Chapter 4 - Black Smoke on Oak Creek
There was a heavy pause on the line. In the background, I could hear the distinct sound of wind rushing past a car window—not an airport terminal, not an airplane cabin.
“Hey, Nora,” Julian said. His voice was smooth, perfectly modulated, but there was a tremor of adrenaline underneath his words. “Yeah, gate was packed. Just got settled into seat 12B. We’re about to pull back from the gate, so I’ve gotta switch to airplane mode in a second.”
He was lying without blinking. The sheer audacity of it turned my stomach into lead.
“Oh, good,” I said, resting my forehead against my hand, my nails digging into my scalp. “Lily and I are just driving around. Thinking of heading out to the coast for some ice cream.”
Another beat of silence. Julian’s breath hitched slightly. “The coast? That’s... that’s great, honey. Stay out there for the day. Have fun with Lily. Don’t worry about rushing home.”
“Julian, is everything okay? You sound out of breath.”
“Just rushed to the gate, that’s all. Look, flight attendant is glaring at me. I have to shut this off. I’ll call you the second I touch down at O'Hare around four. Love you both.”
“Love you,” I lied.
The line clicked off.
“He said he was on the plane,” I told Claire, my hands gripping the edge of the table. “He sounded completely calm.”
“He’s a psychopath,” Claire whispered, horrified.
Before I could answer, my phone lit up again. This time it was a FaceTime call from Marcus. I hit accept.
The screen filled with billowing black smoke and flashing red lights. Marcus was standing in the road, soot smudged across his forehead, yellow emergency tape fluttering behind him. In the distance, our home—the home where Lily took her first steps, where we celebrated every Christmas—was engulfed in a roaring tower of orange flames. Fire trucks lined our gravel drive, their sirens wailing like mourning banshees.
“Nora,” Marcus shouted over the roar of the fire pumps. “The house is gone. The roof just collapsed into the second floor.”
A physical ache tore through my ribs. Seeing it on the tiny screen made the nightmare violently real. Ten years of memories, my father’s wood carvings, Lily’s baby photos—turned to ash in twenty minutes.
“Did you catch him?” I choked out. “Marcus, did you get Julian?”
Marcus shook his head grimly, stepping aside as a firefighter dragged a hose past him. “He made it to the access road before I could loop around. The silver sedan is gone. But Nora, you need to hear this.”
He leaned closer to the phone camera, his expression dark.
“The fire chief just did an initial assessment of the exterior. The fire didn’t just start in the attic. Someone poured kerosene on the stairwells and rigged a propane tank in the crawlspace right under the master bedroom.”
My breath caught in my throat.
“Under the bedroom?” I repeated, numbness creeping into my fingers. “Marcus... Julian knew that on Fridays, I usually take a nap there after dropping Lily at school.”
May you like
Marcus’s eyes hardened. “He didn't just want the house down, Nora. If you hadn't insisted on going to the airport with him today... you were supposed to be sleeping in that bed.”
***
