Maybe they hadn’t.

Maybe the bodies recovered from our house had never been my parents at all.

And whoever was standing on the other side of our door knew exactly what had happened to them.

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Part 3 (END)

For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.

The photograph lying on the judge’s desk had been taken from across the street on the night my parents died. The timestamp in the corner read 11:43 p.m.

The fire department had received the first emergency call at 12:07.

Twenty-four minutes.

That was all that separated the photograph from the moment my entire life burned to the ground.

And standing beside our backyard gate, half hidden beneath the old maple tree, was a man in a dark coat.

The image was grainy.

His face was turned slightly away.

But I knew those shoulders.