My arrival went exactly as planned.
Unnoticed.
But that’s the only thing that’s gone right since I got here.
My plan to decipher the not-so-cryptic messages and find the perpetrator has gone nowhere. Either I haven’t watched enough true crime, or I have seriously overestimated my skills.
Reaching into the passenger seat, I grab my sketchbook and charcoal pencils. This is the only thing that has kept me sane—sketching. It’s not my oil paint and brushes, but it will suffice.
We used to live in a small neighborhood on Mill Creek Drive—long driveways, picket fences, and green lawns. After Daddy died, Mama moved us into this trailer. I thought Mama and I would lean on each other, but she chose the bottle instead.
I quickly outline the small home and begin adding the details.
There’s the dent next to the door where Mama hit the trailer with her car when she drove home drunk one night while I was in high school.
The rusted metal siding that has gotten worse in the last twelve years.
The curtain-covered windows that Mama never let me open because the sunlight was too much for her eyes when she was hungover.
Once I’ve added shading, I write in the top left corner, “Monday morning, River Bend Trailer Park.”
I’m not sure which home I hated more. The dirty trailer or the nice house on the cul-de-sac.
Both contain memories I’ve tried to forget.
As I set my sketchbook aside, the trailer door opens and out walks Mama.
The bags under her eyes are heavier than they used to be. Her ivory skin looks as if it hasn’t seen the sun in years. Her almond-brown hair has become brittle. Her clothes look as if they don’t keep her warm at all.
She hops into Daddy’s old pickup. The engine sputters before catching, then she eases the truck onto the road.
Right on schedule.
Her routine hasn’t changed. Every other day or so at this time, she drives to Fall River Market to buy a plastic bottle of cheap whiskey. Occasionally, she buys herself a few grocery items, but it’s not the food that she runs out of first.
At least I now know where the money that I send her every month is going, but I hope I’m wrong.
Passing Evergreen Supply and Timberline Bar, Mama steers her vehicle into the grocery store parking lot as I trail a short distance behind her.
Tired of the banal routine, I continue down the empty road toward the outskirts of town where Moose Gap Lodge, my motel, is located.
I need a shower, a warm blanket, and a nap. Not in that particular order.
I’m only a minute from Moose Gap Lodge when something bright and red dances in the distance outside my driver’s side window.
Slamming on my brakes, my Jeep slides to a bumpy stop on the slick ice. When I turn toward the crimson shape, I squint. It’s so far away in a barren field that it’s barely a few inches tall, but my mind immediately knows what that is.
Fire.
This isn’t right.
It’s too early in the year for this to be a farmer burning their field.
I make a sharp turn onto a dirt road, speeding toward the flames.
Not my smartest move, but this is the first suspicious thing that’s happened since I got here.
As I get closer, the pyre gets bigger. I’m less than thirty yards away when I’m finally able to make out a figure in the fire.
