Chapter 7
The police arrived not long after.
They examined the scene, the wiring, the damaged charger shell, the burn pattern, the extension cords, and the scorched debris.
The conclusion came quickly.
Illegal rewiring had caused a short circuit, which started the fire.
“Who connected the wires?” one officer asked.
Every eye turned to Mrs. Watson.
Back in Miami, I poured myself a glass of red wine and settled deeper into the chair.
What a beautiful evening.
But even then, Mrs. Watson’s first instinct wasn’t to admit fault.
It was to find someone else to throw under the bus.
She looked around the crowd, realized I wasn’t there, and lunged toward the property manager, Mr. Chen.
“Manager Chen, you have to speak for me!” she cried, clutching his arm. “The charger belongs to that girl downstairs. Her equipment was defective. I was just using it normally!”
Mr. Chen’s face went pale.
If the problem turned into defective equipment, then the building could be accused of negligence too.
“Mrs. Watson,” he said quickly, wiping sweat from his forehead, “you can’t just say things like that. Miss Lin’s charger was factory-installed and fully approved. How is it her fault just because it broke while you were using it?”
Mrs. Watson’s voice turned shrill.
“If she hadn’t cut off the power, I wouldn’t have hired someone to fix it. If I hadn’t fixed it, none of this would have happened. So in the end, this is all her fault.”
The shamelessness of the logic was almost elegant.
Victor might have been violent, but he wasn’t stupid.
“Fine,” he said. “Where is this Miss Lin? Call her down.”
Mr. Chen immediately called me.
The first call, I didn’t answer.
The second, I let ring out.
The third, I picked up.
I made sure my voice sounded sleepy, dazed, and just the right amount of concerned.
“Hello, Manager Chen? It’s late. What happened?”
“Miss Lin, something terrible happened. Your charger caught fire and damaged a luxury car. Please come back right away.”
“What?” I gasped. “How is that possible? I’m in Miami. I shut off the power before I left.”
Before he could say more, Mrs. Watson snatched the phone from his hand and screamed into the speaker.
“Lin! You heartless girl! You promised I could use it. Now something happened and you think you can hide? You have to pay! You’re rich. Seventy thousand means nothing to you, but it will kill us! You can’t just leave us to die!”
Her voice blasted through speakerphone across the whole garage.
Victor’s expression shifted.
If I really had authorized her use of it, then as the equipment owner, I could potentially share liability.
“Miss,” Victor shouted toward the phone, “if you lent it to her, then you need to come back and explain yourself.”
I let the silence stretch for two seconds.
Then I said, “Fine. I’ll take the first flight tomorrow morning.”
I ended the call and looked at the camera feed again.
Mrs. Watson’s face had relaxed slightly, the way people look when they think they’ve successfully pushed the blame onto someone else.
Smile while you can, I thought.
You think you found a scapegoat.
What you actually found is the edge of your own grave.