Chapter 174: In flames

Chapter 174: In flames
Deon was at the office busily working hard to meet targets when he got a call from his neighbor, he ignored it with the intention to call later because he was busy, but he got another call from another neighbor which he again, ignored this one because he thought it would be unfair to ignore the first one and answer the second one. Then there was yet another call from another neighbor, by this time he knew he couldn’t keep ignoring them. It was unusual for all his neighbors to call him at the same time. He answered the last call with his heart in his stomach,

“Deon where are you?” he could hear the frustration in her voice.

“At work, anything wrong?”
“Yes! There’s a big problem here, you need to come home very fast!” she said.

“But I’m at work!”
“Your house is on fire! The firefighters are here but man! You lost almost everything, it’s bad out here I hope you have insurance.” his neighbor informed him

Deon froze, it was like he was falling but he was seated, it was like he was going crazy but he had to be composed. The apartment was a rented one, the landlord obviously had insurance but for him, what was he insuring? The furniture? The documents?

“I will be there in a jiffy,” he replied and hung up then without saying a word he dashed out of his office and began to race out of the office, out of the lobby out of the workplace, and back home without telling anyone where he was going, everyone wondered why their boss dashed out of his office in such a hurry.

Deon burst into tears halfway to the house, what could have happened? Was it an electrical fault? Was it intentional? And Emily! Emily! Was she okay? By the time he made it to the apartment, he was tired and out of breath. In the parking lot, he could see the fire truck and hose all the way up in his room and a lot of firefighters and some neighbors hovering around the area.

Tears clouded his eyes as he got into the elevator and headed to his room, with horror in his eyes he slowly walked to his door, the door had been broken and the firefighters were doing an inspection to see if anyone had been trapped in there or if there were any casualties.

“Sir, I’m told this is your apartment.” personnel stopped to speak to him.

Deon nodded because he was still speechless from what had happened.
“What happened to your fire alarms? Were they faulty?” he asked again.

“They’ve always been working, they work!” Deon screamed as he sank to the ground, the firefighter quickly held him so he wouldn’t fall.
“Could it mean that someone turned them off?” he asked again.

Deon took a few steps back and tried to process his thoughts, then he gave the firefighter a frightened look, “My girlfriend was home when I left for work today, where is she? Did something happen to her?”

The firefighter shook his head, “There was no one here, maybe you should give her a call because this fire was caused by a lighter, and from my little investigation it was premeditated.” 

Deon’s head began to spin, he had lost everything, how was he going to explain this to insurance? Even if he was able to explain the money he would get would not be able to reimburse him for the damage that had been caused. Why would Emily do this? Or maybe it wasn’t Emily? 

“I need to speak to security,” he said and hurried to the control room, to find the culprit. The security was waiting for him when he stepped in. They didn’t look cheerful either because everyone had been affected one way or the other by the fire issue.

“Mr. Withers it’s good to have you here, we want you to see this.” one of them said to him as they showed him footage on the CCTV monitor. Deon observed as the woman moved to his door, he watched carefully and recognized Nancy moving to his door and frowned, what was she doing there? He didn’t want to miss a moment so he watched attentively as Nancy stood at his door and was opened by Emily.

He didn’t know what they were talking about but Nancy angrily walked away and Emily chased after her to the elevator. Emily returned to the elevator and a few minutes later she left the apartment clutching her suitcase. Everything seemed to be going on normally so the security guards put the video on forward till his neighbor knocked on his door vigorously and tried to open it then she left then returned knocking and then firefighters rushed in and broke the door.

Deon was dumbfounded as he gasped, so it was Emily, why would she do that? What on earth did Nancy tell her?

He tried to call her but his calls didn’t go through, rather a message popped up, “You cheated, I thought you impregnated only one woman, I was ready to forgive you but you did it again and even forced her to get an abortion? I’m done with you and that fire is just a small representation of how I’m burning inside.”

Deon grunted and called Nancy, “What the hell did you tell Emily? What is wrong with you?”

“I should be asking you why you made me lose my job by telling Lola all those things!”
“Lola? Do you think I have been talking to Lola about you? I don’t have that time to be discussing you, I have work to do.” Deon screamed again.

“Don’t lie! Lola told me everything!”
“I haven’t been talking to Lola! I haven’t spoken to her since the day I left the police station!” Deon screamed.

“But she mentioned your name!” Nancy insisted.
“I said it wasn’t me! Now you ruined my life with your stupid lies,”

“No, you ruined my life, I’m jobless now and I will be moving in with you soon because I will be homeless.”
“Well I have news for you, I’m homeless too, Emily burned my house down.”
Nancy gasped. “What?”