The Woman He Married

39. Arson

It was raining back at the Williams's house and it was bedtime for the kids. Mae had to prepare a bottle for Morgan who had been whiny since the morning, and Isla did mention that Morgan seemed grumpy from when he woke up. She thought their return would cheer him up, but apparently the little human had woken up on the wrong side of the bed. Not getting any nap because he was grumpy also did not help at all. The child who had stopped using bottles a few months ago seemed glad to see his old bottle being prepared in the kitchen during bedtime.

He was still fussy from exhaustion, just a little less mean towards everyone.

Mae entered Zane's study with Morgan in her arms, lying against her shoulder. Zane sighed because he could not be much of a help. The infant hated him the most that day, despite his efforts to make Morgan feel better. Morgan just wanted to be with Mae and nobody else. It only made sense when they realized that it was the first time ever in Morgan's life of over two years that his parents weren't around.

Zane got up to make way for Mae to sit on the chair. He planted a kiss on the top of her head and stroked Morgan's. They had a virtual meeting with the detective from the beach area, and Zane was informed that they had found some evidence that their house was intruded before the fire.

Morgan groaned and tried to hide in Mae's embrace when Zane touched him. Mae scoffed when Zane gave her a stressful look. "Let him be. It's probably the first and the only time after he stopped breastfeeding that he wanted to be held by me."

"I'm kind of jealous," Zane sighed.

"How about Kate? Is she asleep?"

"She's sleeping with mom tonight," Zane hummed, playing with her hair since his son betrayed him and didn't want him anywhere closer. Right then, the detective entered the virtual call room and greeted them.

"Mr. and Mrs. Williams," he put on a small smile and a screen popped up, showing a static video from their house's security camera footage. It was their front porch. "I am sorry to disturb your evening, so let me get straight to the point."

"Don't worry about it, take your time," Mae said softly.

"Did you managed to identify the source of fire?" Zane asked.

The detective nodded, "Yes, it was most definitely a work of arson. The fire started from different spot in the room, both near the windows." he pointed out, "We just finished monitoring all security footages and found a suspicious movements along the blindspots of the cameras..."

Zane leaned down to look at the video as it played. He frowned as he noticed some shadows were moving around the house. Someone or something was definitely creeping around the house.

"God," Mae breathed, holding Morgan secure in her arms.

"What about the porch?" Zane asked.

"Nothing was captured there. If the perpetrator was anywhere near the porch, then the door intercom would have captured their face. And not to mention the door was glass, too. The camera at the corridor would have captured their face, too."

Zane sighed, pondering as his jaw clenched from stress. "Are you saying that this person probably knows the layout of my house?"

"Considering how they managed to avoid the frames."

"How about fingerprints or footprints?"

"Footprints, yes. But it matches all the workers' safety shoes. As far as we are concerned, they all have alibi. Even the cameras showed that they were gathered at the same place for a briefing."

"The car," Mae gasped softly after being quiet for a while, and Zane looked at her with a frown, "Our car, and the workers' trucks. Cameras."

Zane looked at the screen again, "Our car was parked facing the house, and it has a black box installed. I'm not sure if the workers' trucks have it, but maybe this would help?"