Chapter 4
I was not allowed back inside the building that day.
The fire had eaten through the hallway ceiling.
The stairs were unstable.
The apartment door was gone.
Everything I owned had become evidence, hazard, or ash.
Reyes asked if I had somewhere to go.
I almost said my mother’s house because some instincts die slower than trust.
Instead, I said, “A hotel.”
Margaret immediately looked relieved.
Not because I had shelter.
Because I had not asked her for it.
Reyes noticed that too.
He handed me his card.
“I’ll call when we know more.”
I looked at the burned brass key in the evidence bag.
“Do you already know?”
His expression stayed careful.
“We know the fire did not start where we expected.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we are checking for human involvement.”
Margaret’s voice cut in.
“Are you suggesting arson?”
Reyes turned toward her.
“I am saying the investigation is active.”
She laughed softly.
Too softly.
“My daughter keeps candles everywhere.”
I looked at her.
“No, I don’t.”
“You used to.”
“When I was nineteen.”
Margaret waved one hand.
“She forgets things.”
Reyes asked, “Did you go inside her apartment recently?”
“No.”
Her answer came too quickly.
I remembered then.
A smell.
Six days earlier, after the dinner, when I came home from work, my apartment smelled faintly like my mother’s perfume.
White gardenia.
Sharp and expensive.
I had blamed my imagination.
I always blamed my imagination when the truth was too ugly.
I looked at Reyes.
“My apartment smelled like her perfume last week.”
Margaret snapped, “That is ridiculous.”
I did not look away.
“And a drawer in my desk was open.”
Her face went still.
There.
The smallest pause.
The tiny failure of surprise.
Reyes saw it.
“Which drawer?”
“The bottom left.”
“What was in it?”
I swallowed.
“My father’s papers.”
Margaret’s voice turned sharp.
“Those papers are private family matters.”
Reyes looked at her.
“Private enough to burn?”
For the first time, nobody spoke.
Rain ticked against the emergency vehicles.
Smoke drifted from the third-floor windows.
My mother looked at me like I had betrayed her.
But that was backwards.
May you like
I had only survived long enough to notice.
Read the full story 👉 Claire remembered smelling her mother’s perfume in the apartment days before the fire, near the drawer holding her father’s hidden papers.
