Chapter 3 - The Favorite Son’s Alibi
Detective Park confirmed that my mother had visited the hardware store six days before the fire.
The security footage showed her at the key-cutting counter.
When questioned, Mom claimed she had duplicated the key because she worried I might lock myself out.
“She didn’t call when your home burned,” Park said. “But she was worried about you losing a key?”
I gave a humorless laugh. “That’s my mother.”
The store footage showed her leaving with two copies.
One had been found inside my apartment.
The other was missing.
My father called that afternoon.
He did not ask whether I had somewhere to sleep.
“Police came to the house,” he said. “What have you told them?”
“The truth.”
“You have no idea what the truth is.”
“I know Mom copied my key.”
“She was trying to help you.”
“She made it six days before someone searched my apartment and set it on fire.”
Dad lowered his voice. “Be very careful, Claire. Accusing your mother of arson could destroy this family.”
“Someone already tried to destroy my home.”
He disconnected.
Miles finally called an hour later.
“I was in Seattle,” he said before I asked. “Business conference. Hundreds of witnesses.”
“You own a landscaping company with one truck.”
“It was a contractor event.”
“Why are you telling me your alibi?”
Silence.
Then he said, “Because I know how your mind works.”
“No, you know how guilty people sound.”
He swore and ended the call.
Detective Park checked his story. Miles had indeed been photographed at a hotel bar in Seattle at 9:50 p.m.
The fire began fifty minutes later, nearly three hours away.
For one brief moment, I wondered whether I had been wrong.
Then Reyes called.
The accelerant had been applied hours before ignition. Investigators found remnants of a cheap digital timer wired to a small heating element beneath the closet shelf.
The person who set the fire did not need to be in Portland when it started.
They only needed access earlier that day.
Building security footage showed a man in a baseball cap entering through the side door at 3:18 p.m.
He used a key.
His face was hidden, but he walked with his right shoulder lower than his left.
Miles had walked that way since tearing his rotator cuff in college.
When Detective Park showed me the video, I felt no satisfaction.
Only a deep, familiar exhaustion.
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My parents had spent my whole life rescuing Miles from consequences.
This time, they had helped him bring fire into my home.
