The Fire Still Burns

by Crystal-Rain Love

  She hadn't meant to hurt him, but that seemed to be exactly what she'd done. No matter what she did, she ended up hurting the man. If only he could see that was the reason she refused to rekindle what they had. To save him from further pain.

  “I've already searched this room top and bottom.” Adam looked around at the mess. The point of origin had been the center of Zeke's floor.

  “I suppose that means you checked his hiding spot?” Brynn cocked her head to look at him.

  “There was nothing to be found under the floorboards in this room.” Adam’s cell phone rang and he turned away to greet the caller.

  Brynn glanced around the room, curious about the fact Zeke wouldn't have anything hidden in his own room even though he'd instructed his brother and girlfriend about the clever hiding spot.

  If I were Zeke, where would I hide incriminating evidence?

  An idea formed. The best place to hide something was right under someone's nose.

  Brynn walked the short distance to Doris Good's room and groaned when she saw the floor was entirely carpeted, or had been. The fire had changed that fact.

  “What are you doing in here?” Adam came up behind her.

  “I thought maybe Zeke would hide something in your mother's room, somewhere she'd never think to look.”

  Adam glanced around the room and shrugged. “I don't think there's anything here. Sheriff Clarkson just called. They found out Zeke had an apartment in Sevierville. If he was hiding anything, it was probably there.”

  “So when do we check it out?”

  “Later. After they give it a once-over. The sheriff has been considering the idea my brother wasn't squeaky clean after all and thinks his guys should check out the apartment first.”

  “He thinks you can't be impartial.”

  “Yeah, I guess he thinks I'll hide evidence.” Adam directed a look at her which warned her not to remind him he had already done that. “There's nothing here. It’s late and I need to go check on my mother. You go home and take care of your boy.”

