Twelve #2
I wish I’d have come clean about what happened at the old Miller barn. And other things. I couldn’t bring myself to confess, but I should have. It might have spared so many. When I pass, and this is found, check the floorboards at the hunting cabin, under the rug by the fireplace.
Her mind reeled. Was Dad confessing to setting that barn on fire and rescuing Twila? Or to killing Alicia? What did this mean? She needed to see for herself. Now. Helena’s fingers trembled as she refolded the note and dread pooled in her gut.
The hunting cabin.
Without hesitating, Helena grabbed her jacket from a nearby hook. Whatever secrets lay hidden in that cabin, she needed to find them—and finally uncover the truth.
* * *
Helena’s heart hammered as she parked at the edge of the clearing, the hunting cabin looming before her like a sentinel guarding secrets she wasn’t sure she was ready to uncover.
The sun dipped low, casting eerie shadows through the towering pines.
The air was tinged with pine resin and something else—something metallic, faint but unmistakable.
She stepped out, boots crunching on pine needles, the note clutched tight in her palm, sweat dampening the paper. When I pass…check the floorboards at the hunting cabin, under the rug by the fireplace. What would she find under those floorboards? Whatever she was about to see, wouldn’t be good.
Uncle Rick’s vehicle wasn’t here. He must be out on business in Colorado Springs. Better that he was gone. She didn’t want company to share in what she was about to discover.
The door groaned as she pushed it open. Dust motes floated in the fading light.
The cabin was sparse, the air stale, untouched by time but filled with tension—as if the walls themselves were holding their breath, waiting.
Only minimal evidence that Uncle Rick was staying here.
An empty glass on the counter. His running shoes by the door.
Her eyes darted around the room, catching every detail—the faded wallpaper peeling in places, the old stone fireplace cold and empty.
A thick, threadbare rug lay stretched across the floor by the hearth.
She moved closer, knees creaking as she sank down and hesitated, fingers trembling as they gripped the edge of the rug.
Slowly, carefully, she pulled it back. Her nerves hummed when she saw the floorboard beneath.
One plank slightly raised, edges worn smooth like it had been lifted and replaced countless times before.
A hollow gap yawned beneath the wood, dark and deep.
She found an old toolbox in the laundry closet and grabbed a flathead.
Helena’s hands shook as she wedged a screwdriver between the board and the frame, prying it loose inch by inch. Finally, the board lifted with a reluctant groan, revealing a small cavity hidden beneath the floor.
Inside, wrapped in oilcloth stained with age and something darker, were several objects pressed together. She pulled them out one by one: brittle photographs yellowed with time—but revealing—and a small, rusted lighter with initials.
A frosty shiver ran down her spine.
No. This couldn’t be right.
This wasn’t at all what she had expected.
Her breaths stuttered as the magnitude of the discovery pressed down on her chest. The note hadn’t been a confession of guilt from her father, but a confession about what he’d uncovered and protected her from.
The guilt of ever thinking he could be anything but kind and noble and good ate away like acid into her muscles and bones.
Tears blurred her vision and she knew, deep in her bones, that nothing would ever be the same again.
Uncle Rick had set that fire and known Twila was inside.
Dad had been suspicious of him, maybe he’d set fires before, and this was his lighter with his initials.
The photos revealed the true story. One of Rick creeping around the barn and lighting an oil lantern then tossing it inside the barn.
Dad had followed him to gain proof. But why not tell on him when he found it?
Had he hoped to turn him around from his ways—he was his brother, and people often tried to think the best and hope for it when it came to family.
Dad had always been kind and generous. If he had turned his back on Rick, it was because he realized there was no hope. But he still hadn’t turned him in. Maybe that was part of his melancholy on top of Mom’s death. From his letter, he regretted it, but hadn’t ever done anything about it.
Rick’s eyes in the photos…the wild enthrallment as the stable began to burn.
Why would Rick cast doubt on Dad? It was true he’d dated Mom first. Nancy had confirmed it…or not really. She said she didn’t recall, but that it was possible because Mom had tutored Rick.
