“Excuse me, miss, are you the owner of this trailer?”
I nodded.
“I’m a lieutenant with the Goldfinch Fire Department. We’ve cleared the area, so it’s safe to gather any belongings that may have survived the fire as well as any personal items left in the pickup truck.”
I pulled my lip between my teeth. Both of us knew it was unlikely anything was left.
“Kearns! You’re going to want to see this,” one of the other firefighters called out.
“Actually, hold tight.” The lieutenant dipped his chin at me before heading back to the trailer.
I observed their conversation from afar, unable to hear exactly what they were talking about. One of the firefighters disappeared into the rubble, reemerging with something in his hand. The lieutenant crossed his arms as they continued discussing.
Footsteps crunched in the gravel to my right, and I turned my head to see who it was.
Hayden. Again.
“Hi.” His voice somehow calmed the thoughts bouncing around in my brain.
“Hey.”
“What happened?” He gestured to the pile of rubble that used to be my horse trailer.
I snorted. “Great question. I guess that’s what all the firefighters are trying to figure out.” I let my shoulders drop. “Sorry, it’s just…”
“Miss.” The lieutenant from earlier, Kearns, came back. “We found this in the back of the trailer. In a pile of hay…er, well, what used to be hay.”
My eyes narrowed. “What am I supposed to be looking at exactly?”
“It’s the butt of a cigarette,” Hayden muttered.
“This is likely what started the fire,” the firefighter explained.
“It’s not mine. I-I don’t smoke.” After realizing how ridiculous that sounded, I blinked, shaking my head. Of course it wasn’t mine. I was competing in the rodeo the whole time. They never insinuated it was mine either. “Sorry, I’m just processing all of this.”
“Of course.” The firefighter nodded. “Do you have any idea where it could have come from? Anyone you know who would have been smoking around the trailer?”
“N-no. I don’t know anyone else here. I travel alone.”
Hayden’s face fell for a brief moment, and a wave of guilt washed over me, but it wasn’t exactly a lie. I was practically a stranger to Hayden at this stage of our lives.
“It’s likely that whoever had the cigarette threw it through the window of the trailer. Probably just negligence, but we have to rule out all the other options, so we’ll need to hold on to the pickup as evidence.”
Hayden’s brows shot up. “What, you mean like foul play?”
Kearns shrugged. “Maybe. Or like I said, it was probably just an accident.”
“Apparently the door to the living quarters got opened,” I mumbled. “Pancho, er, my dog was inside thetrailer, but by the time anyone got over here, the trailer was already on fire and my dog was outside. There’s no way for him to open the door himself, so I don’t know…”
Both of the men gave me strange looks, and my eyes flicked to the ground.
“Maybe I just left it unlocked.”
“That’s certainly interesting.” Kearns tapped his lips, as though deep in thought. “Well, for the moment, don’t worry too much about it. For all we know, it was someone being careless.”
I nodded slowly. “Right.”
After I exchanged my information with the fire lieutenant, he left me with Hayden.
