My phone vibratesloudly next to my bed. I know something’s wrong before I even hear it in her voice.
“Sam,” Becca breathes out, sounding as if she’s on speaker.
She doesn’t say hi, and I can feel the tension in her voice immediately. I’m already reaching for my keys, moving on instinct.
“What happened?” I ask, wanting to gather all the details.
“I got an alert from the cabins,” she says. There’s wind in the background, the low hum of her car. “There was a motion alarm, figured it could have been an animal at first. And then shortly after … smoke was detected.”
My chest tightens. “Are you there?”
“On my way,” she says. “Five minutes out.”
“You shouldn’t go alone.”
“I’m not waiting,” she says, sharp and focused.
“I’m coming,” I say, already moving. I don’t try to be quiet so as not to wake my grandparents. I don’t have time to worry about what the neighbors might think when rushing out in the middle of the night.
“Sam—” she starts.
“I’m coming,” I repeat.
“Okay.” She exhales. I can hear the relief in her tone.
“I think it’s him, Rick.”
Of course it is. “What makes you think that?”
“The cameras,” she says. “I set them to alert on motion after dark. And I added a smoke trigger last week.”
I pause mid-step. “You added—what?”
“After his frantic behavior with the salon, showing up at my open house, his texts to you, something was really off, frantic,” she declares.
Of course she did, Becca is always taking care of everything, seeing through the bullshit and getting right to the root of the problem.
“I cleared brush around the cabins too,” she continues. “Basic fire line. Nothing crazy. Just … precaution. You know how our summers can be.”
I know it’s true, some locals don’t call it summer around here, they just call it fire season. But this cuts deeper; she felt as if she needed a plan for this. Not because she’s paranoid, but because she’s prepared. And I brought this monster into our lives.
“I’ll be there in ten,” I relay, keeping my voice steady.
“Okay.”
The line stays open for a second longer than necessary. Neither of us is hanging up right away, wanting to hear each other’s breathing still.
By the time I pull up, her car is already there. Headlights cutting across the dirt road. The property is dead quiet except for the river and the wind moving through the ponderosas at the edge of the lot. The driver’s door hangs open like she got out in a hurry. I don’t like that.
I kill the engine and step out fast, scanning.
“Becca,” I cry out.
“I’m here,” Becca hollers from a distance.
Her voice comes from near the cabin. I round the cornerand find her standing just outside the cleared line around the structure, phone in hand, screen lit. She is looking around like a detective, not frantic like my heart feels.
“There.” She nods toward a patch of ground off to the side.