  And with that, she was dismissed.

  ~~~

  Adam watched Brynn’s car disappear down the road, then turned back toward the house. He hadn’t lied to her, he was going to visit his mother in the hospital, but as he’d walked her out, the suggestion that Zeke might have hidden something in plain sight niggled at him. There hadn’t always been carpet in Doris’s bedroom. Zeke had put it down himself only a month before he’d died.

  Adam entered the house, for what felt like the hundredth time that night inhaling the aroma of smoke and fire damage. He grabbed his hammer from the utility room and took the stairs to the second floor, his stomach twisted in knots.

  Standing inside the doorway, he surveyed Doris’s room. The pale yellow walls were now streaked with black, the glass frame of the crucifixion scene on the left wall had burst from the heat of the fire, but the huge cross and crown of thorns sculpture hanging at the head of the white-sheeted bed was untouched.

  Adam looked at the floor, noting the length of charred hardwood visible between the wall and blackened edges of light beige carpet.

  “Guess I’ll start with those.”

  He knelt and, starting from the door, poked at every exposed plank of wood, but they were all firm. He reached the ends of the remaining carpet and peeled it back, checking the boards beneath.

  Nothing.

  He stood, ready to leave but his gut wouldn’t allow him. Why would Zeke insist on carpet in their mother’s room? It hadn’t been Doris’s idea to put it down. The woman hated to vacuum, which was why only the living room was carpeted. But Zeke had told them the house needed fixing up, starting with carpet.

  Adam eyed the bed. Hidden in plain sight, a place his mother would never look…

  He pushed the bed from the center of the room to the far wall, sweat trickling down his forehead. The carpet was already destroyed so he ripped it up without care, exposing the floor beneath. On his knees again, he ran his hands along the wooden planks, searching for any loose boards. None of them gave, but he noticed an abnormality in the spot that would have been directly under his mother’s bed. Four boards were secured tightly by sixteen nails, nails slightly larger and darker than the rest.

  Adam grabbed the hammer and pried the nails from the floor, nausea rolling through his belly.

  Get a grip, Good. You’re not going to find a body here. Drugs or dirty money, maybe, but nothing to get sick over.

  But, he couldn’t get the sick feeling out of his system. Disappointment was hard to cure, and, despite his gut insisting he should check the room, he’d been hoping the search would end fruitless.

  It still could. I might find Zeke’s old Playboys in here.

  He set the loose nails aside and sucked in a breath, lifting one of the planks. Something was down there, but it was too dark to see. He removed the other three planks and frowned. Videotapes and a set of two keys.

  His hand trembled as he reached into the hole and grabbed the pair of keys secured on a metal ring. One probably belonged to the apartment in Sevierville. The other bore a sticker with the words, Party House.

  “The house the kids use for the annual costume party.”

  Since the owners of the house had donated it for community functions, a set of keys was kept by various members of the community. Zeke could have sweet-talked or swindled a key away from any one of them. Clever as he was, he would have probably made a copy and replaced the original before it was discovered missing.

  Adam placed the keys on the floor and retrieved video tapes. There were ten in all. He turned one over in his hand, pulling it from the cardboard sheath to study it. There were no markings, no labels indicating what he’d find.

  “Probably porn.”

  He took one of the videotapes down to the living room and popped it into the VCR, switching on the television before settling onto the couch, careful to keep his hands clear of the pale covering, which was remarkably clean despite the recent fire.

  Adam scooped up the remote from the coffee table, pointed it at the VCR and pressed play.

  An image of a woman in ripped clothing lying on a bed, her wrists handcuffed to the headboard appeared on the screen.

  “Porn.” Adam rolled his eyes. “I thought so.”

  He started to turn the video off, but stilled as the young woman’s eyes widened and she opened her mouth in what appeared a bloodcurdling scream. There was no sound, but the way her eyes bulged out of her head and tears streamed down her face looked unsettlingly real.

  “What kind of shit were you watching, Zeke?”

  A masculine hand entered the picture, the back of it hit the woman’s face and left a smear of blood around her mouth. Adam jerked, his finger moved toward the off button. Then his stomach rolled over. He’d seen that bed, only the mattress had been burnt.

  “No. This can’t be a real tape. Zeke?”

  A man loomed over the woman, pulled her legs apart roughly. Adam could only see the back of him. He appeared tall, wide-set shoulders, toned upper body, a tuft of dark blond hair peeked from under the black ski-mask.

  Adam fast-forwarded through the scene, his stomach protesting, begging him not to watch any more, but he had to know what he was seeing.

  “Some people like it rough, they role-play. The woman acted scared.”

  The woman deserves an Oscar.

  The screen went black, then, another image filled it. Adam hit Play and blanched. A girl in her late teens or early twenties was pushed to her knees on the floor at the side of the bed, her wrists tied together before her.

  The man behind her wore a black mask with only two openings, one for each blue eye. He pushed her so her stomach hit the edge of the bed and bent her over it, stretching her arms over the mattress.

  She struggled against him, and he produced a knife, holding it before her face. She bit her lip and cried, her body heaving with the sobs.

  “This shit isn’t funny, Zeke. Where the hell did you get this?”r />
  The man in the video slid the knife through a loop in the rope binding the woman’s wrists and rammed the cold blade into the mattress, pinning her to the bed. With another knife, he cut off her clothing, leaving thin streams of blood dripping from the places he nicked her. Her mouth opened in a scream, her eyes wide and desperate.

  The man dropped his pants and entered her from behind, ripping off his ski mask to shove in the woman’s mouth as she let out another scream.

  Adam ran to the bathroom and dropped to his knees before the toilet. With so little in his stomach, he dry-heaved for a good minute before producing a stream of white vomit. All the while, he saw the image of Zeke taking off his ski mask while violating the woman on the video.

  What he saw couldn’t have been acting, no one could fake the terror he’d seen on those women’s faces. Zeke raped them and videotaped it.

  How the hell do I tell Brynn that Zeke did to women what Cal did to her?

  He dry-heaved again, then allowed himself to cry. His heart was broken. He’d just lost his brother all over again.

