Chapter 40
CHAPTER FORTY
Wyatt
Thursday
I don’t tell anyone I’m doing this.
Not Marshall. Not Jesse. Definitely not Abilene.
Part of that is instinct. Old habit, really.
The part of me that checks latches twice and keeps mental lists of worst-case scenarios as a comfort blanket instead of a warning sign.
The part that learned early on that panic is contagious, and once you hand it to someone, you don’t get to decide how they carry it.
The other part is simpler. And harder.
I’ve watched the way Abilene takes in information. She doesn’t dramatize. Doesn’t deflect. She absorbs it quietly, thoughtfully, until it settles somewhere deep and starts reshaping the ground she stands on.
I don’t want to hand her something half-formed and sharp and watch it become another weight she bears alone.
If I’m wrong, I want to be wrong quietly. If I’m right… then I want to be careful.
So I start where I always do. With paperwork.
The Colter Creek Public Library smells of dust, lemon cleaner, and the faint ghost of old coffee. The building squats at the edge of Main Street, where it has stubbornly refused to modernize out of spite.
The front desk is unmanned when I walk in, which is either a good sign or a terrible one.
“Hello?” I call softly.
“Back here!” comes Millie Turner’s voice from behind the stacks. “Don’t touch anything yet.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” I say, stepping fully inside. “I know how you feel about fingerprints.”
She peers out from between two shelves, glasses perched on the end of her nose. “And yet people persist in having hands.”
Millie has been running this library since before I was born. She knows everyone’s business and none of it officially. She eyes me, then softens.
“You’re not here for horse books,” she says.
“No,” I admit. “Trying something new. Branching out.”
She snorts. “That’ll be the day. What are you looking for?”
“Archives,” I say. “Local paper. Nineties.”
Her eyebrows lift just enough to register interest. “That’s specific.”
“I contain multitudes,” I tell her solemnly.
She rolls her eyes but motions me toward the back room. “Be careful with the binders. They’re older than you and twice as fragile.”
The archive room is cooler, quieter. Rows of battered binders line the shelves, each labeled in Millie’s precise handwriting.
I pull one down and flip it open carefully, the plastic sleeves crackling in protest.
Bonnie Kentwood.
That’s the name I’m looking for.
At first, it’s harmless. A church fundraiser mention. A notice about a bake sale. A clipping from the county fair. Bonnie smiling at the camera, hair pulled back, eyes bright, one arm slung around someone cropped out of the frame.
She looks relaxed. Happy.
Young. Too young to become a headline.
I scan the pages slowly, methodically, the way I was trained. Letting patterns emerge instead of forcing them. And then I see it.
LOCAL WOMAN FOUND DEAD; INCIDENT RULED ACCIDENTAL.
The headline is small. Polite. Almost apologetic.
The article itself barely fills a column. Bonnie Kentwood, early thirties. Found near an old logging road outside town. Cause of death: injuries sustained in a barn fire.
Authorities report no evidence of foul play. The responding officer notes that the scene “suggested an unfortunate accident.”
That’s it.
I read it again, and a sentence near the bottom hooks under my ribs:
Fire investigators noted the circumstances were unusual, but not inconsistent with an accident.
Unusual.
That word doesn’t belong unless someone wants credit for noticing something without responsibility for explaining it.
I flip the page. Another article, a week later. Brief. Mentions community grief. Praises law enforcement for handling the situation “with discretion.”
Discretion is another word that raises red flags.
A letter to the editor follows. Unnamed. Asks why no inquest was held.
I feel a presence behind me and glance up to find Millie watching over her glasses.
“You find what you’re looking for?” she asks.
“I found… something,” I say carefully.
She hums. “That one rattled folks.”
“Still does?”
She tilts her head. “You don’t come digging into old papers for peace of mind, Wyatt.”
Fair.
Before I can respond, the door creaks open, and Earl Jensen wanders in, smelling faintly of hay and peppermint. He squints at me.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” he says. “Never seen you here before. Didn’t even know you could read, Wyatt.”
“Only the little words,” I reply with a smirk. “Pictures help.”
He chuckles and shuffles toward the large print westerns. “Millie, you get that new Clive Cussler in yet?”
“Earl, if I hear that name one more time, I’m banning you for a week.”
He laughs as if that’s his goal.
I go back to the binder. Another small note catches my eye. A sidebar mentioning Bonnie’s personal effects being returned to the family.
No list. No details. No mention of where they’d been found.
That omission bothers me more than anything else.
I close the binder slowly.
This isn’t how straightforward accidents are documented. Not when there’s nothing to hide. Not when answers are easy.
I thank Millie, promise Earl I’ll keep learning my letters, and step back out into the afternoon sun with a weight settling low in my chest.
Because this isn’t about curiosity anymore.
It’s about the way Abilene reads those letters, shoulders tight, eyes sharp. Not afraid, but searching. It’s about knowing that unanswered questions don’t stay quiet. They fester. They reach.
If something was misnamed here, if a choice was made to look away instead of look closer, I don’t want it clawing its way back into her life without warning.
So I keep going. Because Abilene deserves a history that doesn’t have pieces deliberately left out.
