Chapter 9 - Tuesday
The officers took the memory card to the dining table.
Gideon remained on the playroom floor with Lumi in his arms.
Maris sat handcuffed in a chair, watched by the younger officer.
“This is ridiculous,” she said.
No one answered.
The older officer inserted the card into a secured reader.
Lumi buried her face against Gideon.
“You don’t have to listen,” he whispered.
“I want you to.”
The Tuesday file began with static.
Then Maris’s voice.
“Where did you put the letter?”
Lumi answered, “I don’t know.”
“Your father left something before the fire.”
“I was little.”
“You remember.”
“No.”
A slap struck a table.
Not Lumi.
Something heavy fell.
Then Maris spoke again.
“Your father thought he could take you from me.”
Lumi began crying.
Maris continued.
“He locked himself in the bedroom with his files. I only wanted to scare him.”
Gideon stopped breathing.
On the recording, Lumi whispered:
“You burned him.”
Maris answered:
“I lit the curtain. He was supposed to come out.”
Silence filled the room.
Then Maris said the sentence that changed everything.
“But he went back for the recorder.”
The file ended.
The older officer looked toward Maris.
Her face had gone completely white.
“That was taken out of context.”
Gideon stared at her.
“What context makes that better?”
“She manipulated the recording.”
“She is seven.”
“She is like her father.”
Lumi raised her head.
For the first time, she did not look frightened.
She looked angry.
“You told me he died because I cried.”
Maris’s mouth opened.
Lumi continued.
“You said the fire was my fault.”
Gideon held her tighter.
“No, sweetheart.”
Lumi looked at him.
“It was never your fault,” he said.
The older officer called a detective.
The fire case would be reopened immediately.
Then the phone produced another sound.
A hidden folder unlocked automatically after the Tuesday recording played.
Inside were three files created on the night Owen died.
The dates were unmistakable.
Maris stared at the screen.
May you like
She had never known the files existed.
👉 Owen had hidden his own recordings on the phone—and his final message identified the evidence Maris had spent three years trying to find.
