What She Saw - 44

Sloane

By the time Grant parked in front of the cabin, it was pitch-black on the mountain. The air had cooled, and the wind blew in quick gusts, twisting the leaves and straining branches. A storm was coming. I hoisted my backpack on my shoulder and then slipped on Cody’s leash before we got out of the car. Grant followed.

“I’ll go to the convenience store and grab a couple of pizzas,” he said.

“That would be great. Thank you.” I’d spent the drive processing Colton’s visit and a possible pregnancy. The two thoughts competed for brain space. The pressure in my head was building, and it was hard to concentrate.

Cody peed, sniffed the wind. His tail wagged.

“You okay?” Grant asked.

“I’m fine. Just processing the day.” I met his gaze, feeling I owed him an explanation. “I’m a little overwhelmed.”

“I get that.” He came toward me and wrapped his arms around me.

I wasn’t sure how to react, but some of the stress tightening my body eased. “I’ll be fine.”

“I know. You’re tough.” He kissed me on top of the head. “See you in an hour.”

“Right.”

“Cody, hop in the car, buddy,” Grant said. The old dog was happy to follow Grant, with whom he seemed to have already bonded. Me he liked, but Grant he adored.

When Grant pulled down the driveway, I was glad no one was at the cabin. I needed a little quiet to decompress. Lightning streaked across a dark, starless sky.

I pushed through the front door, locked it. My body ached and my head pounded. My stomach grumbled. I lowered my backpack on the kitchen table.

Outside, thunder rumbled.

I stripped and turned on the hot spray of the shower. Stepping under the water, I imagined Colton’s grin, the sounds of prison doors slamming shut, memories of Patty, and worries of a baby. They all washed off my body and down the drain. The hot water petered out, so I shut off the tap and grabbed a towel. I dried off and combed out my damp hair. I padded into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. There was a carton of eggs, a few apples, and bread. I grabbed the bread and fished a couple of slices out of the sleeve. I took a bite.

I glanced at my phone. No Wi-Fi. And data was stretched too thin for a signal.

There was no way of knowing if Susan was still in Northern Virginia. She’d spent thirty-one years hiding and building a lifetime of habits to protect her identity. And now she was on the move? Would she come to Dawson, or vanish into the wind?

I pushed my thumb into the softened bread. Using the landline, I called Grant, knowing he had service at the bottom of the mountain. “Did the medical examiner inspect Brian Fletcher’s body?”

My abruptness had never thrown him. “He will first thing in the morning. Fletcher’s youngest daughter, Lannie, arrived in town today.”

“Where’s she staying?”

“Local hotel.”

“Which one?”

“You can’t talk to her.”

“Why not? She was in on the lie with her father. They both knew that Tristan was alive and changed her name to Susan.”

“The cops are still interviewing her. They don’t need you complicating the process.”

“Susan hid from everyone for almost thirty-one years. She knows how to get around unnoticed. If she were going to run again, she’d be smart. She’d change her appearance and ditch her car for another one. I bet she had a go-bag with cash in the house.”

“There’s a BOLO out for her and her second vehicle, which is a gray four-door sedan.”

“The kind of car no one pays attention to.”

“They are now.”

“Colton turned white when I told him Tristan was alive.”

“Good. Let him chew on that for a while.”

Susan had said that Colton had had an accomplice. My mind had jumped to Kevin. Was that simply because I didn’t like the guy? “Susan didn’t tell the entire truth.”

“What’s she holding back?”

“I keep thinking back to Taggart’s impression of Tristan. She was seductive, combative, and high. I wonder if Colton dragged her in that trailer or she went willingly.”

“Not a rape?”

“She wouldn’t be the first girl to make a bad decision and then turn the tables on the story.”

“What about what she saw in the trailer?”

“That was too on point not to be real. That’s the moment she realized she’d chosen the wrong guy.”

Thunder clapped and lightning lit up the sky. Cody whimpered.

“Cody doesn’t like the thunder,” I said.

“No, he does not. For such a big dog, he’s a baby.”

“Maybe he’s just wise to the dangers of storms.”

