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Outside the back door, she tromped over a well-worn path in the snow to the fire pit. It was already overflowing with his things—clothes, golf clubs, fishing gear and even his high school yearbook and letterman’s jacket. Then she soaked the entire mass in lighter fluid she’d found in the garage before tossing in his precious trophy for playing on some big-deal football team. He was all-state or something. She should remember because he always bragged about it. Get a few drinks in him and it was back to the glory days of Bumble-Fuck High all over again.
But it was the last time she’d ever hear the time-worn story about that final touchdown. She was through with Chad Fucking Atwater and had already called an attorney, a number she’d gotten from a friend who had already been through two divorces and looked like she was heading for number three. But Brittlynn was going to beat her to the punch and file immediately. She and Chad were history!
When the prick came back, she thought, pouring the last of the lighter fluid on the plush green alligator he’d actually won for her playing a game of ring toss at the state fair about a billion years ago, he’d get one helluva surprise.
Ifhe came back.
There was always the chance that this time he was walking out for good.
“Fine,” she said as fat snowflakes began to fall from the heavens. “Just fucking fine.” Then she threw the empty bottle of lighter fluid onto the ever-growing pile of all of Chad’s things. Using his favorite lighter, an engraved silver thing he’d inherited from his dad, she lit a cigarette, one she’d found from a forgotten pack in his fishing vest. She’d smoked her last one fifteen years ago, at Chad’s insistence, but now, she thought, taking a deep drag, she might just take the habit up again. She was a free woman, could do what she wanted for the first time in her shitty adult life.
Cigarette clamped between her teeth, she rolled a final page of yellowed newspaper, then lit the paper with the tip of the Marlboro and watched as the paper caught quickly, flames rising as the obituary section of theWhimstick Timesblackened and curled. She dropped the flaming torch onto the pile of his crap that was half as tall as she was. It landed right on the hand-knit sweater his grandmother had given him the Christmas before she died. “Sorry, Granny,” Brittlynn said, though she wasn’t. Not one bit.
With a whoosh, the lighter fluid caught on the sweater, and flames, small at first, raced around the path of the fuel circling the pyre.
“Perfect,” Brittlynn whispered as more newspaper and pieces of dry kindling that she’d scattered throughout Chad’s precious possessions caught and crackled, thick smoke rising.
Jasper had wandered outside through the open door of the kitchen. He was tentatively walking through the snow, shaking a paw with each step.
Brittlynn scooped the tabby into her arms and whispered, “Don’t worry. We still have each other.” Stroking Jasper’s back, she stared at the fire with fascination, her smile growing, the heat of the flames warm on her face, melting the snowflakes that were beginning to fall. Within minutes the conflagration grew, rising higher and higher, crackling and shifting in the wind of the coming storm.
Brittlynn stepped back as the fire burned bright, reflecting on the windows of the cabin. She flicked the half-smoked Marlboro onto the burning mass and thought that she would never again have to watch Chad bite his fingernails and spit the bits onto the floor, nor would she have to put up with his farts and burps, both of which he seemed so proud of. Nor would she ever be disgusted that he could devour a plate of pancakes soaked in maple syrup and look for more before she’d even taken her first bite. And that annoying habit of his of dropping his underwear wherever he wanted or walking into the house with muddy boots. It wasn’t ever going to happen again.
He was a pig, she thought, petting Jasper’s fur as she stared at the conflagration. “No more,” she said. This cabin was hers—kinda. They rented it from her uncle and he’d promised to leave it to her when he died, so Chad had no claim to it. No claim to her.
With an effort she yanked her rings from her finger. Platinum gold on the band, a minuscule diamond on the engagement ring. She hurled both into the burning heap while still holding the cat and watched as black smoke curled skyward, past the tops of the snow-covered old growth firs surrounding the cabin.
Twenty years! Twenty damned years of her life! Wasted! She should never have lied in the first place. One mistake at fourteen, when she was a damned minor just six months out of braces, and the whole course of her life had been changed forever.
What an idiot she’d been! Flattered by an older guy who already had a smokin’-hot girlfriend. A rich girl who had everything Brittlynn would never have, including Chad. But she couldn’t just blame her fourteen-year-old self because she’d waited for him, lied for him, felt like she would die for him.
She’d been too young to know what a loser he was.
“Merry Christmas, you fucker, wherever you are!”
At that moment, Jasper stiffened, every muscle tensing. He was peering over her shoulder and began hissing, needle-sharp teeth exposed, ears flattened to his head.
“What—?”
Then he dug in.
Claws slicing into her jacket as he coiled, then leapt to scramble under the house.
Her heart sank. She knew what had happened before she looked over her shoulder: Chad was back. Well, fuck it. She didn’t care. He could go straight to hell.
But she was wrong.
She froze.
It wasn’t Chad.
Two people were standing between her and the house. A man and a woman in heavy coats and hats. Before the man held up his badge, she’d realized they were cops.
Crap!
She nearly peed herself.
“Mrs. Atwater,” the woman said. “We’re Detective Cole Thomas and Detective Aramis Johnson and we’d like to ask you some questions.”