Adrian told me not to contact my parents, so instead I gave him everything I had: old messages, the argument about Grandma Eleanor’s inheritance, and the canceled flight confirmation proving I had unexpectedly returned. Then investigators found security footage from a nearby store showing Nathan buying the duplicate key and a red fuel container six days before the fire. My heart sank when Adrian showed me the timestamp. Nathan had been wearing the same jacket he had on in the family photo Margaret had sent me that afternoon. They hadn’t just known about the fire—they had planned around my absence.
The next discovery was worse. Investigators traced the fire back to an old insurance policy my mother had convinced me to purchase shortly after Grandma died. I had forgotten about it because Margaret had insisted she was “helping me be responsible.” The policy had recently been increased, and the beneficiary information had been changed without my knowledge. Adrian explained that someone had apparently been preparing to make the fire look like an accident while positioning themselves to receive money if I died. Suddenly, my mother’s strange warning about insurance made terrifying sense.
Then Lena called me crying. She had received an email from Nathan the night before the fire asking whether I was really going to San Diego. She had replied that she thought so, but my canceled flight had never been mentioned. Investigators later found that Nathan had also searched my flight number and apartment building online. When police confronted him, he broke down and admitted Margaret had promised him part of the insurance money if he “handled the problem.” But he insisted he hadn’t known anyone would be inside. I thought of Oliver trapped beneath my bed, and whatever sympathy I might have felt disappeared completely.
Months later, my apartment was rebuilt, but I never moved back. Grandma’s house became my new home, and I framed the only photograph of Oliver that survived the fire. My parents and Nathan faced criminal charges, and the inheritance they had fought over became the very thing that exposed them. Margaret eventually sent me a letter saying she was sorry and asking me to remember that she was still my mother. I tore the letter in half. Being someone’s mother doesn’t give them permission to destroy their child’s life. And the next time someone told me to be careful who I trusted, I knew exactly what they meant.