What was Rick’s end game? Then it hit her like a freezing river drowning her.
She had a trust. Her grandparents had passed everything down to Dad. Dad controlled it. If he died, then it went to her. Did any of it go to Rick? She hadn’t really looked at it. Unable, due to grief. But could the lies be to get her to trust him in order to make a play for money?
The trusts had been passed down through the family.
Now, some of those hushed arguments made sense.
Mom angry that he wouldn’t give Rick another chance.
But Dad’s anger, and telling her she had no idea what she was talking about, what he was capable of.
He wasn’t getting a single dime. She’d heard them all in bits and pieces but with lack of context it was just jumbled, unimportant snippets of blurred memories.
Now she had the context to make them clearer and put them in the proper place like puzzle pieces.
Helena stood frozen in the dim light of the cabin, clutching the photos while her mind spun. Then the scrape of footsteps on the wooden porch, slow and deliberate, reached her ears. Her heart lurched as the door creaked open.
And there he was.
Rick.
His face was harder than she’d seen before and there was something raw in his eyes now, a flicker of malice.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
Helena straightened, anger and fear warring inside her.
“You lied. About my father. You made me doubt the man he was. Who he had been.” She might never forgive herself for that.
Brody had been right all along. “The fire at the old Miller property—it was you. My dad was rescuing Twila from you. He was a hero after all.”
Rick didn’t deny it. “Yeah. I set the fire. Not to kill Twila. I wanted to be the hero for once. Thought if I saved the day, maybe I’d finally matter.”
She stared at him, disbelief churning in her gut.
“But Dad—he beat you to it. Thought you were trying to kill her. You, like most arsonists, couldn’t look away from the eating flames and Twila was forgotten in your fascination with them.
You’ve been setting fires ever since.” The fires she’d attributed to her father, the ones he’d thought could be Denton.
He’d noted on those orders that he might have been wrong initially.
Initially he’d suspected Rick. But then with Denton being on all those jobs, he thought he could be wrong about his brother and needed more information.
Maybe, finally, he was going to turn him into authorities, but then second-guessed himself, hoping Rick was innocent and he could look to another culprit—Denton Wiley.
Based on the work orders they’d found.
A bitter laugh escaped him. “He’d come to prove to our parents I was some kind of bad seed. I hadn’t realized he had a camera or I’d have taken it. But he must have dropped it when he realized Twila was in trouble. I never saw it.”
“Why didn’t he tell Mimi and Pops? If he came for that reason?”
A slow smile spread across his face. “Because he knew if he did, I’d hurt him. Sometimes hurting someone means hurting a person—or animal—they love.”
Rick had done just that. He’d taken something Dad loved and that’s why he’d kept silent.
“Bruce really loved that beagle puppy he’d rescued from a ravine a few months before he saved Twila. Just another heroic thing he’d done for everyone to ooh and aah about.”
“How could you?” That was disgusting and evil!
“You have no idea what it’s like to grow up in the shadow of your younger brother. I played baseball, but he was better. Football. Soccer. Track. Didn’t matter, he was the hero, and the one Mom and Dad doted on. I was the one always in trouble. Never good enough. Smart enough. It wasn’t fair.”
“Life isn’t fair.”
“You wouldn’t know. You were the apple of your parents’ eyes and your grandparents’. You have no clue what it’s like to be nothing more than a ghost, no matter what you do to gain attention—negative or positive. I tried both.”
“You kept him afraid to talk.” But he’d wanted to. It was clear now.
Rick’s eyes darkened. “I figured he told our parents in the end when they cut me out of the will and put all my trust into Bruce’s hands to parcel out if and when he saw fit. He never saw fit.”
“Because you weren’t fit.” Some of those whispered conversations now crystalized with this new knowledge. “You have a drug problem, don’t you—or did? That’s why you weren’t allowed money. I vaguely remember a conversation between my parents. My mom wanted you to have the money.”