Page 17 of Ink and Ashes

Colson

“ H ey, Col. Can we talk for a minute?” Dom asks as he approaches me where I’m doing some cleaning in the bay.

I swing a dirty rag over my shoulder. “Sure, what’s up?”

He glances around at the other firefighters filling the room. “Not here,” he says, then jerks his head in the direction of the lobby.

Brows furrowed, I nod, leading him toward my office. I close the door behind us, and the moment it clicks shut, Dom’s mouth is moving.

“I just got off the phone with Holland.”

My molars grind together at the mention of her name. “She’s still here?”

Dom nods, and I frown.

“Be careful with her. She’s not who she says she is,” I say without thinking.

His brows pull together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

I open my mouth to respond, but the words get stuck in my throat. It’s been five days since I found out Holland’ s been lying, and the only person I’ve shared that information with so far is Cassidy—whose response was “ I’m sure she has a good reason for it .”

I’m not so sure that’s the case, but her words made me reconsider my threat to out Holland to the town. Because on the off-chance Cass is right, I’d feel like an ass for making people even more wary of her than they already are.

That’s what I keep telling myself is the reason I haven’t shared that information with anyone else.

I was hoping she’d take what I said to heart and leave town.

Clearly, that isn’t the case, but despite my anger toward her lie and the threats I threw her way, I continue to hesitate to tell Dom she’s lying.

I think part of me wonders if she has a valid reason for lying to us all.

She mentioned that the things I would find would make things worse, which only makes me more suspicious of her.

But for all I know, she could be a victim of something horrific and is trying to keep whatever it is hidden.

I know firsthand how easy it is for the media to make things up, paint you like a villain, and if something like that happened to her, I wouldn’t blame her for using an alias.

If it were anyone else, I wouldn’t give a second thought to spilling her secrets. But despite how badly I want her gone, I haven’t been able to bring myself to share hers with anyone else.

I don’t want to think about what that could mean.

“Nothing. Just be careful,” I mutter, deciding to keep her secret a little while longer. Dom’s a good judge of character, and I trust that he knows what he’s doing. I just have to hope that her name is the only thing Holland Rhodes is lying about. “What did she say?”

Confusion crosses his features, but he shakes it off quickly.

“She uncovered a new pattern with some of the fires. Didn’t give too many details over the phone, but I’m going to go over there after shift. She did let me know that we can expect to get a call to another wildfire tomorrow. She’s predicting it’ll be at least a hectare.”

My brows pull together. “How the hell would she know that? ”

“Not sure. Like I said, she didn’t give a ton of details. I just wanted to let you know so we can prepare.”

“Thanks,” I say through clenched teeth. “How are things going with her otherwise?”

“Haven’t found anything so far.”

My shoulders relax some. “Well, let me know if you do.”

Dom nods, heading back to the bay. I glance at the clock on the wall briefly, noting that it’s nearing four o’clock.

“Hey, Dom?” I call out, pulling his attention back to me. “You can head over now. We’ve got things covered here, and I’m curious about what she found.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. Shift’s done in a couple hours anyway. We’re good.”

He thanks me then heads out to his truck. But the tension I felt a moment ago with him doesn’t fade even after he’s gone.

I’ve given lots of thought to my dad’s suggestion at dinner and Dom’s urges to hear her out, but I still haven’t decided whether or not to do so. Every time I pick up the phone to call her, I stop myself.

Are you denying her theory because you’re sure it’s just that, or simply because of your resentment toward the press?

I still haven’t figured out which is the truth.

The only thing I know for sure is that all this has Dom and me glancing over our shoulders at every turn.

It’s created a rift between the two of us, knowing he’s working with who I’d consider to be the enemy.

I don’t like it, but at this moment in time, I feel powerless to stop it.

Because despite the things I know about her, a voice in my head won’t stop screaming at me.

What if she’s right?

What ifs fucking suck.

The next day, our entire shift passes without a single call.

Beau and I stopped by Wildfire, the town’s one and only bar, after work for a beer and an attempt to clear my head from everything over the past few weeks.

By the time I arrive home, it’s after eight p.m. Part of me feels grateful the day is almost over, knowing that whatever the timeline Holland found was likely just a fluke.

But the other part of me feels uneasy, and I’m having a hard time placing my finger on why.

I eat a few slices of the pizza I picked up after leaving the bar, then turn on the TV to drown out my thoughts for a while.

After a few episodes of Family Feud , I start flicking through channels to find something new.

When I land on a channel showing a recording of a benefit concert from last summer in Toronto, my mind rushes right back to the woman who’s turned my life upside down over the past few weeks.

I have so many questions about her. What happened back home that was so bad she doesn’t want anyone to know her real name? So bad that she had to move across the country to escape it? And why, of all the cities and towns she could’ve picked from, did she choose this one?

I’m pulled from my thoughts when my pager buzzes on the coffee table, and I let out a groan.

I thought we’d gotten lucky with not getting called to a wildfire; that it would prove Holland’s timeline theory wrong, since she was so sure we’d have one today.

But as I stare at the vibrating pager, my shoulders tense.

All Dom said yesterday when he mentioned the timeline was that one would happen today, and though it’s nearing eleven p.m., it is still the sixteenth. When I pick the pager up to see the word FIRE written across the small screen, my stomach plummets.

I have no good explanation for why Holland was able to predict a fire would happen today if not for her being onto something.

