Then the figure turned, and though the fire backlit him, and I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew he was looking straight at me.
A lump formed in my throat. Even if I wanted to scream, I couldn’t.
I thought about calling Penelope back. Or my brother. Anyone. Just so that someone could see that I wasn’t crazy.
Instead, I spun toward the front door. My sudden movement sent Gus sprinting to the back of the trailer. I flew down the steps and raced around the front of the Airstream. I would face this man who was stalking me, taunting me, making me question my sanity even more than usual.
But I was not to discover the stranger’s identity today. Because by the time I turned the corner and faced the fire pit, the figure had vanished. And all I was left with was a blaze reminiscent of a past impossible to forget—a miniature version of my own slice of hell.
Two
The rope wasn’t long enough to have been used for a hanging.
That was my first thought as I snapped pictures of the crime scene that morning. But as a forensic photographer, my job was to document, not investigate.
Penelope had called this an apparent murder-suicide. Apparent. That’s what news reporters liked to call it when they got unsubstantiated “tips” surrounding an investigation. In this case, it was “apparent” that a man had hanged himself, according to Chief Reid. And because the man’s wife was also dead, it was presumed that he must have killed her first.
And then the entire house had burned down.
But who or what had started the fire? Did the husband start the fire before killing himself? Or was it accidental? Had they left a candle burning? A pot on the stove?
I snapped a photo of the charred rope lying loosely against the man’s neck. Looked for more rope, but didn’t find any. This was no hanging, in my opinion.
The part of this couple’s story that was so heartbreaking involved the teenager they’d left behind: Bella Reynolds, a seventeen-year-old at the center of Paynes Creek’s latest scandal. Days away from being eighteen—not that that would make a relationship with a teacher any less inappropriate. And now, not only had she been emotionally violated, not only was she being gossiped about by just about every bored housewife and teenage kid in town, but she would have to face it all without her parents.
I knew what that was like. Rumors still surrounded the circumstances of my mom’s and her husband’s deaths—rumors and speculation about what had caused my stepbrother Ethan to snap. It was hard to believe that it was only twelve years ago that he was charged, and later convicted, of murdering both my mom and his father before burning down my childhood home with both victims inside.
So, yeah, I knew what Bella was facing.
I moved around and snapped a different angle of the rope. I placed a measuring stick alongside the rope in order to give scale.
Staring at the bodies of Bella’s parents, I vowed not to become personally vested in whatever had happened here. For me, this would be nothing more than another bad day, a convenient distraction. A way to temporarily cloud those memories I could never forget—literally. I suffered from hyperthymesia, which meant I possessed the highly unusual trait of remembering every single day of my life with near one hundred percent clarity. Just another thing about me that made me “strange.” Or, in the eyes of many, mentally ill.
I once attended a high school reunion. I joined in conversations with people I’d known most of my life. But when I shared crystal clear memories of trivial conversations with classmates, or recalled precisely what they were wearing on days in the distant past, I got strange looks. People don’t like to be reminded of everything that ever happened. Especially the bad or embarrassing stuff. The past is supposed to fade—or better yet, be misremembered.
For that reason, I’d always tried to keep it a secret that I had hyperthymesia. A few people knew, but not many. Better to just let the rest go on thinking I was weird.
Some people don’t mind weird.
Bundled in a thick down coat and covered in protective gear to keep my DNA out of the crime scene, I looked around. It was just after sunrise, and the autumn air had turned colder overnight, made worse by thick clouds that promised to keep the sun from breaking through. The stench of smoke from the burning of wood, plastic, and human flesh drifted up from the soot and ashes and penetrated my face mask. There wasn’t much left of the house. Or of its furnishings. Just blackened debris that someone would try to sort through later for any kind of salvageable photos and other valuables. Between the fire, smoke, and water damage from the firemen, there wouldn’t be much to salvage.
There wasn’t much to salvage from the two bodies, either. The larger one, assumed to be the husband, was propped against what was left of a wall. The other, presumably the wife, lay three feet away, next to a metal chair, her face burned beyond recognition.
“That poor child,” Penelope had said in a rich Kentucky accent when she called me back as I drove toward the crime scene. “To be the center of so much gossip, and now this. Losing both of her parents.” I imagined Penelope shaking her head and closing her eyes in prayer as she spoke to me. She was that type of woman—the praying type. I was glad she seemed to be on my side. I liked having that positive energy near me, even if I was incapable of returning it.
But it wasn’t the seventeen-year-old girl I was thinking of now. My mind kept going to that awful night twelve years ago. I remembered that night like it was yesterday. It might as well have been yesterday with my screwed-up hyperthymesiac mind.
Too similar, I thought. The deaths. The fire. The positions of the bodies.
Chief Sam Reid sidled up beside me. His hair was thick and gray, and like me, he wore protective clothing to preserve the scene as much as possible. “The daughter hasn’t been located yet,” he said. Then, without giving me time to respond, he asked, “Does this look like a murder-suicide to you?”
I pushed my hair behind my ears and knelt down next to the wife’s body while I pondered the chief’s question. I snapped close-ups, then walked around to get different angles of the husband, the metal chair, and the rope again.
The chief was waiting patiently for my answer, so I stood and faced him. “Sir, I don’t think I’m in a position—”
“Don’t start with me, Faith,” he interrupted. “You’ve been photographing and analyzing crime scenes long enough. You’re like the nurse who knows more than the doctor. You run circles around my patrol officers, so until I hire another detective, you’re the best I got to bounce theories off of.” He crossed his arms and leaned into his heels, staring at me. Frustrated, he added, “Hell, you have a degree in forensic science and your uncle is the fire chief. Tell me what your gut is saying.”
I removed my mask and breathed in the smoky air mixed with gasoline. “No, sir. I don’t think this looks like a murder-suicide. I think it looks and smells like murder.” I angled my head. “You think this has something to do with their daughter and the school teacher?”
“I suppose word of the arrest got around already.” He rubbed fingers across his unshaven face.
“Chief, this is Paynes Creek.”
The sound of a slamming car door had the chief and me turning toward the driveway. Paynes Creek Fire Chief Henry Nash stepped out of his vehicle. He paused to survey the damage before slipping into his own outerwear and footies.