Page 29 of Ink and Ashes
I take another step closer. “I’m not going to ask again. Who. Are. You?”
She meets my gaze, holding strong. The fire in her eyes is clear, and despite my persistence, she doesn’t back down.
I scoff. “Fine, don’t tell me. But just know that lying to everyone about who you are doesn’t exactly build faith in you.”
She shrugs. “Honestly Colson, I don’t really care. I have faith in myself, and if the town knew who I really am, I’m not sure that would help much either. I know the truth about myself, and regardless of whether you trust me or not won’t change anything. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have work to do.”
She shifts to move around me, but I block her path again.
I’ll admit, something about the fear in her tone has me second-guessing my initial opinion of her. It’s clear something happened—something she obviously doesn’t want anyone to know. Part of me even feels bad for her, but I still can’t find it in me to believe she has good intentions here.
And now I have the power to get rid of her.
“Hell no. You’re done here. I’m not going to tell you again. You’re wasting your time. No one in this town is going to be on your side once they find out you’re nothing but a liar.”
She rears back. “Are you threatening me?”
I take a step closer to her. “No, Rhodes.” I sneer. “I’m warning you. Get. Out. Of. This. Town.”
The fire in her eyes flashes brighter. “You don’t get to tell me what to do. I have just as much right to be here as anyone else.”
“Actually, you don’t. And once everyone here learns that you’re nothing but a liar, you’ll learn just how far we’re willing to go to protect each other.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“Watch me.”
“Colson, please,” she says softly. The sound of her begging is almost enough to make me forget how much I don’t like her.
But not quite.
“Pack your shit, Rhodes. If I see you again, I’m telling the town that you’re not whoyou’ve convinced us you are.” I start walking past her in the direction of my truck. With my door on the handle, I add, “And it’s Lieutenant Caldwell.”
CHAPTER 11
Holland
It’s been five days since Colson came by the inn to confront me. But despite his threats to tell the town I’m a liar, I haven’t left. I’m not a quitter, and I can feel it in my bones that we’re getting close to findingsomething. I can’t leave yet, and if he decides to tell everyone in the meantime, so be it.
My one saving grace is that he doesn’t know who I actually am. Will it make my job here harder if people think I’m lying? Yes. But not nearly as hard as if they find out my real identity, so I’m holding on strong to that and hoping no one figures it out.
Dom and I have managed to make it out to the scene of four more fires in the time since Colson looked me up, and not once has he mentioned anything about it. I know he spoke with Colson after we checked out the scene of fire eight and said he would be helping me, but other than that, Colson hasn’t come up. I’m sure he knows I’m still working with Dom, so I’m not sure why he hasn’t told him what he found out about me.
Or maybe he has, and Dom just doesn’t care. Though if Colson’s reaction was any indication, I’d be surprisedif that were the case.
Unfortunately, we’ve only managed to visit four scenes over the past few days because some of the fires were so deep in the forest. We checked out the first three a few days ago, then he had to work, so we didn’t get back out until yesterday.
It took us over three hours to make it to yesterday’s scene, and my body is paying the price for it today. Dom had warned me that the hikes to some of them would be long and rough, and that was an understatement. I’m in good shape, but I’m not used to hiking in the forest on uneven terrain for hours at a time. Hence why we only made it to one scene yesterday, and why I’ll have to wait a few days before we brave the next one.
The first three fires were all scenes I’d been to on my own since they had stayed small and were in generally easy areas. I hadn’t found anything when I went, and Dom didn’t find anything either. The scenes looked the same as fire number eight—all signs pointing toward them being zombie fires.
The scene we visited yesterday, though, was different. It was the scene of fire four, and the first fire this year that spanned more than a hectare. There was no sign of it being a zombie fire, but there was no sign of human interference either. No campsites nearby, no physical evidence, nothing. Dom couldn’t seem to figure out what the cause was, and the fact that Fire Investigation also labelled it as ‘unknown’ only adds to the suspicion.
We’ll probably head out to it again at some point after we visit the scenes of the other few fires. There are three left we haven’t checked, all of which spanned between 3 and 11 hectares. One of them is the Sugar Lake fire, which was finally removed from the BC wildfire map this morning after twelve days of burning.
Since Dom is working again and my entire body aches from the hike yesterday anyway, I’m spending the day doing more research at the inn. I’m not sure what I hope to uncover that I haven’t already found, but maybe something new will pop out at me now that I have a better idea of the kinds of things to look for.
Dom really has been a big help.
