One
Another fire roared to life as the bodies of two parents cooled across town.
I incorporated the sound of my buzzing phone into my dream at predawn hours. I was five years old and cooking with my mom. We were mixing dough to make cutout cookies. The buzzing? An electric mixer—the kind you hold in your hand and with beaters you can lick after.
The sweet scent of vanilla permeated the air. A fire burned in the fireplace, crackling and popping as fire met sap.
The soothing buzzing stopped, replaced by a violent bang.
My eyes shot open, and I gasped. My heart beat wildly. I was not in my childhood home, and my mom was still dead, a memory that rushed back like it had just happened.
With tears running into my hairline from the flood of memories, I stared up from my bed at the golden light that danced along the curved walls and ceiling of my 1969 Airstream—a trailer renovated and situated in the middle of a twenty-acre piece of farmland I grew up on, land I inherited when my mother was brutally murdered and I nearly burned to death.
Sitting up slowly, careful not to make a sound, I took in the flickering light of five votive candles in glass jars sitting on a shelf built around my queen-size bed. Candles I had not lit. Goose bumps sprang up on my limbs, and the hairs along the back of my neck stood at full alert.
I listened carefully for whatever had made the banging sound moments before, no easy task with my heart jackhammering. Had I imagined it?
I certainly wasn’t imagining the candlelight that bathed my trailer in a warm, yellow glow and gave it the soothing scent of vanilla.
Outside my bedroom, near the kitchen, Gus, a stray cat that had wandered onto my property last year and decided to grace me with her extended presence, meowed loudly while staring at the door.
My phone began buzzing again. Still partially paralyzed, I stared at it. It was lying upside down, preventing me from seeing the caller.
A strange scratching noise came from somewhere outside the trailer, and I gripped my comforter with tight fists. I forced my heart rate to slow. Clutching my comforter was not going to keep me alive if there was an intruder here to kill me.
I rolled over and grabbed the Maglight I kept beside the bed—a formidable club of a weapon in a pinch. With the heavy flashlight in my hand, and the minor comfort of knowing that at least the intruder was no longer inside my trailer, I grabbed my phone. “Hello,” I said in a low, hushed voice.
“Faith, it’s Penelope.” She sang brightly like she’d been up for hours—and she probably had. “There’s been a fire, sweetie, and they need you there as soon as possible.” Only Penelope Champagne, Paynes Creek’s finest 911 dispatcher, who also doubled as the receptionist for the Paynes Creek PD, could make the announcement of a crime sound like an invitation to breakfast. Faith, honey, you’re invited to Bryn’s Coffeehouse for cinnamon rolls. See you in ten.
“Okay,” I said, still barely above a whisper, as I climbed out of bed. Penelope didn’t seem to notice I was speaking in a low voice. Something stopped me from telling her about my not-so-romantic candlelit trailer. “I take it there’s more to it than just a fire?” I made my way into the other part of the trailer with the flashlight held over my head, ready to strike. I could take this call and defend myself and my home.
Gus looked up at me and yawned, then turned back to face the door. She wasn’t usually this interested in people coming and going, except maybe when my brother and his wife or my aunt and uncle stopped by. But Gus wouldn’t dream of hissing or getting loud with Aunt Leah—who often brought her treats—or my sister-in-law. She did sometimes get territorial with Uncle Henry or my brother Finch. She acted more like a guard dog than an ambivalent cat.
Once I’d confirmed that there was no one in the trailer, I lowered the flashlight. I thought about having Penelope send a uniform out to check things out, but I knew it would be pointless, and everyone at the station already thought I was crazy after the last time I called and said someone had been inside my trailer. They found no sign of forced entry. Nothing was missing. All I could say was that I knew things had been moved around.
And they had been. My clothes had been rearranged. The knives in my kitchen were in a different drawer. My bed, which had been left unmade that morning, was made, and pillows were arranged differently. And a bouquet of daisies with a yellow satin bow adorned the bed.
The officers at the station didn’t think I heard the things they said behind my back. They thought I didn’t know they had a betting pool going to see who could get me to go out on a date first—or worse, get me in the sack. Yes, they thought I was certifiable, but the more egocentric ones still viewed me as a puzzle to be solved—a woman with a dark past who needed to be conquered. Not to mention, as I overheard once, they considered me “entirely bangable.” And then there were the rare nice guys, but they all seemed to think they might be able to “fix” me. After all, if Chief Reid saw enough sane and good in me to hire me for my services, I must not be an entirely lost cause. But even the nice guys inevitably found me to be too much work.
All of that combined to keep me from mentioning the burning candles to Penelope. I knew someone was messing with me, but not who, and for all I knew it could even be one of the police officers. Maybe they’d discovered the significance of the white daisies.
Or maybe that was just a lucky guess.
Penelope explained the crime scene I was being called to. “Apparent murder-suicide, but it could also be arson. Chief wants you there to document the scene so they can move the bodies before more press shows up.”
“Meaning?” I asked.
“You know the Reynolds girl? The teenager that Mr. Lake, the orchestra teacher, was supposedly having a relationship with? It’s her parents’ home—they’re the two victims. The daughter hasn’t been located. That poor child. They arrested Mr. Lake yesterday for sexual misconduct with a minor, but his attorneys got him out before the ink had dried on his fingerprints.”
From outside the trailer, I caught the distinct sound of a crackling wood fire. I turned and looked out the back window. A bonfire raged in my fire pit, about forty yards away.
“Faith? Did you hear me?” Penelope asked. “You ready for the address?”
The fire was large and beautiful, set by someone who knew what they were doing. Large enough to strike awe without being a danger to spread out of control, and small enough to sit beside it in the Adirondack chairs or on the thick logs surrounding the pit. And this wasn’t the first time in recent weeks that someone had started a fire there.
“Yeah,” I said. “Text me the address.”
I hung up and stared out at the fire. Once upon a time I would get lost in the flames of a fire like this. They fascinated me. The way yellow, orange, white, and blue intertwined like silky-smooth hair. But I wasn’t fascinated now. Now my eyes weren’t drawn to the golden blaze, but to the dark figure standing next to it.
I could just make out the profile of a man. At least I thought it was a man. Tall, pointed nose, baseball cap. A bulky jacket that made him look like he had a beer gut. Or maybe he was just overweight.
I could only stand there and stare, paralyzed. My heart tightened, and I didn’t breathe for several beats. Gus weaved figure eights through my legs.