Death is in the Details

by Heather Sunseri

  I didn’t know what I was looking for, but I felt like I was examining a crime scene. And I wanted to preserve things for the evidence team. I pulled out my camera and snapped a couple of photos, then pulled on a pair of latex gloves, which I always kept in my camera bag. Very carefully, I moved Finch’s accounting reports to the side and opened the manila folder.

  Inside was a stack of articles. Some were cut out from an actual newspaper, others were printed from the internet. The top article was about the two recent fires—the Reynolds fire and the Porter fire. The one beneath that was an online article about the Midland fire, the one involving the Siegelmans. That was the one where I’d spotted the dog tags that matched the tags from Finch’s practice.

  I let my eyes close for a moment. When I first noticed the dog tag, it was such a tiny detail. Now it loomed large.

  I flipped to the bottom of the stack. This article was also about a fire, but not one that was on Luke’s evidence board. It was an old one—it had occurred later in the same year that Eli and my mom were killed.

  The article was dated Monday, November twenty-fourth. Three days before Thanksgiving. The headline read: UK Calls Off Classes to Mourn Loss of 10 Students in Fraternity House Fire.

  I remembered that fire. Investigators immediately suspected arson. Gasoline had been poured on the stairs leading to the second floor, and the boys in the house were forced to jump out of second-story windows. Other boys were trapped when the fire spread.

  Had Finch started this fire too?

  I thought back to November twenty-fourth. Ethan’s trial was in full swing. I went every day to watch the testimony. Finch was on break, and joined me in court that day.

  The fire had occurred early Sunday morning the day before. Finch had come home for break on Saturday night. We had a family dinner, and he stayed over with us at Uncle Henry’s and Aunt Leah’s.

  Which meant…

  He couldn’t have started this fire.

  Thoughts and memories were coming at me fast. I knew the evidence response team would be here soon, and I suddenly felt an impossible need to prove that my brother wasn’t a serial killer.

  I took photographs of the articles, then I scanned the rest of the room. Finch kept his veterinary records at the clinic, but he and Aubrey had a wide two-drawer filing cabinet that served as a credenza.

  I opened the top drawer and flipped through it. It was filled with personal financial files—brokerage statements, bank statements, tax returns, medical files. I closed it and opened the lower drawer. This one was filled with manila folders. And on each tab was a file label with a name in bold letters.

  Most of them meant nothing to me. But I recognized some of the names.

  Porter.

  Reynolds.

  Siegelman.

  Sims.

  These were patient files. Aubrey had been counseling these young girls.

  Then I spotted another file label. Bale. The victim of the Catholic priest from Knoxville. Luke had noted that Connor’s parents brought Connor to a Lexington pediatrician. That was a long way to go for a doctor… unless they were trying to keep Connor’s troubles a secret.

  Aubrey specialized in counseling victims of sexual assault.

  All of these victims were her clients.

  The room began to spin.

  I quickly pulled my phone from my pocket and called Luke. My call went to voicemail.

  “Luke, call me. I need to know: How many of the victims of sexual assault or sexual harassment were in counseling? And where did they get the counseling? Call me.” I hung up and placed my phone in my back pocket.

  “Hi, Faith.”

  I spun around at the sound of Aubrey’s voice. But something hit me over the head as I did, and everything went dark.

  Thirty-Five

  I woke to the smell of gasoline. My head ached when I tried to lift it. My hands were tied behind my back. I was on the floor in Finch’s office.

  I tried to look around the room for something to help me cut through what felt like thick twine around my wrists. When I moved, I felt something hard in my back pocket.

  My phone.

  Fumbling, I pulled it from my pocket. I pushed myself up, felt for the side button on the phone, then twisted my head to see the time. I hadn’t been unconscious long, and Luke’s evidence response team still hadn’t arrived, nor had any officers come to talk to Aubrey.

  Where the hell were they?

  I placed my finger on the phone’s home button to wake it. A list of numbers popped up on the screen—the last numbers I had dialed. I pressed Luke’s name.

  I could hear his voice, but I didn’t want Aubrey to hear me, so I put the phone on the floor, then lay down with my head next to it, so I could whisper into it. When I got close enough, I could tell it was his voicemail again.

  “Luke, Aubrey is the serial killer,” I whispered, praying he could hear me. “Aubrey has me tied up at her house. I can smell gasoline.”

  I heard footsteps approaching, and I used my head to push the phone under the desk.

  Aubrey appeared in the doorway. She was wearing one of Finch’s winter coats, and her hair was tucked up under a baseball cap.

  “At my fire pit,” I said. “When I spotted you. I thought it was an overweight man, but it was you.”

  She cocked her head like she wasn’t sure what I was talking about. “Well, that’s not very nice. Are you saying this baby is making me look fat?”

  I struggled to sit up, and leaned against the desk. “All those years ago when I accused you of looking into my therapist’s file… You denied it, but I was right. That’s how you knew about the daisies that you left inside my trailer.”

  “I was only trying to help you, Faith. After what Ethan had done to you, I wanted to be there for you.” She sounded so sincere, yet she still hadn’t quite admitted to any wrongdoing.

