Chapter 9 - What They Tried to Burn
By 7:00 Friday night, I was in Grace's office again, this time with Jenna.
Grace had already spoken to a county fraud investigator named Marcus Shaw and a detective from financial crimes.
Nobody was rushing into the house with sirens.
That frustrated me until Marcus explained why.
"We move too fast without proper process, your family gets to say this was a domestic disagreement and evidence was misunderstood," he said over speakerphone. "We move correctly, we preserve what matters."
"They're destroying evidence right now."
"Possibly. That's why officers are being sent for a welfare and complaint follow-up tied to the false filing attempt."
Jenna squeezed her hands together.
"My kids are there."
Marcus's tone changed immediately.
"Then you should retrieve them if you can do so safely. Officers can meet you nearby."
We drove in separate cars.
I stayed two houses away while Jenna met officers at the corner.
From where I parked, I could see light spilling from my garage.
My garage.
The same place Mom had put my dinner seventeen hours earlier.
A police cruiser rolled up without lights.
Jenna went inside with an officer.
Five minutes passed.
Then ten.
Then the garage door rose.
Smoke rolled out.
I was out of my car before Grace could stop me.
"Claire!"
An officer waved me back.
"Stay across the street!"
Tyler came stumbling from the garage carrying a metal trash can with flames licking from the top.
Behind him, Dad coughed into his sleeve.
Mom screamed, "It was papers! Just old papers!"
The officer grabbed an extinguisher from the cruiser and blasted the can.
White powder filled the driveway.
Burned sheets fluttered onto the wet concrete.
I saw half a bank logo.
A piece of my name.
A notary seal blackening at the edge.
My stomach turned.
Tyler saw me across the street.
"You did this!" he shouted.
I almost laughed.
"I made you burn forged documents?"
"You turned cops against your own family!"
"You tried to steal my house!"
Mom pushed past Dad, hair wild, face red.
"That house belongs to all of us!"
"The deed says otherwise."
"A piece of paper doesn't erase thirty years!"
"Funny. You seemed pretty interested in pieces of paper when you forged my signature."
She stopped.
The officer between us looked from her to me.
"Ma'am," he said to Mom, "you need to stop talking."
For once, she did.
Jenna emerged with Lily and Mason. Both kids were crying.
Lily ran toward me, but Jenna caught her hand and redirected her to the car because the officer asked everyone to remain separated.
That hurt, even though it was right.
The fire department arrived to make sure nothing had spread.
The fraud detective arrived twenty minutes later.
The charred trash can became evidence.
So did the blue folder.
They found it half-empty in Mom's bedroom safe.
They also found the box of my intercepted mail in her closet.
Forty-three envelopes.
Bank statements.
Tax forms.
Insurance notices.
A replacement credit card I never received.
Two letters from a brokerage account I had forgotten I still had from an old employer.
And one envelope from First Commonwealth Bank dated three weeks earlier.
Grace opened that one with the detective standing beside us.
Inside was a verification code notice for an online account created in my name.
The detective looked at me.
"Did you create an online banking profile with First Commonwealth?"
"No."
He turned to Tyler.
"Did you?"
Tyler's lawyer still hadn't arrived, so Tyler suddenly remembered he had a right to silence.
The detective bagged the letter.
Then he found something else in the safe.
A flash drive taped under a shelf.
Mom's face changed when he held it up.
Not surprise.
Fear.
I saw Grace notice too.
"What's on that?" I asked.
Mom stared at me.
"Nothing."
The detective placed it in an evidence pouch.
"Then you won't mind us finding out."
Dad sat down on the edge of the stairs.
He looked gray.
"Marlene," he whispered, "what did you do?"
Mom snapped, "I saved this family."
Then the detective's phone rang.
He listened for less than a minute.
When he hung up, he looked directly at me.
"Ms. Dalton, someone used your personal information six months ago to open a credit card with a thirty-thousand-dollar limit."
I felt the ground tilt.
"Balance?"
"Twenty-seven thousand four hundred dollars."
I didn't ask who had used it.
Tyler's face answered for him.
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