CHAPTER 5 — THE CAMERA ACROSS THE STREET
The fire department treated the burned welcome mat as vandalism.
Officer Ramirez treated it as a threat.
She collected the photograph in an evidence bag and asked whether Gavin owned black markers, as though that detail could possibly narrow anything down.
“He owns an office supply cabinet,” I said. “That’s all I know.”
The building’s hallway camera had been broken for three months.
No one had fixed it because the property manager said replacement parts were delayed.
My own door camera had recorded only darkness. Whoever set the fire approached from the stairwell and stayed outside its viewing angle.
By sunrise, I had packed clothes for Maisie and me.
Rachel insisted we stay at her house.
Naomi agreed.
“Your family should not know your temporary location,” she said.
But hiding from my own relatives made me feel as though I were the criminal.
Maisie slept through most of the morning curled against Rachel’s chest. Every time a door closed loudly, she startled.
I wanted to tear the world apart with my hands.
Instead, I organized evidence.
Every screenshot.
Every photograph.
Every call log.
I created backup copies and sent them to Naomi.
At noon, Luke called.
“Mom says you’re trying to frame Gavin for setting a fire.”
“How does she know about the fire?”
Silence.
The police had not publicly released it.
I had told only Rachel, Naomi, Officer Ramirez, and the building manager.
Luke understood the problem at the same moment I did.
“I didn’t tell her,” he said quickly.
“Did Gavin?”
“He was here early this morning. He and Dad were arguing.”
“About what?”
“I couldn’t hear everything. Something about a camera.”
My heart began pounding.
“What camera?”
“I don’t know.”
Luke promised to look around without raising suspicion.
Two hours later, he sent me a photograph of a receipt he found in Gavin’s truck.
It was from an electronics store.
The item listed was a high-resolution outdoor surveillance camera purchased six weeks earlier.
The receipt alone proved nothing.
Then Rachel remembered the vacant storefront across from my apartment.
A small accounting office had occupied it until the owner retired. The windows were papered from inside, but the building still had power.
We drove past slowly.
Mounted beneath the awning was a small black camera aimed directly toward my apartment entrance.
I contacted Officer Ramirez.
By late afternoon, police had obtained permission from the property owner to inspect the device.
It was connected to a private mobile account registered to Gavin.
The footage stored in the cloud contained weeks of recordings.
My arrivals.
My departures.
Maisie being carried inside asleep.
Rachel visiting.
My mother entering the building several times while I was at work.
Most importantly, it showed Gavin arriving at 2:09 a.m. on the night of the fire.
He parked two blocks away and walked toward my building carrying something beneath his jacket.
At 2:22, he returned at a run.
Officer Ramirez arrested him that evening.
The news spread through the family within minutes.
My mother called me from a number I didn’t recognize.
I answered because I thought it might be the police.
“How could you do this?” she screamed.
“He set fire outside my home.”
“You don’t know that.”
“There’s video.”
“He was checking on you!”
“At two in the morning?”
“You have been acting irrationally!”
I nearly ended the call, but then I remembered Naomi’s advice.
Let them talk.
People who believe they are right often confess while explaining why their actions were justified.
“So Gavin installed a camera to check on me?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Without telling me?”
“You shut us out.”
“Did you know about it?”
A pause.
“I knew he was concerned.”
“Did Dad know?”
Another pause.
“This isn’t about your father.”
That meant yes.
I sat very still.
“Mom, why were you entering my apartment when I wasn’t home?”
“I watered your plants.”
“I don’t have plants.”
She fell silent.
The lie hung between us.
“Did you take the estate envelope?” I asked.
“I was trying to protect what belongs to this family.”
“It belonged to me.”
“Your grandmother never intended for you to hold the sale hostage.”
“I didn’t even know there was a sale.”
“You were going to find out.”
“After my signature was forged?”
“You were always going to receive something.”
“Ten dollars?”
“That was legal language!”
Her voice became shrill.
I heard my father in the background telling her to hang up.
Instead, she kept talking.
“We have sacrificed for you your entire life. Your father paid for your braces. We helped with your first car. We gave you a place to stay after Maisie’s father left.”
“I lived with you for six weeks.”
“And how did you repay us? By trying to send your brother to jail.”
“Gavin sent himself to jail.”
“He was protecting the family.”
“From a two-year-old?”
My mother inhaled sharply.
Then she said the sentence that ended whatever remained between us.
“Maisie should never have been part of this family in the first place.”
I stopped breathing.
“What?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No. Say it.”
She began backtracking.
“You weren’t ready to become a mother. You made a reckless decision, and we have all paid for it.”
“Paid how?”
“Your father had to use money from the business when you needed help.”
“I paid him back.”
“That isn’t the point.”
“What is the point?”
“The point is that Gavin has always been responsible. He stayed. He worked for the family. He didn’t bring home a child with no father and expect everyone to rearrange their lives.”
My vision blurred with anger.
“Maisie’s father died, Mom.”
The line went quiet.
My fiancé, Ethan, had been killed by a drunk driver when I was five months pregnant.
My mother knew that.
She had stood beside me at the funeral.
Yet over time, she had begun referring to him as though he had abandoned us, because abandonment made me sound careless.
Death did not.
“Don’t twist my words,” she finally said.
“I didn’t.”
“Drop the charges.”
“No.”
“Sign the property transfer.”
“No.”
“Then don’t blame me for what happens.”
She hung up.
I saved the recording.
That evening, Gavin was released on bail with orders not to contact me or come near my home.
My parents paid the bond.
They also hired a criminal defense attorney before arranging representation for themselves in the estate dispute.
Their priorities remained consistent.
The next morning, the emergency guardianship hearing began.
My parents sat across the courtroom with Gavin’s empty chair between them. Their attorney described them as loving grandparents who had reluctantly intervened because I was suffering from “paranoia and emotional instability.”
Naomi stood.
“Your Honor, the alleged paranoia includes accurately reporting that the petitioner’s son installed a hidden camera to monitor Ms. Parker’s residence.”
She introduced the police report.
Then the forged property transfer.
Then Gavin’s message offering to make the custody petition disappear if I signed.
The judge’s expression hardened.
My parents’ attorney asked for time to review the new evidence.
Naomi opposed the delay.
“Every day this petition remains open gives the petitioners an excuse to interfere with a child who has already been traumatized.”
The judge denied their emergency request and issued a temporary order preventing my parents and Gavin from contacting Maisie.
Relief swept through me.
It lasted less than ten minutes.
Outside the courthouse, a reporter waited beside the steps.
A local family scandal wouldn’t normally attract media attention.
But the sale of Grandma’s land involved a major development project, and my father’s company was one of the proposed contractors.
Someone had leaked the guardianship petition.
The reporter approached with a microphone.
“Ms. Parker, your family claims you fabricated abuse allegations to block a multimillion-dollar property deal. How do you respond?”
Camera lights flashed.
My mother stood several feet away, watching.
She wore a small, satisfied smile.
May you like
They had failed to take Maisie through the court.
So now they were going to put me on trial in public.