  I was seeing a side to Aubrey I’d never seen before.

  “I don’t understand why you’ve got me tied up,” I said. “Uncle Henry already admitted that Finch killed Eli and accidentally caused Mom’s death.”

  “Oh he did. And the guilt of that nearly killed him.” She lifted a hand and examined her manicure like she didn’t have a care in the world. “But I helped him through it. I made him understand that it was all truly an accident, and that he did you a favor by letting that rapist take the fall for the crime. Rapists deserve to be punished. But do you know the type of person I truly despise?”

  “Who’s that?” I wriggled my hands, trying to break the twine or slip a hand free, but failed.

  “The enablers. Men and women who protect the guilty. I mean, rapists, sexual harassers, abusers of little girls and boys? They deserve to be punished for their crimes. But those who stand by and let those innocent victims be abused? As far as I’m concerned, they’re every bit as guilty.”

  I remembered the article about the fraternity house fire. “What happened to you, Aubrey?”

  “Your brother is amazing, you know.” Tears filled her eyes. “He was there for me when no one else was. My parents sure as hell weren’t. ‘You shouldn’t have dressed like that, Aubrey. How much did you have to drink, Aubrey?’ They might as well have told me I deserved it. That I had asked for it.” Her voice grew louder. “Those boys raped me!”

  I closed my eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I said, and I meant it.

  “So I burned their house down,” she nearly sang.

  She wore a smug grin. I didn’t need to know anything more. I realized the mistake I had made when I stared at Luke’s evidence board. I had been so focused on Finch’s travel schedule, I had failed to note that when Finch went out of town, Aubrey usually went out of town, too—on girls’ trips with her Pistol Packin’ Mamas group. And she was the one who scheduled those trips; I’d been over here one night when she was planning one.

  “Why did you break into my trailer?”

  Ignoring my question, she rubbed her belly. “He’s moving around. Want to feel?”


  With every minute that passed without the FBI knocking on the door, the smell of gasoline worsened, and my worry rose.

  “Yes,” I answered.

  She took a step toward me, then stopped. “Oh, I guess you can’t,” she said.

  “You can untie me, Aubrey. You think I would hurt your baby? That’s my niece or nephew growing inside of you. I love that baby already.”

  “That’s why I needed your journal.”

  So she had broken into my trailer. And the rest of it? Had she started the fires in my fire pit? Hit me over the head and dragged me through the snow? She hadn’t admitted to any of that.

  “Because you wanted to see if I’d written about your unborn child?” I asked. “Because I didn’t. I haven’t written in my journals in years.”

  “I needed to know if you would be a good aunt to my child. I wanted to know the truth about you.”

  “What truth is that?”

  “I wanted to know what happened between you and Ethan all those years ago. I know he raped you, and he shouldn’t have done that, but I wanted to know if you encouraged him. If you were to blame for his obsession with you. My parents always said I was to blame, and part of me wonders if that was true. But I also wanted to know if you were a little tease to Ethan.”

  Her suggestion was like a knife in my heart. It didn’t matter what else I might have done, I had expressly told Ethan “no” that night.

  “You and I didn’t deserve what happened to us,” I said. “I don’t care what your parents said, you didn’t deserve to be raped. No one deserves that. Let me help you now. We can help each other. Finch didn’t mean to kill Mom and Eli. The judge will understand that.” I didn’t think for one second Aubrey would fall for that garbage, but I was desperately stalling, praying the cops would show up.

  My phone buzzed under the desk. I closed my eyes, knowing Aubrey could hear it, too. It was the sound of texts coming through. At least three, one after the other.

  “Where’s that coming from?” She bent down and spotted my phone. Then she knelt on all fours and grabbed it from under the desk. By the time she struggled to stand up, she was breathing hard. The baby had to be pressing on her diaphragm.

  “It’s Agent Justice,” she said. “He’s sending a uniform to pick you up at your trailer. And the ERT unit is in town and is following a squad car to our house.”

  Luke obviously hadn’t listened to my message yet.

  Aubrey looked up. “Looks like our time is up, Faith. I’m sorry that it has to come to this. But if it hadn’t been for you, no one would have figured out that Finch was the one who killed your mom. And now you have to pay for taking my child’s father from him.”

  “It’s a boy?” I said, trying to keep her talking. “You said ‘him.’”

  “That’s right.” She smiled as she rubbed her stomach. “And I need strong, righteous people to teach him how to be a man with a solid moral compass who respects women. You just aren’t one of those people, I’m afraid.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “People talk, Faith. And they like talking about you and Ethan. A reporter grabbed me coming out of the vet clinic the other day. Marla, I think? She had a lot of interesting things to say about you and Ethan. I think she’s working on one of those prime-time real crime shows.” She waved a hand. “It doesn’t matter. You and I are out of time.” She pulled a matchbook from her pocket—a matchbook from the Spotted Cat.

  She backed slowly toward the doorway, then stopped. “Finch and I truly loved you, Faith. May you rest in peace.”

  She struck the match and dropped it on the floor.

  The entire doorway burst into flames.