Grant chuckled. “You could be right. We have the pizza in hand. We’ll be back at the cabin in a half hour.”

I walked toward the window, straining the limits of the phone cord. My reflection in the glass obscured what could be out there.

A shifting in the shadows caught my attention. Gaze narrowing, I searched the tree line.

“Did you hear what I said?” Grant asked.

“Sorry, I’m staring at the woods. I thought I saw something out there.”

“Are you sure? No one goes up there.”

“I know.” I moved toward my bedroom to grab my gun, but the phone cord stopped me.

“Can you see anything?”

I shut off the lights and returned to the window. The trees swayed. Bushes rustled in the wind. Through the darkness, I didn’t see anything that resembled a person. “No. Must have been an animal.”

“We’re on the way. And I’m staying on the line.”

“You’ll lose the signal in about two minutes.”

“We’ll keep talking as long as we can.”

“It could be the wind.”

“Since when did you embrace wishful thinking?”

“Never.”

I turned from the window and moved toward the dining room. My fingers tightened around the phone’s bulky receiver. “I must be a little jumpy after the prison visit.”

“Maybe.”

He was pacifying me. The trip hadn’t rattled me as it would most people, but he knew a possible pregnancy was weighing on my mind.

“Do you think Colton’s been in communication with his accomplice all these years?”

“He’s received lots of fan mail.” Grant’s signal was breaking up. “I should have his visitor log by morning.”

Colton had been the darling of many online groups. His good looks, which had grown more rugged with his time in prison, attracted lots of fans. “It’ll be a deep dive into decades of visitor logs.”

“Are you saying that’s too much for you?”

I chuckled. “Please. Child’s play.” The primitive part of my brain that had hummed warnings began to settle.

The line crackled again. “I’m about to lose you.”

“I know. See you in a few minutes.”

“Great.” I hung up the receiver, moved to the bedroom, and retrieved my handgun from under my mattress.

As I sat at the round table, the shadows outside shifted quickly. My body hummed with unspoken warnings.

And then a figure neared the window. The person was dressed in black, face covered with a ski mask. I tightened my grip on the gun.

I stood back, my body tense. Who had tracked me down up here?

A second later a brick smashed through the glass. Behind it was a Molotov cocktail, flaming bright red as it flew through the opening. The bottle crashed against the wooden floor, spreading burning liquid.

I wasn’t afraid, but I was hyperfocused. I grabbed a blanket off the couch and tossed it on the fire. The bulk of the flames struggled with the smothering fabric as more fire crept out from under the edges. I stamped my foot on the smaller blazes. The heat burned me, forcing me to pull back before stamping it out again.

A second brick came through another window. This time two firebombs followed it.

Smoke filled the cabin. I grabbed my backpack and raced to the cabin’s rear exit. As tempting as it was to rush outside, I didn’t. If I were the assailant, I’d have set a trap near the primary and secondary exits. Instead of using the door, I hurried into the bedroom. Smoke choked out the air. I threw open the window, taking a moment to suck in clean air. I shouldered the backpack, hiked my leg over the windowsill, and hoisted up my body.

The drop to the ground was about five feet. The ground below was rocky and uneven. The smoke and flames pressed against my back. I had to jump. I gripped the gun, leaped, and landed on the uneven ground. The backpack threw off my balance. My ankle twisted and I fell on my side. The impact sent a shock of pain up my leg. As I stumbled to my feet, my ankle protested.

Raising the gun’s sights, I leveled my gaze on the dark woods, searching for my little pyro friend. The wind rustled in the trees. Behind me the heat of the burning cabin became so hot, I was forced to hobble away toward the woods.

Footsteps crunched over dried leaves, but I didn’t see anyone. “Come on,” I whispered. “Don’t you want to keep playing? This is just starting to get fun.”

Silence mingled with the wind.

The flames lit up the night sky, illuminating the forest. I caught a flicker of movement. Footsteps thundered. But this time they were moving not toward the cabin but away from it.

A car’s wheels crunched in the driveway, and I raised the gun’s barrel. I came around the side, in time to see Grant rise out of his car. The light of the flames danced across his tense features as he stared at the cabin in horror. He moved toward the front porch now crackling from the heat.

