Chapter 8
Eight
Colter
By the time Inspector Franklin Hodge made it up the mountain, the sun was high and unforgiving in the clear stretch of blue sky.
Everything always looked worse in daylight.
What had been a house last night was now a flattened black scar in the dirt, the footprint barely distinguishable from the churned mud and ash around it.
The roof had pancaked inward when it went.
What framing remained was twisted and laid over like broken ribs.
The air still carried that damp, metallic smell of soaked charcoal and melted insulation.
I stood off to one side while Hodge picked his way through what was left, slow and methodical. He didn’t rush scenes. Didn’t need to. The fire had already told its story, and he was here to read it.
He crouched near the east side of the slab, where the burn pattern had been hottest before collapse, and used a gloved hand to move aside a blackened clump of debris. Underneath, a section of wiring ran along what had once been the interior wall cavity.
He didn’t look surprised.
“You called it,” he said.
I stepped closer, careful of the soft spots. “East wall?”
“Mm-hmm.” He angled his flashlight even though it was broad daylight. Habit. “This is your origin.”
I squatted beside him. The junction box was warped, the cover half-melted. The wiring inside was a mess—improper splices, mismatched gauge, insulation burned back farther than it should’ve been.
“Recent?” I asked.
“Not original to the structure.” He tapped the edge of the box with a pen. “And not permitted.”
I didn’t need him to explain what I was looking at. Somebody had opened that wall, tried to “upgrade” something, and closed it back up without a damn clue what they were doing.
“Arced,” he continued. “Probably smoldered for a bit before it found oxygen. Once it ran the cavity, it was gone.”
Which lined up with how fast the roofline had lit while I’d been looking for Swayze.
“No secondary points,” he added. “No indicators of accelerant. Single origin.”
Good.
I hadn’t thought for a second Swayze had done anything to cause the fire, but confirmation mattered. It would matter for paperwork. It would matter for insurance. It would matter for her.
“Total loss,” Hodge said, straightening.
I glanced over the debris field again. The slab was cracked from heat. The porch supports entirely collapsed. There wasn’t a square foot inside that wasn’t compromised.
“Yeah,” I said. “Figured as much when it dropped.”
He scribbled something on his pad. “I’ll forward everything to county code. If the owner didn’t pull permits on that modification, he’s going to have problems.”
Problems. Fines. Audits. Maybe a policy fight with his carrier.
None of it rebuilt what had been inside.
“You good on your end?” he asked.
“Report’s drafted. Utilities were secured last night. Fire watch cleared at oh-two hundred.” I rubbed a hand over the back of my neck. “We were defensive within minutes. There wasn’t anything left to save.”
He gave me a steady look. “You made the right call pulling interior.”
I didn’t answer that. I already knew how close it had been.
Hodge snapped a few final photos and zipped his evidence bag. “I’ll have the preliminary report over by morning.”
“Appreciate it.”
He headed back toward his truck, boots crunching over gravel and ash.
I stayed where I was a minute longer, staring at the blackened outline of what had been someone’s landing spot.
Electrical. Unpermitted work. Fast burn.
On paper, it was simple.
Didn’t make it feel any less like we’d arrived too late to matter. Swayze was alive, but she’d be starting over with every-damn-thing else.
After the flood, most of us here in Gibson Hollow were intimately acquainted with doing that. It was why people would be so willing to help, even if they didn’t know her. Because others had stepped up for us.
My phone buzzed before I hit the main road.
Baby Mama flashed across the screen. Oakleigh had been on my phone again changing contact names.
“Hey,” I answered.
“There’s something in the attic.” Lisa announced this without preamble, in a tone of neutrality I could see through like a window. She was hiding the low-level fear and high-level irritation that meant she’d already investigated and decided she was done being the one to deal with it.
“Something?” I prompted.
“It knocked over two storage bins and then ran.”
I smiled despite myself. We’d been best friends since sixth grade. I’d seen her stand toe-to-toe with linebackers twice her size in middle school. I’d seen her deliver our daughter without so much as a tear. But put anything with whiskers and claws in a confined space, and she drew the line hard.
I knew what was coming. “How big?”
“Bigger than I care to negotiate with.”
Which meant we could be talking anything from a squirrel to a mountain lion.
“I’ll be there in fifteen.”
“You’re a gem.”
“And that’s why I’m still your favorite.”
By the time I pulled into the driveway, I was honestly surprised Oakleigh wasn’t out front patrolling with a Nerf rifle.
Instead, I found her inside. The attic stairs were already folded down in the hallway.
Lisa’s wife, Faith, stood beneath them, arms crossed, looking up with measured consideration rather than alarm.
Our daughter leaned against the wall nearby, clearly entertained by the proceedings.
Lisa herself peeked out of the kitchen doorway. “It hissed,” she said, as if that explained everything.
And because we’d shared most of a lifetime in each other’s pockets, it did.
Between the science class rat that got loose freshman year and the family of raccoons that nearly gave her a heart attack when we’d been on clean-up after a football game our junior year, she had no tolerance for anything rodent or rodent adjacent.
“You shine a light on it?”
She scowled. “Of course I did. I am not incompetent.”
Recognizing that tone of insult, I kept my own mild. “I didn’t say you were.”
I tugged a pair of work gloves out of my back pocket. “Ludo outside?”
“Yeah. We didn’t want him trying to climb the attic ladder to play defender.”
It was more likely that my hundred-fifty-pound furbaby would have ended up cowering in a corner, but keeping him out of the way was a solid move.
Faith stepped back from the ladder. “It’s probably a raccoon. We’ve heard scratching off and on this week.”
