Chapter 15
fifteen
“It is a fire that consumes me, but I am the fire.” - Jorge Luis Borges
The heat of Cole’s gaze chased her to her car, but it was Kiki Womack’s words that rolled over and over in her mind. Because the woman had hit the right buttons for both of them. It might’ve been twenty years, but Jocelyn remembered her just fine.
Kiki was one of the girls who’d had it out for her mama from grade school, and when Bonnie had made her way back to town with her illegitimate child in tow, Kiki and her friends had made it their mission to snub her whenever possible.
It didn’t help that they’d been cozy with Lydia Abbott by that time, either.
Jocelyn could’ve dismissed everything she said, the words nothin’ more than a sliver of truth edged with mean.
But it was the stuff about Cole that had her circling.
The things about John—said mostly to get Cole’s back up—reminded her of the disappointment she’d felt about whatever secret he’d been keeping.
She hadn’t dug into that yet. Not when the memory of Cole’s anger that night still rolled fresh in her mind. He was worried about reputations getting ruined. Maybe he was worried about hers, but it felt a little like he wanted to save his own.
There wasn’t anything wrong with that. At least, there shouldn’t have been. But it made a painful little twist in her heart anyway.
And that almost made her stumble, but she didn’t stop. Not until she spotted the folded up piece of paper tucked under her windshield wiper.
Her fingers tightened around the strap of her bag as she stared at it, and then she let her feet carry her the last few steps to the vehicle.
Her hand was like a foreign object before her as she reached for the piece of paper, the knowing that this wouldn’t be a ticket for a traffic violation settling heavily in her chest. It wasn’t official-looking enough for that.
She snatched it from under the wiper, the thick card stock abrasive against her skin, and flipped it open.
Her head snapped up, and she scanned the street for anyone acting suspicious. Not that the person who’d written it would hang around to see her reaction—or if they did, they certainly wouldn’t be visible.
Still, she couldn’t help willing herself to see through walls and into shadows. A better superpower would’ve been to read fingerprints.
After stuffing the note into her purse and searching the area one more time, she got into her car and drove, flying along the winding hills and tunnels of trees until there was nothing but open hills dotted with livestock and thick stands of trees.
Her next step wasn’t clear yet, and she was too worked up to think anyway. Sure, Ned Turner had climbed up her list, but she didn’t have a clue of where to find him. Probably should’ve asked Cole, but they’d been distracted.
Kiki Womack.
Jocelyn cursed and looked at her purse where she’d tucked the note away.
It only took a second for her to consider and then dismiss the possibility of Kiki being the culprit for the note.
It was certainly a sentiment that matched the attitude, though part of her felt Kiki was punishing Cole more than herself with her words.
Besides, Kiki had looked like she’d come from a store when she’d run into them. A woman that intent on getting someone’s back up wouldn’t try to do it anonymously. She wanted them to see exactly who was spitting the mean.
And did it really matter who had left it? Plenty of people didn’t like what she was doing. She was tired of giving a damn.
Justice and the truth were her aim.
So, next steps.
She couldn’t explain what had led her where she found herself, but, heavens, the Abbott mansion was a sight to behold.
Surrounded by sweeping hills and still carpeted in green despite it being officially autumn, the house rose majestically.
Trees stretched their limbs lazily toward the house like they were holding it back rather than protecting it.
She didn’t cross the property line. She simply slowed to stare at the sweeping porch that shaded the antebellum edifice as she drove past on her way back toward town.
It had once been a plantation house, the center of a vast network of fields worked by hands that were claimed as property.
The Abbotts didn’t deny their history, but they made a point of serving Cedar Hollow from on high like it was their penance.
She supposed it was her history, too, on some level.
Just looking at it made it clear her heart wasn’t quite ready to face her father. Jocelyn had hardly spoken to him even before her mama’s death, and she wasn’t quite sure what her approach would be now. It certainly wouldn’t be to change their previously established dynamic of practical strangers.
