of the door. "It was about the fact that you walked away."
Sirens wailed in the distance, cutting through the quiet Westchester night. I had timed it perfectly. The police were arriving to arrest her for the murder of my father, based on the evidence I provided.
"Help!" Evelyn sobbed, scratching at the door like a trapped animal. The elegant, untouchable Evelyn Vance was reduced to a pathetic, crawling mess on the floor. "Somebody help me!"
"Where does smoke go, Mother?" I asked coldly.
She didn't answer. She just coughed, weeping hysterically in the dark.
"Up," I answered for her. "So where do you go? You go to hell."
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The sound of heavy battering rams hitting the front door echoed through the house. The police had arrived.
I strapped the oxygen mask over my face, wrapped the fire blanket around my shoulders, and sat on the edge of the bed. I closed my eyes, listening to the beautiful symphony of my mother's empire burning to the ground.