“Yeah.” I started up the ladder. “That’d be my guess.”
The attic was wide enough to stand in at the center, insulation mounded along the joists and storage bins shoved against the eaves. One of them had been clawed open. At least three were tipped over.
And there, wedged behind a pile of artificial pine Christmas garland like he owned the place, was the problem.
He wasn’t small. His fur was puffed out, teeth bared, little black hands flexing against the insulation as he let out a low, guttural growl that said he had absolutely no intention of cooperating.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “That tracks.”
“Is it a raccoon?” Oakleigh called up.
“It is,” I confirmed. “And he is deeply offended by our presence.”
Lisa made a noise that sounded suspiciously like vindication.
Raccoons don’t scare easily. And they don’t leave just because you ask nicely.
I backed down the attic stairs and headed for the garage. Lisa already knew what I was grabbing. She’d seen this dance before.
I came back with a live trap and a thick moving blanket.
When I climbed back up, the angry trash panda had shifted position, but he hadn’t bolted.
Good. That meant he felt cornered enough to hold ground instead of darting.
I really wasn’t up for wallowing in insulation this afternoon, if I could help it.
But it also meant he might lunge. While I wasn’t nearly as bothered by raccoons as Lisa, I did know the risk of rabies, and that wasn’t something I wanted to deal with either.
So I moved slowly and kept my body angled instead of square.
The trap went near the access point, and I continued edging forward, using the blanket to narrow his exit options.
He hissed again, louder this time, swiping when I got too close.
“Easy,” I murmured.
It took longer than I wanted. He feinted twice. Charged once. I felt the rush of air when he snapped, teeth clicking inches from my glove.
Down below, Oakleigh observed, “That did not sound friendly.”
“Nope,” Faith replied calmly. “That sounded like natural consequences.”
Eventually, instinct won out over pride. The raccoon bolted for the open path I’d left and tripped the trap with a metallic snap.
Lisa yelped despite herself.
“Got him,” I called down.
There was a collective exhale from below.
Getting him down the stairs was its own exercise in balance and patience. He thrashed the entire way, furious at the indignity.
Oakleigh peered into the cage, where Sir Rage-A-Lot was doing his best to dismantle industrial steel with spite alone.
“Can we keep him? Trash pandas are supposed to be super smart and make good pets.”
“No,” all three of us answered at once.
Oakleigh deflated, and I carried the trap out to the truck.
After I’d put the blanket back where it lived, we moved into the kitchen without ceremony.
It had been my kitchen once, when Oakleigh was young, after Lisa and I moved out of my parents’ house.
Now it was Lisa and Faith’s, and the shift had been less explosion and more quiet rebalancing.
We’d figured out how to do this—how to be a family without being married—years ago.
Faith slid a glass of sweet tea toward me. “I heard about the fire last night.”
I sipped. “Investigator confirmed it was electrical.”
Lisa’s jaw tightened. “McCready. He probably tried to shortcut and do something himself.”
Oakleigh rested her chin in her hand, studying me with those eyes that were too perceptive for someone who still thought trash pandas made good pets. “Is the lady you rescued okay?”
“She’s okay,” I said, setting the sweet tea down on the counter. “Lost everything, though.”
“That sucks,” she said plainly, without the filter adults learned to put on bad news.
“Yeah.” I couldn’t disagree with that assessment.
“Where’s she staying?” Oakleigh’s question was casual, but I could see the wheels turning behind it.
“Grandma Elsie’s for now.”
Lisa leaned against the counter, arms crossed, studying me the way she had since we were fourteen and she’d figured out I was about to do something stubborn.
Back then it had been jumping off the quarry ledge.
Now it was usually something involving my need to fix problems that weren’t technically mine to fix. “And after that?”
“I don’t know. Insurance will sort some of it. Depends on what she wants to do, where she wants to go.” I shrugged, taking another sip of tea.
There was a pause, not heavy, just thoughtful. The kind that happened in this kitchen when everyone was thinking the same thing but waiting to see who’d say it first.
“What about the duplex?” Lisa said finally, her tone careful but pointed.
I looked at her, already knowing where this was heading.
Faith glanced between us, her brow furrowed slightly. “The other half of yours?”
“It’s been empty for months,” Lisa pointed out, like I needed the reminder.
“On purpose,” I clarified, meeting her gaze steadily.
I was extremely choosy about who I was willing to let be in that close a vicinity to my daughter.
Since Danielle and Martin Williams had moved out into their newly repaired house back in the spring, I hadn’t sought out a new tenant.
Hadn’t even mentioned to anyone that the space was available.
Oakleigh shifted in her seat, looking at me carefully. Eleven now. Observant in ways that sometimes caught me off guard. “Is she nice?”
“I met her for about thirty seconds in a burning house.” It had been more than that after. And this afternoon. But her situation wasn’t mine to fix.
Faith’s mouth twitched, fighting back a smile. “That’s not exactly neutral territory for getting to know someone.”
Lisa’s voice softened, losing the teasing edge. “You’ve been careful about who you let into Oakleigh’s orbit. I get that. But you also know what it’s like to lose everything and need help from people who don’t owe you anything.”
She wasn’t wrong about that. After the flood, we’d all stood in kitchens that didn’t exist anymore, living rooms turned to mud and memory. We’d all taken help we hadn’t asked for, from neighbors and strangers and people who’d shown up because that’s what you did in Gibson Hollow.
“I’ll think about it,” I said, which was the closest I could get to a commitment right now.
Lisa’s smile was small but knowing, the kind that said she could read me like a book she’d written herself. “You always do.”
She wasn’t wrong about that either.