Category : Stories

Sub Category : Suspense/Mystery

I stroll down the street, doing what I do everyday, but today would be different. Every minute or two, I glance down at my phone to see if there is something new. I cross the road onto Pine Street, the place I grew up. Where I first rode my bike without training wheels, where I first drove my dad’s car, and then crashed my dad’s car, where if someone said its name, I could explain the exact location of every tree and every crack on the sidewalk. When Mom and Dad separated, our house was the only thing Dad and I had left.


I look up, horrified. I freeze. I see red, blue, and white lights pulsing rhythmically, but all at different times. Police cars. Ambulances...and at least four fire trucks. Now that I see what’s going on, I notice the smell in the air. There was a fire, but it didn't smell like all the fires my dad and I had while camping at Brown’s Lake. It smelled like wood, plastic, and rubber.

I fly by all the other houses, all the trees, fire hydrants, and people standing on the sidewalk in awe. I trip on the crack and all my momentum halts and goes to the ground, I feel a sharp pain in my knee, but I don't even notice. I get up and go again. My water bottle spills out of my backpack and makes a sudden CLANK as it hits the ground. I keep running, faster than I've ever ran. A man walks over to me and puts his hand in my way.

“Excuse me Ma’am, this is a restricted area, Authorities only.”

“That’s my house!” I collapse onto the ground and sob. I feel a hand on my back. It’s soft, gentle, but still firm. I look up.

“Oh no, you have to be Jess, don’t you. I’m Deputy Carol Smith. This is tough to say, but there was a fire in your house today.”

I break down and melt into the ground. She puts her hand on my arm.

“I’m so sorry, Jess,” Everyone circling around the house, right up to the caution tape. All of them staring right at me. Some crying, some stuck with their mouths in the shapes of Os. All of the eyes right in my direction, like lasers. All the attention was on me and the lady next to me. 

There was something about her voice, it was not guilt, not sympathy, but something like a mix in between. She escorts me to the ambulance and sits me down on the stretcher and calls over one of the paramedics. He cleans and wraps up my left knee.

“You’re gonna need some stitches when we get to the hospital.” 

I pass out.

When I wake up, I’m laying in a hospital bed, with a police officer in the chair across from me on his computer.

“I’m Officer Ivanov, how are you feeling?”

“I’m fine,” I feel a throbbing pain in my left leg and notice the tube attached to my arm leading to a bag slowly dripping a clear liquid.

“Is it okay if I ask you a few questions right now?”

“Yeah, it’s okay”

“Alright. You are Jessica Ross and you are a Junior at Brown’s High School, correct?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, and your father is Mr. John Ross?”

“Mmm-hmm”

“Okay. Jessica, there has been a fire at your house. We cannot yet tell if it was an arson attack or an accident, but our sources are leaning towards arson. Your father was in the house at the time and passed away, we have not had his autopsy yet, but we are suspecting death from carbon monoxide inhalation.” I feel all the blood rush to my face.

He breaks eye contact and he looks as pale as a piece of paper. He whispers, “You poor thing,” under his breath.


I hear a knock on the door. I watch from the couch as my grandmother wobbles over and opens it. It’s Deputy Smith, again. Grandma steps outside and shuts the door behind her. I hop up and shuffle over to the open window. I watch them through the blinds.

“Hello, Mrs. Ross. I just have some new information to share with you about the ongoing investigation on your son’s death.”

Grandma nods with a worrisome face, ”Okay.”

“So, the results from the autopsy came back, and we are currently not certain with the events leading up to the fire, but, we figured out that John passed away from asphyxiation from strangulation. So, his case has been switched to a homicide. Your son was murdered, Greta.”

Deputy Smith places her hand on Grandma’s shoulder. Grandma puts her hands up to her face and starts to cry. I can feel the anger bubble inside of me like a shaken can of soda. Grandma walks in with Deputy Smith. I think she sees my red face trying to suppress tears.

“You heard, didn’t you.”


“Jess, Deputy Smith called us into the station. She said they have a lead.”

I walk in, the same chemically clean smell. The smell so uniform that you can already tell that I am underdressed with my sweatshirt and jeans, so crisp and almost stale. Like the doctor’s office, but cleaner and more concentrated.

Officer Ivanov uneasily shuffles through the doorway to the coffee maker and makes himself a cup.

“Hey guys, or ladies I guess, uhh, do either of you want any coffee or tea?” he chuckles.

“I’ll pass this time, but I don’t know about Jess though.”

“I’m good.”

Deputy Smith walked down the stale hallway with those white, unnatural lights that make the buzzing sound. The sound of her heels clicking against the shiny waxed floor resonates in my head for a second, almost like she was in a cave.

“Hello, sorry it took so long, I had a meeting.”

“No, it’s perfectly fine, it’s your job! Besides, Jess and I have nothing else planned.”

She took us down that eerie hallway for what seemed to be a whole minute of walking. She takes us through a door with DEP. CAROL SMITH right on the front of it in big white letters. We sit down in two uncomfortable chairs with the back too vertical. She gets right to it.

“Your mother was a prime suspect for this murder, Jess. We brought her in multiple times to see if she would confess. We knew there was something fishy going on with her and the incident, but once we figured out that he was strangled, we knew she couldn't have done it herself. A month before the incident, there was a tremendously large and unidentified transaction on her debit card. She bought someone to do it for her. She police custody and will go to court next Thursday. She keeps denying it, but, the truth never lies.”

And to think Mom still believes that I used her card to order a prom dress.