Chapter 2: The House Was Never Hers

I spent the night at a motel near the apartment. The room smelled faintly of old carpet and industrial cleaner, and the heating system rattled every few minutes. I barely slept. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Claire holding my grandmother's plate while Grant stood behind me, making excuses for her. I kept thinking about the access code. Seventy-two hours. That was how long a stranger could enter my property because the man I had planned to marry believed my refusal could be ignored.

At around three in the morning, I opened the smart-lock application again. The access code was still active. I tried the option to revoke it, but the system required an additional verification step because Grant had created the invitation using the property's administrator access. I could contact the lock company when its support team opened. Until then, I had no way to know whether Claire was still inside the house or how many people she had invited. I took screenshots of the access history and saved every notification.

The next morning, the snow stopped and the highway reopened. I didn't go back for anything. I just drove straight to Milwaukee. The roads were still covered in patches of snow, and the sky looked pale and exhausted, but the traffic was moving again. My phone remained beside me on the passenger seat. I ignored Grant's missed calls and the messages from his friends. I had nothing left to discuss with people who believed that my grandmother's home was a convenient location for someone else's party.

When my mother opened the door and saw me standing there with a suitcase, she didn't ask a single question. She simply pulled me into a hug. My father took my suitcase. “Your room's still here,” he said quietly. That was all. No lecture about marriage, no questions about what I might have done to upset Grant, and no demand that I think about Claire's circumstances before thinking about my own. I almost broke down at the simple kindness of being welcomed without having to defend myself.

It wasn't until I was sitting at our familiar dining table that I told them the wedding was off. My mother squeezed my hand. “Then it's off. Better that than marrying someone who doesn't respect you.” I nodded, refusing to cry. My father sat opposite me, listening while I explained the fake screenshots, Grant's refusal to examine them, and the secret visitor code. When I described the charges on the joint account, his expression hardened. He didn't interrupt until I mentioned the lake house.

That house had been my grandmother's home for more than forty years. The marks measuring my mother's height as a child were still carved into the kitchen doorway. My grandfather's fishing gear remained in the storage room, carefully arranged beside his old tackle box. The attic held photographs, handwritten letters, and Christmas decorations from three generations of our family. I had planned to hold the wedding there, not because it was valuable, but because it represented the life my family had built. My grandmother had wanted me to fill it with happy memories of my own.

My father listened carefully. Then he said that the first priority was to secure the property and make sure nobody else could enter. We contacted the smart-lock company together. After verifying my ownership and identity, I requested that Grant's administrative access be revoked and that the visitor code created for Claire be disabled. The support representative explained that the access history would remain available for review. I asked for confirmation in writing. I didn't want another promise that could disappear as soon as I turned my back.

The ring was returned. I placed it in a padded envelope and arranged for it to be delivered to Grant through a tracked service. The joint account was frozen while the bank reviewed the available options and confirmed the requirements for separating or closing it. I also contacted a moving company to arrange the collection of the rest of my belongings from the Chicago apartment. I was not going back to argue with Grant about furniture or wedding decorations. The belongings could be collected without my being present.

My mother made coffee while I sat with my laptop, organizing the documents. There were wedding deposits, account statements, property records, photographs of the lake house, and the smart-lock notifications. I had never expected to need so much evidence to prove that I had said no to something that belonged to me. My father suggested contacting the property's insurance provider and a local caretaker to make sure everything was secure. I agreed. We began working through the list one item at a time.

The one thing I couldn't stop worrying about was the lake house. I was about to contact the lock company again to confirm that the visitor code had been revoked when my phone shrieked. A line of red text flashed across the screen. “Smoke detected at Lake Geneva residence.” My entire body went rigid. A second alert appeared immediately afterward. “Smoke concentration rising. Please verify conditions on site immediately.”

My mother saw the alerts on my screen. “What's happening?” I stared at the property notification. “Claire is still there.” I immediately opened Instagram. The red ring around her profile picture was still lit. The livestream wasn't in the living room anymore. Claire and her friends were gathered around a fire pit in the backyard, unfinished drinks covering the table beside them. The camera shook as someone moved closer to the flames. I recognized the wooden sign she was holding.

White paint. Gold script. The words were unmistakable: “Welcome to the wedding of Elena and Grant.” I had ordered it custom-made a month ago. I had spent hours choosing the lettering and the design because I wanted the lake house to feel like a part of the celebration. Someone beside Claire shouted, “The wedding's canceled anyway! What's the point of keeping it?” Another voice followed. “Burn it! Here's to Grant getting his freedom back!” Claire laughed so hard her shoulders shook.

She held the sign up to the camera, deliberately dragging her fingers across my name. “You're right,” she said. Then she flicked a lighter. The flame touched the edge of the wood. White paint curled almost instantly, and the gold lettering began to blacken. I shot to my feet. “Stop!” But nobody on the livestream could hear me. Claire waited until the fire had fully caught, then casually tossed the burning sign into the fire pit.

The sign hit the rim on the way down, sending a spray of sparks onto the wooden deck beside it. I dialed Grant immediately. The moment he answered, I heard the same raucous laughter from the livestream in the background. He was at the lake house, too. “Make her put it out!” I snapped. “The smoke alarm is going off, and sparks just landed on the deck!” Grant hesitated. “You're watching the livestream?” “Get the fire extinguisher. Now!”

“Don't panic,” he said, his voice low. “It's a fire pit, Elena. It's made for burning things. Claire was just messing around.” “It's a wooden deck!” “It just snowed. How could anything catch fire?” “The alarm has been going off nonstop!” He sighed. “Elena, do you have to make everything sound so dramatic? I'm here. I'll keep an eye on it.” His casual confidence made my stomach turn. He was standing at the property, watching the flames, and still treating my concern as an inconvenience.

Then, on the livestream, someone suddenly shouted, “Claire, the side's on fire!” The camera jerked. A small flame was already licking its way up from the edge of the fire pit. Claire looked toward the burning deck, then toward Grant. She did not reach for the extinguisher. She did not tell everyone to move away. Instead, she turned toward the camera, lifted her eyebrows, and spread her hands as if the entire situation had surprised her.

But there was something else in her expression. Even through the shaking camera, I could see the faint curve of her lips. It wasn't the frightened expression of someone who had accidentally started a fire. It was a knowing smile, the same triumphant smile she had given me at the memorial dinner. My fingers tightened around the phone. The smoke alarm continued screaming through the speaker, and the red notification remained on my screen. I called Grant again, but before he answered, Claire's camera moved closer to the spreading flame.