Page 5 of The Fire Went Wild

So there was a gangland-style murder a few weeks ago outside Beaumont. The Dennis Randall murder, for those of you who know about it. Open and shut case, right? He pissed off the wrong people and they came for him? That’s what it looks like.

Except my cousin showed me a picture from the crime scene. There were markings left on both bodies—carved into Randall’s skin and left in Kayley Burton’s blood. My cousin said he didn’t know what they could mean, but I recognized them IMMEDIATELY. From thePellerin case. We had a whole thread about it here.

I don’t click on the link right away, just skim the rest of the post and jump down to the comments. Which are wild.

emd89039: Holy shit, those are the exact same. It has to be connected.

FlapsyMcGee:Did you tell your cousin? What’s the Jefferson County sheriff’s department doing about this? They’re investigating it, right? Please tell me they’re investigating it.

WombatCombatSlombat:This is occult shit. Those are Satanic symbols. Probably MS-13-related or something.

My curiosity gets the better of me. I’m as susceptible as anyone, I suppose. I scroll back up and click on the link to the Pellerin case.

It’s not a text post, like I’m expecting. It’s a set of three blurred pictures, a trigger warning for graphic content. I click through without thinking.

A body.

A man’s body, naked, spread out crucifixion style in a field of soft, silvery grass. His eyes have been replaced with sunflowers. His mouth is stuffed with morning glory vines. Animal bones are arranged around him in an ornate, intricate design, almost like sound waves rippling away from him. Antlers are attached to his head somehow, the points decorated with more flowers.

And then I see it. Something’s painted on his chest in careful, neat lines of black paint.

A symbol.

A symbol I’ve seen before.

For a moment, I just stare down at my laptop screen, my breath squeezing tight in my chest. I can hear my blood rushing through my ears like the ocean. The entire room seems to buzz.

The last time I spoke to Edie, I saw that symbol. We were on a video chat and she told me it was street art in Roanoke. I’d takena screenshot of it because it reminded me a little of the series I was doing for the Moonrise Gallery, kind of primal and eerie.

She said it wasfucking street art.And I believed her.

But if she was lying about being in Roanoke, what else could she have lied to me about?

I fumble for my phone. It’s hard to breathe. It’s hard tothink. But somehow I scroll back through my phone’s camera reel until I find it. Black paint, a white wall. A smudge of Edie’s dark hair in the corner.

It’s the exact same symbol.

Adrenaline surges through me, and I scan through the information about the pictures, hardly registering the words. The body was found in southwest Louisiana, down in the marshes there. The victim was a fisherman in the area. Well-liked. No criminal record. Police are baffled.

I click back to the first post, about the gang killing. My thoughts fill with static as I read through the responses. No one knows anything. The Jefferson County sheriff’s department is looking into it.

I shove my laptop away and stare at the half-finished paintings leaning up against the far wall. The picture is still up on my phone, the sigil almost glowing. Almost buzzing, like it’s pulsing with electricity.

I know what I should do is call the cops. But I don’t trust them to actually give a shit about Edie. There’s pressure to solve Scott Hensner’s murder, not find his ex-wife. And she was estranged from her parents, more or less, so they haven’t shown a ton of interest in finding her, either.

Which means I have to do it.

Which means?—

I decide to do what I’m going to do in a span of seconds. I know I shouldn’t. I know it’s stupid and expensive and very likely dangerous. I’m doing it anyway. For Edie.

I’m going to Louisiana.

CHAPTER TWO

CHARLOTTE

My rental car sweeps down the highway, Louisiana unrolling out in front of me—golden-green grass and weepy-looking live oak trees trussed with Spanish moss. I flew into Houston and then rented a car and went east, leaving Houston’s glittering glass-and-steel civilization behind for this. Swamp land. Old trees. An enormous pressing sky.

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