  Thirty-Six

  The flames spread quickly to the ceiling, extinguishing any hope I had of scooting or hopping my way out of the room. I rolled toward the windows, which looked out onto the back yard. I sat up, then used the wall to push myself to my feet. Wood blinds covered the windows. I shoved them to the side with my body.

  The windows were locked, and I couldn’t lift my hands high enough to unlock them.

  I hopped over to a ladder-back chair, grabbed it with my bound hands, and hopped back over to the window, dragging the chair behind me.

  Smoke had filled the room, and I couldn’t even shield my face. Coughing, I climbed onto the chair and, with my back to the window, tried to unlock the window.

  The flames were growing closer and the smoke was getting worse.

  The lock was tight. I leaned forward to give my hands better access, and was able to twist the lock. But the motion threw me off balance, and I tipped the chair and fell hard on my right shoulder.

  I took in a deep breath—the air was clear of smoke down here—then held it as I rose again. With one last, adrenaline-laced scream, I pushed open the window just enough for my body to fit through.

  I rammed my head through first, pushing right through the screen, and fell onto the ground outside. I landed flat on my back with a grunt.

  I could now hear distant sirens, and people yelling. I had nothing else left in me to scream, so I just rolled away from the house as far as I could. Behind me, flames now shot from the very window through which I had escaped. I clung to consciousness by a thread. The emotional and physical poundings of this past week were finally getting the best of me.

  A man’s voice. “Back here! Send the paramedics!”

  Luke.

  And then he was at my side. “Faith, can you hear me?”

  I was lying on my stomach in the grass. My hands were still tied behind me.

  I twisted my head just slightly. “What took you so long?”

  He smiled down at me and flashed that look of pity I used to hate about him. He reached down to an ankle holster and pulled out a knife. When he held it up, he almost looked victorious. “Good thing I believe in carrying extra weapons.”

  “Good thing,” I said.

  The paramedics arrived seconds later. In short order, they had me on a gurney with an IV of fluids and an oxygen mask.

  “Sir, we’ll take her to Paynes Creek Memorial to get her checked out. You can meet her there.”

  Luke nodded, then touched my arm in that reassuring way he always seemed to do. I had thought it was annoying at first, but now it was kind of growing on me.

  I pulled the mask away. “Did you get her?” Just saying those words made tears spring to my eyes. I would be mourning the loss of my sister-in-law for the rest of my life.

  “We got her.”

  Thirty-Seven

  I spent three days cleaning up my Airstream, securing all of my belongings in cabinets and drawers, and preparing the trailer and Gus for life on the road.

  I said my goodbyes to Penelope. She was busy trying to hold the station together as an interim chief took over. It had been confirmed that when Chief Reid was the lead detective on my mother’s case, he gave the assistant commonwealth’s attorney the gas station video and agreed to “forget it existed” at trial.

  Aunt Leah was taking everything hard, but she understood my need to get away. I promised to come back when the trials for my uncle, my brother, and his wife began. And she and I would do everything we could to see to it that Aubrey’s and Finch’s son was taken care of.

  I was securing the trailer to the hitch on my SUV when I heard a vehicle come down the drive.

  Gus slinked over and sat at my feet as I turned.

  Luke climbed out of his vehicle and sauntered toward me. “Looks like I came just in time.” He stuffed his hands in his pants pockets, leaving his thumbs hooked on the outside. “Which direction are you headed?”

  “South,” I said. “Thinking about making my way to the Florida Keys.” Gus stood and circled between and around Luke’s legs. “Looks like someone is going to miss you.”

  “Is she the only one?”

  I tilted my head side to side, then smiled without answering.

  “I’m meeting with prosecutors in three states the rest of the week,” he said. “But the
n I have a few vacation days coming my way.”

  “You have my number, Special Agent.”

  He moved closer and placed his hands on my hips. Pulling me against his body, he leaned in and gave me a single soft kiss.

  I snaked a hand behind his neck and into his hair. I pressed my lips against his, deeper this time—a kiss he wouldn’t forget. When I pulled back just a little, our breaths marrying between us, I said, “Something to remember me by.”

  Thirty-Eight

  Three weeks passed. Luke had visited for one long weekend and promised to catch up with me again in the future.

  I relived the horrible memories of the past month each and every day. But I also found joy in snorkeling, collecting bits of nature on long walks along the coast, and getting into a more artistic side of photography.

  And hearing from Luke from time to time was nice.

  Gus and I made friends in a few of the places where we hooked up the Airstream. We finally settled in a park in Long Key near Islamorada.

  And tonight, I spent an evening with new friends. We grilled freshly caught fish over charcoal and consumed brightly colored rum drinks with umbrellas. When in Rome and all… And we laughed until well past midnight.

  I drifted off to sleep with Gus curled up at my feet.

  Later that night, I awoke to a strange noise. At first I thought it was my neighbors still enjoying their small campfire. But then I heard someone yell, “Fire!”

  I sat up in bed and nearly lost my breath at the sight of candles lit on the shelf around my bed. One word escaped my lips.

  “Ethan.”

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