Chapter 3

My first move was a desperate one. I called a press conference in front of my house. I couldn't let Chloe's narrative be the only one out there. I stood on my own front steps, facing a sea of cameras and angry faces.

"My name is Ava Monroe," I began, my voice shaking slightly. "I did not ignore any warnings. I was the one who gave the warning."

I held up a copy of my original report to the developers. "This is my structural analysis from three months ago, identifying the exact point of failure. And this," I held up the developer's response, "is their refusal to act on it due to cost."

A reporter shouted, "That doesn't prove you didn't delay for profit!"

Another yelled, "Why didn't you go public with this before?"

"My stepsister, Chloe Vance, is not a psychic," I said, my voice growing stronger. "She is a manipulator who saw an opportunity in a tragedy. The 'anonymous tip' she took credit for? I sent it."

The crowd erupted. They didn't believe me. They heckled, they booed, they called me a liar. "Shame on you!" a woman in the front screamed, her face contorted with grief. She was holding a photo of a young boy. A victim. "Chloe tried to save my son! You let him die!"

The press conference was a disaster. It only made me look more guilty, more desperate. The headlines the next day were brutal: "Killer Architect Tries to Smear Hero Psychic," "Ava Monroe's Desperate Lies." The public's hatred intensified.

That afternoon, I got a call from a neighbor. "Ava, you need to get to your mother's garden. Now."

I knew what was happening. I drove recklessly, my heart pounding. When I arrived, it was worse than I could have imagined. A crowd, led by the same grieving mother from the press conference, was there. They weren't just spray-painting this time. They had shovels and crowbars. They were systematically destroying the garden. Tearing up the flowerbeds my mother had planted. Smashing the benches.

And they were gathered around the cornerstone.

I ran toward them, screaming. "Stop! Please, stop!"

The mother turned to face me, her eyes blazing with pure, undiluted rage. "This is for you, you monster. You don't deserve a memorial to your family when you destroyed ours."

She swung a sledgehammer, and it connected with the granite cornerstone. A large crack appeared across my mother's name.

Something broke inside me. I didn't care about my career or my reputation anymore. I just cared about that stone. I pushed through the crowd, shielding the cornerstone with my own body. "Get away from it!" I yelled.

They backed off, shocked by my ferocity, but their faces were still full of hate. I knew they would be back. I couldn't stop them forever.

That night, under the cover of darkness, I returned with my own tools. I carefully, painstakingly, dug up the cornerstone myself. It was heavy, but I managed to get it into the trunk of my car. My back ached, my hands were raw, but I had saved it.

The next day, I made another public announcement. This time, it wasn't a defense. It was a surrender.

"Effective immediately, I am retiring from the field of structural architecture," I said, reading a prepared statement to a single journalist I trusted not to twist my words. "The city has made its judgment of my character clear. I will no longer practice in a profession where my expertise is overshadowed by lies and public condemnation."

It was a strategic retreat. If I was no longer a powerful architect, perhaps Chloe would have less to gain by attacking me. More importantly, it was a signal. I was taking myself off the board. The buildings, the projects... they would have to go on without me. I knew the city's infrastructure had other weaknesses only I was likely to spot. This was a consequence they would have to live with.

As the news of my retirement spread, I packed a single bag. Inside, I placed a small, framed photo of my mother. I looked at it, and the memories came flooding back. My mother, so full of life, before she got sick. And my father, before he met Chloe's mother. I remembered the day he told me he was remarrying, so soon after my mother's death. I remembered how he slowly pushed me away, prioritizing his new wife and her daughter, Chloe, over me. He had chosen them over his own blood long before this disaster. This latest betrayal wasn't a new wound; it was the final, brutal tearing of an old one.

The cornerstone was wrapped in blankets in my trunk. I had only one place to go.

I drove for six hours, leaving the city and its noise behind me. I drove until the skyscrapers were replaced by rolling hills and old farmhouses. I drove to the small town where I had spent my childhood summers. I drove to my maternal grandmother's house.

Grandma Eleanor. She was my mother's mother, a woman with a spine of steel and a heart full of fierce, unwavering love.

When I pulled into her driveway, she was already on the porch, as if she'd been waiting. She looked older, frailer than I remembered, but her eyes were the same-sharp and intelligent.

I got out of the car, and for the first time in days, I let myself cry. I collapsed into her arms, and she held me tightly.

"I know, child," she whispered, stroking my hair. "I know. You're home now. You're safe."

We sat on her porch swing, and I told her everything. The lies, the betrayal, Liam, my father. I told her about the cornerstone in my trunk.

When I was done, she was quiet for a long time. Then she said, "That Chloe. I never liked her. Too much sugar in her smile." She sighed. "I'll admit, for a moment, when I saw her on the TV... she was convincing. A lot of people here believed her. Some of the families who lost people in that collapse have relatives in this town. The anger is everywhere."

"I know, Grandma. That's why I came here. I didn't know where else to go."

"You did the right thing," she said firmly. She then looked at me, a new determination in her eyes. "This isn't over, Ava. Your mother didn't raise a quitter. And I didn't raise one either. That girl, Chloe, she built her castle on a foundation of lies. And you, my dear, are an expert in finding the weakness in a foundation."

That night, she made a phone call. I heard her talking in a low voice in the other room. "Yes, it's my granddaughter... No, the one you read about in the papers... It's all lies, Mark. I need you to look into something for me. Quietly."

Mark was a retired private investigator, an old friend of my grandfather's. He owed Eleanor a favor.

When she came back, she patted my hand. "Mark is going to start digging. Into Chloe Vance. Into her whole life. We're going to find the crack in her story, Ava. And we're going to bring the whole rotten structure down."

For the first time since I'd woken up in my bed, a genuine spark of hope ignited within me. I wasn't alone anymore.