She wanted to pretend it was just happenstance because she needed to blow off steam, but it was more than that. Some part of her had known she’d end up there, driving past the Abbott mansion like some sort of punishment.
Her mama had rarely taken her by, no doubt avoiding the reminder of the life she might’ve had if fate had twisted differently. If the family on the hill hadn’t turned their noses up at the girl from the wrong side of town and pushed their son into a more respectable direction.
They’d all paid the price for that, though her mama’s had been the most costly.
Yes, some questions were better left unanswered, but it didn’t mean she would stop searching for the ones she needed.
And so she headed back to town. Her goal before she’d asked Sally about Ned Turner had been to search the newspaper archives for their reports both on her mother’s fire and the suspected arson cases from that same time frame.
What she’d found online had been national reports only, vague sensationalist overviews of a shocking tragedy in a small southern town. Cedar Hollow was slow to digitize their archives, so her best bet was to look through hard copies.
But now that Ned was on her radar, she had a specific track to take in her investigating. If he was responsible for her house fire, was he responsible for the others? The only way to find out was to look for any connections to him.
And since talking to Eric Ward about where her mama had been found, that itch to find confirmation somewhere else weighed on her mind. Maybe she would strike gold and find something that mentioned why Bonnie was on the floor that night.
She frowned. And maybe she could time travel and stop the whole thing from happening at all.
One could hope for miracles. Didn’t mean you’d get them.
The newspaper office of the Hollow Gazette was a small brick building tucked between an antique shop and the bank. If she hadn’t been looking for it, she might’ve missed it altogether.
The woman inside eyed her with a knowing glint when she walked in. Old enough to know who Jocelyn was and apparently connected enough to hold a ready opinion of her, the woman offered no greeting. The curse of a small town.
“Hi, there,” Jocelyn said, working up her smile anyway. “I was wondering if I might have a look around your archives?”
The woman’s flat expression didn’t waver, though she gave Jocelyn a once over. “Archives older than ten years got moved to the library.”
At least she didn’t have to go through the explanation of what she was looking for. Could’ve done without the attitude, but she would take what she could get. “Thank you.”
She pushed out into the bright sunlight, briefly wished small towns didn’t work the way they did, and set her mind on walking the two blocks to the library. It was a squat brick building with little to recommend it—ugly, rundown, and smelling faintly like wet laundry left out too long.
A younger woman sat behind the desk, looking very little like the stereotypical librarian. She had bright blue eyes set in a luminous and youthful face free of glasses or a lined scowl.
“Hey, there,” she said with a smile.
Jocelyn tried not to be wary, but a returning smile was hard to drag up after her most recent interaction. “Hello.”
“You look like you need some direction.”
Jocelyn waited, thinking the recognition would settle soon, and the woman would snub her like the rest of them did.
When the pleasant expression on her face didn’t change, Jocelyn stumbled through her request. “I’m looking for the old newspaper archives.”
Both brows rose, setting wrinkles into the smooth forehead. “Don’t hear that every day. Well, come on back with me. I’ll show you where they are.”
She breezed out from behind the desk, a flowing gauzy skirt swirling around her. “I’m Bethany, by the way.”
“Jocelyn,” she said carefully.
Bethany waved her off. “Oh, I know.”
That was a surprise. “You do?”
“Sure. We were in school together, though you might not remember. I was a year behind.”
Her light tone made Jocelyn’s walls shoot up. Surely this was a ploy? “I’m sorry. I don’t remember.”
Bethany turned to smile at her. “It’s alright. It was a long time ago, and you’ve got plenty of reasons to want to forget.”
She slowed to a stop in the back corner of the building where a wide doorway opened into a darkened room. The jewel eyes settled on Jocelyn again. “I suppose you’re not wanting to forget anymore, though. That why you need the archives?”