I grab my gear and head for my truck without hesitation. When I arrive at the station ten minutes later, Dom, Beau, Liv, and a handful of the volunteers are already here.

“Structure fire at one-five-three-eight Creighton Valley Road. All units responding,” repeats over the loud speaker inside the station. Within minutes, those of us who are here are in our turnouts and loaded on the trucks .

The moment I slam the passenger door closed, I pause, turning to Dom in the driver’s seat.

“Didn’t Holland say it would be a wildfire?”

His brows pull together, and after a moment, he nods.

I feel like I should be relieved knowing that this may just be a coincidence. Instead, the pit in my stomach grows larger.

“Wait, fifteen thirty-eight Creighton Valley. Why is that address familiar?” Dom asks as he turns on the sirens and pulls the engine out of the bay.

I shrug, too focused on pulling up the address on the truck’s GPS.

“Fifteen thirty-eight. Fifteen thirty-eight,” Wade Turner, one of the volunteers, mutters from the back seat. I turn around, brows pulled together, as realization settles over his features. “Isn’t that the old Welland Ranch?”

My eyes widen as I turn to Dom, whose face is scrunched in confusion.

We all know the history of the Welland Ranch.

About thirty years ago, the main house on the property caught fire in the middle of the night.

The ranch is a hundred-acre property, with no neighbours around for kilometres, so it took a while for anyone to call it in.

By the time the fire department made the twenty-minute drive out, both parents, Susan and Henry, and two of their three young kids—Lisa, age twelve, and Tommy, age ten—had burned alive.

Given that it was well before the time when fire alarms were required in homes in the province and they’d all been fast asleep, we had to assume they went quickly and painlessly, at least.

My dad was a lieutenant at the time, my grandfather the chief.

I know from their retellings of that night that it’s the worst fire either of them have ever fought.

This area had never seen anything quite like it, and there hasn’t been anything like it since.

Aside from the fire that resulted in the incorporation of the town, the Welland fire is one of the most horrific in Ember Grove’s history.

The only surviving child, Joseph—known to everyone as Joey—was fifteen at the time and had been spending the night at a friend’s.

Neither Susan nor Henry had any extended family remaining, so he ended up being put into foster care.

My dad told me he did his best to keep track of Joey for as long as possible, but eventually, he was lost to the system and vanished for a decade.

The next trace of him online after that is a death certificate, cause of death unknown.

My dad assumed it was either drugs or suicide, and neither would surprise me.

I can’t imagine the things that poor kid faced.

He lost his entire family, was ripped from his home and the town he grew up in, and sent to live with God knows who, God knows where.

Regardless of the cause, at least he’s not suffering anymore.

After that night, the bank took ownership and started to rebuild the house.

But after multiple delays in permits, the build was put on hold.

It never did get finished, and though it’s been listed as-is multiple times over the past three decades, no one’s ever bought it, probably due to the sordid history the property holds.

The house, the barn, and the entire hundred-acres have sat empty and abandoned ever since.

Which means the fact that we’re responding to a fire on the property is alarming.

We make it to the scene in no time. The moment we cross the property line, my eyes train on the smoke billowing from behind the main house, just before the tree line. Even in the dark, it’s obvious, thanks to the glowing orange from the flames below.

As we approach, I realize it’s the barn, and the entire structure is engulfed in fire.

Given the location of the property and how run-down this old, wooden barn is, it shouldn’t be a surprise.

The area is dry and surrounded by hay—a perfect accelerant for a fire.

Simply put, it’s honestly more shocking that it hasn’t caught fire before now.

One lightning strike would do the trick, and if I were a betting man, I’d assume that’s what happened here tonight.

But I’m not a betting man, and something about the scene feels off to me.

Chief Whitlock starts calling out orders, and we get to work. It takes a while to get the fire out, and once we finally do, we take a quick look around to see if we can find anything.

We don’t. At least nothing that can be spotted beneath the dark sky.

Thankfully, the structure wasn’t quite close enough to the tree line that the fire spread into the forest. But in an area as dry and secluded as this, it would’ve been easy enough for a stray ember to spark a spot fire, so we also do a quick walk through the area to make sure that didn’t happen.

When we turn up empty, we conclude that the fire is out. We’ll report our findings to Fire Investigation, and they’ll send someone out to take a look at the scene.

With our mop-up done, we all pile into the trucks and make our way back to the station. Ten minutes into the twenty-minute drive, I shift my headset and turn to Dom, covering the microphone so only he can hear me.

He had called me this morning asking for the day off to do more investigating with Holland.

I reluctantly agreed, because even though we knew there was the possibility of receiving a call, I also wanted to know what they might find, and he promised to come in if we did get one.

On the phone, I’d asked how things went last night with her, and he’d brushed it off, claiming he wasn’t sure what to make of it yet but would let me know when he did. So I let it go.

But now, I need to know.

“What did Holland have to say last night?”

His brows furrow as if he’d completely forgotten about his conversation with her yesterday. Then his eyes widen.

“You need to talk to her. She should be the one to fill you in.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t think this fire was an accident.” His throat works as he swallows. “And if anyone is able to figure out why, it’s gonna be her.”

My brows furrow, but I don’t question him further. And despite the fact that it’s after four o’clock in the morning by the time we get back to the station, I do the thing I’ve been debating doing for weeks.

I pick up the phone and call Holland.