Page 22 of Ink and Ashes

Holland

“ Y our brother is an ass,” I tell Cass when she opens her front door.

She laughs, taking the two bottles of wine from my hands. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

She moves aside so I can enter, then I head toward her couch, leaving my shoes at the front door. “Is Liv on her way?”

Cassidy nods as she moves to the kitchen and pours us each a glass of Pinot Grigio. “She’ll be here soon. They had to finish their mop-up from the fire last night. I invited Jess, Kelsey, Blair, and Sam too. I hope that’s okay.”

I nod, taking a glass from her, but internally I’m screaming. I already know none of the firefighters want me here, and spending time with them for an impromptu girls’ night is anxiety-inducing, to say the least. But I don’t tell Cass that. “That’s fine. Thanks.”

We head into the living room, and I don’t hesitate to make myself comfortable on her couch.

“What did Colson do this time?” Cassidy asks, taking the seat next to me.

“He called me at four-thirty this morning and told me he wanted to hear more about my theory, so I showed up at the station and filled him in on everything Dom and I have found. It still wasn’t enough to convince him of arson, and neither was the note I found on my car afterward.”

Her brows furrow. “What did the note say?”

“To leave before I burn with the town. Colson told me it only said what the rest of the town was thinking.”

Cassidy rears back. “You’re joking.”

I shake my head, and she scoffs.

“What a fucking dick. Believe me, he’ll be hearing an earful from me about this. Goddamn it.”

I shake my head, my lips quirking up at her little outburst. “Honestly Cass, don’t bother. Nothing he says to me now will surprise me. And I’m past the point of caring if he believes me or not.”

“That may be so, but our parents raised him better than that. Regardless of how much he dislikes your presence here, he has no excuse for implying that the whole town thinks you deserve to burn.”

She shakes her head, chugging back the rest of what’s in her glass. She’s angrier about this than I expected, and it’s…reassuring. I’ve never had someone go to bat like this for me before.

“After our conversation the other night, I told Colson he was an idiot for thinking you’re a fraud because you’re using an alias.

He told me he would hear you out, and I’d hoped that was all the convincing he needed to give you a shot.

The last thing I expected was for him to say something even worse.

I’m sorry he still hasn’t pulled his head out of his ass. ”

I let out a sigh, shrugging. “It’s not your fault—I appreciate you trying. From now on though, I’m just going to work and do what I can to get to the bottom of this situation, and he’ll just have to deal with it.”

Cassidy nods, but her solemn expression remains, so I shift the subject topic. We get lost in conversation and somehow manage to finish nearly an entire bottle of wine by the time Liv, Sam, and the other three girls show up around seven.

They walk in the front door without knocking, bags of takeout in their arms. The moment they see us, Liv raises her brows.

“Drunk already?” she asks, inferring our current state based on the giggles filling the living room.

“You took too long with the food,” Cass whines, standing from the couch to give them a hand. She’s a bit wobbly on her feet at first, but she catches herself quickly.

“Sorry. Mop-up took longer than expected,” one of the girls fills in. Considering she was out cleaning up at the fire, she must be either Jess or Kelsey, since the other two are paramedics.

“Everything okay?” Cass asks as she takes the food from them while they make their way further into the living room.

“Depends on if you think finding nothing is okay or not,” Liv says before she turns to me. “You must be Holland.”

I send her a small smile. “And you’re Liv.”

She mirrors my smile, but I can tell it’s forced.

I’ve seen Liv around the station and have heard about her from Cassidy, but this is our official introduction.

I was hesitant when Cass suggested I join them for girls’ night, but she can be very convincing.

Makes me wonder how anyone ever manages to say no to her—or if they even do.

So, here I am. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll come out of tonight with more friends. Like Colson, three of these girls are firefighters, but they’re clearly also close with Cassidy, so it’s hard to say whose opinion of me theirs is based on.

Selfishly, I’m hoping it’s the latter. I could really use more people from this town on my side. But from the skeptical look on Liv’s face, I’m guessing it’s the former.

Disappointing, but not all that surprising. It’ll no doubt make for an interesting girls’ night, though.

Brushing the feeling of judgement from Liv off, I introduce myself to the other four girls who I’ve had yet to see around town.

Jess and Blair shoot the same hesitant looks my way that Liv did, but Sam—Cass’s best friend—and Kelsey are quick to welcome me in with open arms. Sam doesn’t surprise me given how close she is to Cass, but Kelsey does.

She’s the other firefighter, so I was expecting more reluctance from her.

But I accept it nonetheless. I’ll take what I can get.

Once I can safely name each of the women in the room, we move to join Cass in the kitchen. The four of them picked up food from the local diner, Marydale’s, for dinner, and it smells amazing.

“Thanks for getting food,” I tell Liv, an effort to mend the animosity between us. “How much do I owe you?”

Liv glances at the empty one-litre wine bottle on the counter before turning toward me. “You bring more wine?”