“Grant!” I shouted.

He turned. Relief eased deep lines around his mouth. He raced toward me and hugged me close.

I relaxed into him. It felt good to press against solid muscle and feel the tight band of his arms around me. A sigh released over my lips.

“What happened?” he asked.

“Someone tossed a Molotov cocktail in the cabin.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. I saw someone running through the woods away from the house but didn’t see who it was.” I pulled free of his embrace and looked back. Flames were now burrowing through the roof. It was a total loss. I’d saved my backpack, which contained my laptop and wallet. I could keep going.

“We need to get down the mountain so I can call the police and fire department.”

“It’ll take them at least a half hour from Dawson. I need to move my car away from the flames. There’s a spare key under the mat.”

“I’ll do it. Get in my car with Cody.”

I slid into the front seat of his car while he ran to mine. Cody pushed through the seats and nudged me. “It’s fine, Cody. Just a little fire.” The flames licked high in the trees. Fat raindrops fell.

Grant started my Jeep and moved it to the turnaround, well out of the fire’s path. When he jogged back, the center beam of the cabin cracked. Flames hissed. It took seconds before the cabin’s center fell in on itself, sending sparks in the air as thunder rumbled.

More fat rain droplets fell as he returned to his car. He opened the front door and slid behind the wheel. I was amazed at how shaken I was. The skies opened, sending rain showers down the hillside. The fire roared and sizzled as rain hit it. It was a beast in agony, drawing in its last breath.

“At least the woods won’t burn,” I said.

“The rain will also slow down whoever did this,” he said. “This mountain will get slick when the dirt turns to mud.”

Fire hissed and bellowed as rain fell and steam rose. “It is a good thing.” He backed up his truck and nosed the vehicle down the mountain road now turning into a soupy, muddy mess.

He reached the hard service road and was two miles down it when cell reception returned. He called the local police and fire.

“Whoever did this is worried,” I said. “I’ve struck a nerve.”

“A Molotov cocktail doesn’t require anything high-tech.”

“That’s what makes it so effective.”

“And you didn’t set the fire?”

I glanced at my soot-covered jeans.

“I remember a storage unit being set on fire,” he prompted.

“I had nothing to do with this fire.”

“Okay.”

“You believe me?”

He nodded. “I do.”

I studied his profile and, finding no hesitation, said, “Good.”

“How about you lie low and let the cops see what they can find? It might not be just you anymore.”

A baby. That was an unsettling thought. “Maybe. Maybe not.”

He shook his head. “You don’t have to do this alone.”

“Are you going to help me?” It was a half challenge, half joke.

“Yeah, I am.”

“Grant, you don’t know me. I’m not built to do forever. I can promise you, my brand of seeing the world grows very thin with people.”

“I’m more patient than you think.”

“I don’t want you to tolerate me. I decided a long time ago, I’m okay with how I’m wired.”

Frustration furrowed the lines on his brow. “I’m not asking you to change.”

“But you’ll want me to at some point. You’ll see that I can’t live a normal life.”

“Normal is overrated.”

In the distance, a siren blared. “That was fast.”

He shoved out a frustrated sigh. “Sometimes we get lucky.”

“Maybe.”

As the rain fell on his truck, the light from the flames at the top of the mountain faded.

Blue-and-white lights bounced off the tree leaves as a cop car raced through the rain and up the hill. Grant waited for the fire trucks to pass, then shifted into first gear and followed them.

Sheriff Paxton rose out of the car. He was draped in a rain slicker. His boots smashed into the soft earth as he made his way to Grant’s driver’s-side window. Not like the sheriff to make these night calls. Grant rolled down the window.

“What the hell?” Paxton asked.

“It’s a long story,” I said. “You were up here fast.”

“I was driving home when I saw the flames.” He glanced past Grant to me. “Doesn’t surprise me to see you.”

“I didn’t set the fire, if that’s what you think,” I said.

“Maybe not. But you have a knack for pissing off people who would love to see you burn.”