And if Colter Creek buried something decades ago, I’d rather be the one turning the soil than let it poison her from underneath.
On the way home, I’m… unsettled.
Off balance in that precise, irritating way that comes from noticing a hairline crack in something you’ve always assumed was solid ground.
The drive out of town is quiet. Too quiet. The road curves through pine and pasture, the late afternoon light slanting low and gold, and I should be thinking about dinner or tomorrow’s calls or the fact that I’ve misplaced my favorite mug. Again.
Instead, my brain keeps circling that word.
Unusual.
I stop at a pullout I’ve driven past a thousand times without noticing and shut off the engine. The silence presses in, broken only by the wind in the trees and the distant sound of cattle somewhere down the valley.
I rest my forehead against the steering wheel and exhale.
I don’t enjoy mysteries that pretend not to be mysteries.
I also don’t like the way this one feels personal.
Not because Bonnie Kentwood was Abilene’s mother, though that’s reason enough, but because this town has a long memory and a selective conscience.
Because I’ve lived here long enough to know when something’s been smoothed over instead of understood.
I hesitate, thumb hovering over my phone. Then I do what I probably should’ve done first.
I call my parents.
My mother answers on the second ring.
“Wyatt?” she says, warm and immediate. “Is everything alright?”
“Yes,” I say quickly. “Nothing’s wrong. I just… hi, Mom.”
There’s a pause. A smile I can hear. “Hi, sweetheart.”
In the background, I hear the scrape of a chair and my father’s voice, muffled. “Is that Wyatt? Tell him dinner’s almost ready if he’s on the way to visit.”
“I’m on speaker,” Mom says. “You’re both on speaker.”
“Good,” Dad says. “Are you on the way?”
I close my eyes briefly, smiling to myself. “Hi, Dad. I’m not coming today, I’m afraid.”
“Son,” Dad says. “You eating enough?”
“I am,” I lie gently.
There’s a beat. My mother’s tone shifts. “Alright. What’s going on? I can tell there’s something going on…”
This is why they were good teachers. They hear the question behind the greeting.
“I’m looking into something,” I say. “Town history. From before I was… really aware of things.”
Dad hums thoughtfully. “That covers a lot of ground.”
“Do you remember Bonnie Kentwood?” I ask.
The silence that follows is immediate and absolute.
Mom exhales first. “Well,” she says. “That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time.”
Dad clears his throat. “We went to school with her.”
My grip tightens on the phone. “You did?”
“Yes,” Mom says. “She was a year behind me. Smart. Quiet. Artistic. Had this way of listening that made you feel like you were saying something important.”
That sounds familiar.
“What do you remember about what happened?” I ask.
Another pause. Longer this time.
“It was a mess,” Dad says finally. “People talked.”
“About what?”
“About everything,” Mom answers. “And nothing. The fire. The land. Her marriage. Her sister leaving town. Folks were restless back then. Fires always make people look for someone to blame.”
“Some people thought her husband was involved,” Dad adds. “Unfairly, if you ask me. He was a distant man, not a violent one.”
“That rumor never sat right,” Mom says. “But it spread anyway. He didn’t help himself by pulling away after.”
My stomach tightens. “Did anyone ever question the ruling? The accident?”
Mom hesitates. “Quietly.”
Dad exhales. “There were… other rumors.”
I lean back against the headrest. “Like what?”
“There was talk of money,” Dad says. “Nothing proven. Just whispers.”
“Bonnie’s family had land,” Mom adds. “And bees. And that old reputation of keeping things close. People assumed there was more there than met the eye.”
“And another family?” I prompt.
“Yes,” Dad says. “Not the big ranches. Smaller. Local. Old grievances, maybe. Or imagined ones.”
“Names?” I ask.
Dad pauses. “That part’s fuzzy.”
Mom sighs softly. “We didn’t know what to believe. And then time did what time always does… it moved on.”
I stare out at the trees, the way the light fractures through the branches. “Did you ever think it wasn’t an accident?”
Mom doesn’t answer right away.
“When something’s ruled an accident very quickly,” she says carefully, “people tend to accept it. Especially when asking questions would make things harder for everyone involved.”
“That’s not an answer,” I say gently.
She exhales. “No. I didn’t think it was that simple.”
Dad clears his throat again. “Wyatt… why are you asking now?”
I consider lying, but I don’t.
“There’s someone in town who deserves clarity,” I say. “Even if it’s uncomfortable.
Mom softens. “Oh.”
That single syllable carries understanding. Concern. Approval. All at once.
“Be careful,” she says. “Digging up old stories doesn’t always give you what you want.”
“I know.”
“And,” Dad adds, “if you need help… you call.”
“I will,” I promise.
We hang up a few minutes later, my mother reminding me, again, that they’ve sent a care package and yes, it does include soup, and no, I shouldn’t pretend I don’t need it.
I sit there for a long moment after the call ends, phone resting warm in my hand.
This town didn’t forget. It just decided not to remember too loudly.
And Abilene, quiet, observant Abilene, has been living in the echo of that choice her whole life.
I start the engine.
Whatever this is, I’m not done looking.
Not now. Not when the pieces are finally starting to line up.