Both Kelsey and Blair walked in with wine bottles too, but I simply nod.

“Then we’re good.”

Just like that, the tension I was feeling a moment ago washes away. I still doubt any of them will be as willing to trust me as Cass has been, but at least they aren’t immediately jumping to conclusions.

We grab our food and wine, then make our way back into Cass’s living room.

“So, you guys found nothing at the scene?” Cassidy asks as we get comfortable around the coffee table.

Jess shakes her head. “Not even an ignition site, and neither did Fire Investigation.”

Kelsey meets my gaze while she speaks next. “At this point, we’re not sure if that’s a good or bad thing.”

Cass looks at me and I let out a sigh.

It’s definitely bad, but I don’t say that out loud.

“Dom doesn’t think it was an accident,” Liv adds. “He told FI that he’d look more into it. He was going to give you a call after shift, but I told him we’d fill you in.”

I nod. “Thanks.”

She smiles before the conversation shifts to a new topic, but my mind stays locked on the barn fire for the rest of the night.

Looks like I have a trip to make tomorrow.

The drive to fifteen thirty-eight Creighton Valley Road is short but beautiful, the rural winding roads guiding me through the mountains. It only takes twenty minutes before my GPS is telling me the address is coming up on my right. I slow my car to a roll as the driveway appears.

After I left the fire station yesterday morning, I spent most of my day looking into the property before going over to Cassidy’s. It wasn’t an accident that the arsonist chose a structure this time around, and I wanted to find out if this specific location held any significance to the area.

It’s significant, alright. Turns out this property, once known as the Welland Ranch, was the location of the worst structure fire EGFD has ever faced.

Thirty years ago, the house went up in flames in the middle of the night, and it ultimately took both parents and two of their three children with it.

I wasn’t expecting this investigation to be happy, but I definitely wasn’t expecting anything as horrific as this.

After learning about the history of this house, I prepared myself for what to expect. But as I turn onto the hundred-acre property, struck with the view of a half-burnt farmhouse, the barn behind it nearly in ashes, I realize nothing could’ve prepared me for this.

In my research on this land and the family, I’d begun wondering if the only surviving child, Joseph Welland, could be responsible for the fires.

It seemed the most likely possibility, given what happened to his parents and siblings when he was young.

He’s likely to have a lot of trauma from losing his whole family and then growing up in the system, and it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn he came back to the area he grew up in with a penchant for setting fires.

But that idea was quickly squashed when I stumbled upon a death record for him, ten years after the fire had happened. He was twenty-five. The cause of death was unknown, and with his history, it could’ve been anything.

Being here now, staring at the two burned buildings, I can’t help but wonder why the arsonist chose this location to burn.

This specific location, with its history, makes me wonder if it’s someone who was close to the Welland family.

This year marks thirty years since the main house burned down, so it seems odd to me that this happened to be the year the barn caught fire too.

The possibility that this wasn’t the arsonist at all has crossed my mind.

Despite the significance of fire on this property, there’s nothing and no one around for kilometres, and everyone from the only family who lived in this house has been dead for at least twenty years.

The barn is made entirely of old, rotting wood, and from all I’ve learned, is the ideal structure for a lightning fire.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to check it out anyway.

As I pull my car down the long driveway, past the blackened farmhouse that has never been fully repaired, toward the back of the property where the barn sits, my shoulders fall in defeat.

If this was the arsonist, I’m going to have a hard time proving it.

There’s nothing left of the building that once stood here—the roof and walls are completely caved in, and my guess is that any evidence there was burned in the fire.

I get out of my vehicle anyway and head inside.

It’s overcast and smoke still fills the air, but with the roof gone, it’s bright enough that I don’t need my flashlight.

Walking carefully, I pull on a set of latex gloves as I make my way through what’s left of the building, keeping my eyes peeled for any indication of an accelerant or ignition site.

As I expected, there isn’t much remaining. There are a few areas that look like they could be the point of ignition, but with how burnt everything is, it’s hard to tell for sure.

I spend about an hour searching the barn, hoping I can find something that EGFD or FI missed.

But nothing pops out. That is, until the sun peeks through the clouds and reflects off something shiny, catching my attention.

When I turn in the direction of the light, it disappears.

My brows pull together and I adjust my angle, hoping to see it again .

I walk toward the general location I first saw it, and when I’m a few feet away, the sun catches again.

Heart racing, I dart forward. I’m careful as I dig through the ashes to find a small, metallic circle.

It’s no larger than my thumb nail, and though it’s bent and burnt, I can tell right away that it’s a tab from a candle wick.

My eyes widen, my heart rate picking up. Maybe it was the arsonist after all. Why else would there be evidence of a candle if it hadn’t been?

Maybe this is the piece I need to finally convince Colson.

I quickly scan the place to see if I can find more, but I turn up empty. So I pull the Ziploc bag out of my pocket and drop the tab inside before taking off in the direction of my car to head back into town.