She didn’t want to believe Bethany’s friendliness had more to do with pumping Jocelyn for information than genuine kindness. She hadn’t made it a secret why she was back, but it wasn’t like she was advertising, either. It was just hard not to think the worst of people.
“Something like that,” she finally said.
Bethany’s mouth tipped down a little. “I’m real sorry about what happened to your mama. Grammy always said she was the sweetest.”
Another surprise there.
Bethany caught on, offering a soft smile. “My grammy’s opinion matters more than most in my world.”
Jocelyn took a breath, hesitating for a moment. But she let herself soften just a smidge. “I appreciate it. Your condolences and your help.”
Bethany beamed. “Anytime. Let me know if you need anything else.”
“Thank you,” she said as Bethany headed back toward the front desk.
Jocelyn turned to the tables filled with plastic bins and hanging folders.
Moving to the first, she checked the dates to get her bearings.
She’d scoured the internet for national coverage of the fire, but local reports had been scarce.
Digitizing clearly wasn’t a high priority in a town this size, where not much usually happened.
When she found the right time frame, flipping through the dates, anger stirred low in her gut at the lack of outcry for investigation in what was reported.
Most of the coverage fixated on John Hauser’s heroics that night—and the tragic story of the little girl he’d saved, abandoned by a neglectful mother who’d drunk too much wine and left a candle burning by a gauzy curtain.
It shouldn’t have been a surprise, nor should the rage have clawed so violently through her. That had been the narrative her whole life, and she’d been told to move forward time and time again.
But how could she when her search so far had just brought more questions? And though that gave her a dose of frustration, it came with the sense that she was on the right track. All the preconceived notions were slowly crumbling, even if she was the only one chipping away at them.
All this time wondering if there was more to it had led her to take the first step. And now the little fissures in the accepted version of events proved that her lack of peace came from the truth being intentionally buried.
And so she dug through copies of newspapers, ink marking her skin as evidence of her effort as she skimmed article after article for mentions of the other fires.
As she’d told Cole, arson had been labeled likely even back then, though there’d been no defining feature linking them beyond geography.
All in Cedar Hollow or nearby towns. And Cedar Hollow, small as it was, served as the county seat and the home base for the investigations.
Now she had the possible link of Ned Turner.
The problem was that none of the articles she came across mentioned anything about Ned Turner. Not even once did he come up in the reports about the fire in the house he owned.
Anger stirred again, and she flipped through the papers with more aggression as the articles on the fires moved farther and farther from the front page. Slamming her hand against the bin didn’t change the facts, but it made her feel marginally better.
Then a name caught her eye, drawing her to read the quote she’d already skimmed.
“We did everything we could,” said firefighter Eric Ward, one of the first responders. “It’s a tragedy. Fires move fast, especially when accelerant is involved. There was nothing anyone could’ve done. Even John Hauser barely made it to the scene in time.”
She had read it already, but this time, the words landed in her gut like stones.
Accelerant.
Her mind spun back to what she knew. She didn’t remember the fire report she’d gotten from Amber mentioning it?
Or had Ward been speculating because of the wine glass in the window sill, and as a low-level crew member, he was repeating guesses?
Or had there been suspicions initially that were discarded later?
Or worse, covered up?
In light of the other suspected arson cases, she couldn’t rule anything out.
The rest of the article was more of the same of what she already knew, that John Hauser was off-duty that night and happened to be walking by, that he’d seen the smoke, heard the pop and crackle of flame, and had come running.
That one quote from Eric Ward was the only mention of possible accelerants in the whole article, and she flipped through some of the stories run after, just to see if it came up again. Nothing that she could find, and she huffed in frustration.
Maybe she needed to comb through what she had again to compare what she’d found here. At least she had that line to pursue for now. Once she finished, she would see how far Bethany’s goodwill stretched by asking if she might know where to find Ned Turner and make that tomorrow’s priority.
For now, she lugged the box with the relevant articles to an open table and sat. Pulling out the folder she’d been putting together for the last year, she settled in with her notebook open and pen poised.