Page 15 of Ink and Ashes

Holland

I t’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 finding something .

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 surprised if 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.

I start by doing another deep dive into the fire history of the entire province. I’ve skimmed information about fires outside of Ember Grove’s jurisdiction, but until now, I haven’t looked very deep.

After these past few days, I decided it was time.

I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that if this is arson, this likely isn’t the perpetrator’s first offense.

Whoever has been setting them has been smart about making sure they don’t get caught—to the point where no one in town even considered arson a possibility before I arrived, which suggests that it’s not some kid setting fires for fun.

There’s been a level of sophistication in the fires that someone random off the street could never accomplish, and my gut is telling me that this is someone who has been an arsonist for years.

If that’s the case, I’m also guessing Ember Grove isn’t the first town they’ve hit.

I started looking into things last night, but I didn’t get very far before falling asleep.

Today, I decided my best bet would be to look for signs of arson in other towns in the province.

Dom mentioned that there aren’t many proven cases of wildfire arson within Canada, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

The problem is, the province averages sixteen hundred wildfires a year.

Chances of me being able to find one proven arson case out of that many are slim, to say the least. So rather than spending every waking minute trying to find something online, I take a risk and post on a BC wildfire social media thread.

Using an alias, I explain what it is I’m looking for and ask that anyone who might have information that can help send me an email.

I created a fake email address, knowing I’m likely to get a bunch of spam from people who have nothing better to do with their lives.

But hopefully, one person who can actually help will stumble upon this thread too.

All it takes is one.

Once I’ve finished doing that, I pull up the timeline I created of the fires so far, starting with the first one of the year and ending with the most recent one, fire number eight.

I’ve reviewed the timeline countless times, trying to determine if there’s a pattern with the fires.

Aside from the fact that they’ve all occurred within a 2,000-hectare radius in which Ember Grove is directly centred, there’s nothing tying them all together.

We know now that at least some of the fires so far have been natural, which makes it difficult to find any patterns between them.

As I stare at the timeline, my attention is pulled toward the dates they’ve all occurred.

The first fire started on April 6th, and it spanned 0.

8 hectares. The next fire happened four days later, on April 10th, and it was controlled at 0.

5 hectares. The third and smallest so far started seven days later on April 17th, and given that it was near a body of water and in an area prone to fires, it was less than 0. 1 hectares when it was controlled.

After that, things start to get weird. The next fire began on April 27th, ten days after the smallest, and it spanned 1.

2 hectares. Eleven days later came number five, and that one grew to 3.

6 hectares before they contained it. Then twelve days after that, the sixth fire—the one they were fighting when I arrived in town—started, and it grew to 7. 4 hectares.

My eyes narrow as I look at the date of the next fire—the one that’s still burning. June 2nd . Thirteen days after fire six.

That’s when it hits me.

Ten. Eleven. Twelve. Thirteen.

The number of days between fires four, five, six, and seven have increased by one each time. That can’t be a coincidence. If it is, it’s a hell of a weird one.

I look at the date of the eighth fire, and my shoulders fall. It started on June 6th, only four days after the previous, which doesn’t fit the pattern. But when I notice that it only grew to 0.3 hectares, my hackles go up again.

All the fires larger than a hectare follow a clear pattern.

It’s entirely possible that the fire on the sixth was naturally caused, while the bigger ones were set by the arsonist. It’s not like the arsonist can control when a holdover fire will begin, but they can absolutely control the amount of time between the fires they set.

That brings us to today. It’s been thirteen days since the seventh and largest fire began, so based on these calculations, the next wildfire should occur…

My eyes widen.

Tomorrow.

Shit.

Without thinking twice, I call Dom.

Dom stopped by after our phone conversation so I could fill him in on the details in full, and he left a little while ago. He assured me he’d let Colson know they should prepare for a wildfire tomorrow and promised to keep me in the loop if anything was reported.

Since he left, I’ve been working on the article I plan on eventually publishing in the town paper as well as running through every other piece of research I’ve gathered, double- and triple-checking to make sure I haven’t missed anything else.

I have no clue how I didn’t notice the pattern sooner, and I’m beating myself up for it.

I’m pulled from my work when another knock sounds on the door of my room. I stand from the bed to swing it open, thinking maybe Dom came back.

I’m shocked when I find Cassidy on the other side.

“H-hi,” I tell her, uncertainty laced in my tone. She gave me her number the day I met her at the station, and we’ve been texting ever since. We have plans to meet up for coffee tomorrow, so I’m curious what was so urgent that she’s at my door at eight o’clock at night.

“Hey,” she says with a shy smile. “I know it’s weird I’m here, but I was wondering if I could talk to you about something?”

“Sure,” I say, moving aside to let her in. But my heart rate accelerates with her words. In our text conversations over the last week, I told Cassidy about my breakup with Gabriel. She’s easy to talk to, so when she asked, I didn’t think twice about opening up to her a bit.

But I haven’t given her any of the major details about why I truly left—including that Holland Rhodes isn’t my real identity. The fact that she’s here now coupled with the look on her face tells me her brother may have filled her in on the fact that I’m not who I say I am.

She enters and I let the door fall shut behind her, then awkwardly gesture toward the bed.

“Um…should we sit?”

She lets out a nervous chuckle and says, “Probably a good idea,” which does nothing to reassure me.