Page 50 of Watch Me Burn

As if reading my mind, Anna mumbled, “She is so young.” She traced Lisa in the picture. I placed a hand on her shoulder.

“We’ll find the answers to this, I swear we will.” Beyond wishing the best for Anna’s safety and mental well-being, I prayed that the smiley young girl in this photo was not forced into any dark circumstances that John wouldn’t want to have brought up to the surface. Lisa looked like she was dreaming large for the future.

“Lisa Coffman,” Anna mumbled weakly.

When we flipped back to the eleventh-year pages, we found Lisa right away. She was technically our senior, but by the way she’d been led around in that footage, she seemed far more vulnerable and susceptible than we ever were. Fuck, it better have just been my jaded mind from prison making everything look darker than it was in reality.

Anna returned her focus to her laptop. “We should track down her Facebook and try to get in touch with her. Maybe she has some insight that we could put toward solving this mystery.”

Mystery? The truth grew harder to ignore. An old man with an underaged girl on a trip he lied about.

“And maybe something happened that she’s too traumatized to talk about now,” I thought out loud.

Anna’s eyes shot in my direction. “You think she’d be reluctant to open up about her relationship with my dad?”

I shrugged. “Well, he obviously hid it for some reason, right? If Lisa thinks we’re gonna dig up stuff she’d rather keep buried, I bet she won’t be jumping to answer our questions.”

Anna bit her lip.

“Still,” I added, “it never hurts to try. Maybe she’s been dying to share this part of her life with someone and just didn’t know how to.”

Anna clearly registered the uncertainty in my voice, but she nodded anyways. We both recognized that there were zero options ahead of us that didn’t hint at a dark ending. Unless there really was an innocent explanation for all of this. But so far it seemed as if John had led a vastly different life behind the scenes. Anna and I both were ready to acknowledge that, even if not aloud.

Anna tracked down Lisa through a long search on Facebook. We scrolled through pages and pages of Lisa Coffmans before we realized we could’ve limited our radius to just this state because she hadn’t moved out of Massachusetts.

“She’s in a super rural area now,” Anna commented.

Lisa definitely wasn’t living the suburban dream with a two-story house and car, but the little cottage wasn’t so bad. But anything wasn’t so bad after a cell.

Chapter 23

Ethan

We pulled up in front of a small bungalow on the outskirts of Massachusetts. Gas stations wouldn’t crop up for miles, so we hoped Lisa wouldn’t need to chat over Dunkin’ Donuts.

I parked Anna’s Toyota in front of the lawn since Lisa’s driveway was littered with . . . trash. There were beer cans, old magazines, a busted lawn chair, and filled plastic bags stuck in the bushes. Maybe she wasn’t living the country-life dream after all.

“Are you ready?” I asked Anna. She was in the process of gathering her father’s journal entries and yearbook.

Smiling weakly, she said, “As ready as one can be for such a terrible visit. Let’s do it.”

I truly admired her strength. While many saw strength in physical might or how loudly one could bark, real strength was internal. Prison had taught me that. How many would relentlessly chase a truth that might be darker than the abyss, just because it was right? And even more so . . . for my sake. A nobody.

I loved this woman so fucking much.

We got out of her car and started for Lisa’s door. On our way there, a little boy and girl burst outside and ran down the porch steps.

“Woah, woah!” I shrieked as the young boy almost tumbled down the steps. He slipped on his Crocs and was about to hit the floor when I saved his fall.

The boy was trembling in my arms. I could hear a rush of footsteps bolting to us from inside.

“There ya go, little fella,” I cooed while softly rubbing his back. Anna watched me quietly from the side as the younger girl also looked up in awe.

“JIMMY, ARE YOU OKAY?!” A woman ran out of the house and to where me and the young boy stood. She took him in his arms, running her eyes along his body as if to find the slightest nick.

“He’s fine,” I reassured her. The woman inspected the young boy for some more time before locking onto me.

“I’m so sorry. My kids are balls of endless energy,” she sighed. As she wagged her finger in the boy’s face for a lecture, I snuck a glimpse in Anna’s direction. This had to be Lisa—black, thick hair, and the likeness was just there. One thing I did pick up, though, was that there was a powerful air to this woman. The Lisa in the yearbook seemed bright-eyed and agreeable, but something told me the mother of this house would do anything she saw as necessary to protect her and her children.

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