  ~~~

  Adam sat in the small white hospital room half an hour later, listening to the sound of his mother breathing, and shook his legs with impatience. He didn't want to wake her, but he had questions which needed answering.

  The goose egg and large bruise on her forehead were consistent with being struck by a heavy, blunt object. She might have seen her attacker. But, according to the sheriff, she wasn't saying anything, which made no sense whatsoever. His mother was all about judgment and paying for sins. Why she'd let someone who'd attacked her get off scot-free had him puzzled.

  So did the evidence he'd found in her room. He hadn't bothered viewing the rest of the tapes before calling Sheriff Clarkson. The sheriff had thought wrong when he'd suggested Adam would have trouble being impartial if evidence was found against his brother. He may have destroyed Zeke’s jersey, but that was when he'd still thought he was protecting his brother.

  The man in those tapes wasn't his brother. That man was a monster. Again he wondered, how could he tell Brynn? After what she’d been through with Cal, she’d probably run as far away from him as possible, fearing he was in some way tainted and would serve as a harmful influence to her son.

  “Adam?”

  He glanced up to see his mother looking at him from where she lay in the hospital bed.

  “Yeah, Mama, it's me.” His dread churned in his stomach, knowing he'd have to tell her the truth about Zeke, the sooner the better, before the news got out and she heard it from someone else.

  “Where have you been?” she snapped. “I could have been killed and you were off with that harlot.”

  He closed his eyes and expelled a calming breath through tightly gritted teeth. Now was not the time to insult Brynn. “Mama, I know you're upset and rightfully so, but there's no need to bring Brynn into this.”

  “If it weren't for that tramp, I wouldn't be here now,” she stated firmly. “You'd have been at home where you belong. You'd have been there to protect me instead of scampering off after her like some besotted fool. She always was your downfall, you know.”

  “Mother, please,” Adam growled, quickly losing his patience. “I'm sorry I wasn't there to protect you, but I had no idea this would happen.”

  “Oh you've never had any idea how devious that little—”

  “Mother, enough,” Adam shouted, cutting off her rant. Guilt ate him up inside, but he wasn't going to stand by and listen as she degraded an innocent woman. Not when her own son was…

  “Mama, there's something I have to tell you, something about Zeke.” He leaned forward, thought about walking toward her but didn’t know if his legs would carry him. He’d been through too much for one day’s time.

  Doris's eyes narrowed. “Whatever that woman has told you is a lie.”

  “Brynn hasn't had to tell me anything, Mama. Zeke wasn't the great man we thought he was. He hurt people.”

  “He did no such thing.” Her lips pressed tightly together, her gray eyes darkened and pinned him to his seat.

  “Mama, I found evidence against him. It hurts me, too, to admit what he did, but—” He took a breath and forced himself to get the words out fast before he lost his nerve. “He was selling drugs and raping women.”

  “Your brother was a good man, a man of God.” Doris sat straight up in the hospital bed, her finger pointed at him. “He went to church every single Sunday, unlike you.”

  Adam rolled his eyes and stood. “Did you hear what I just said, Mama? Zeke was raping women.”

  “Don't you dare spread this filthy lie about your brother, that he was some sort of common criminal,” Doris spat, her face turned a purplish red.

  “It's not a lie, Mama. I found evidence.” The image of Zeke removing the ski mask flitted through his mind, and he shoved it away before he could throw up again.

  “You found the tapes?” Her eyes grew wide. “Boy, tell me you didn't turn over those tapes.”

  Adam stumbled backward, unable to believe what just spilled from his mother's lips. “You knew?”

  “I'm the one who told him to destroy those tapes, which apparently he didn't. What did you do with the tapes, Adam? What did you do to your own family?”

  “My God, Mama. You knew he raped women and you just let him do it?” The room spun and he had to lean against the wall to keep from falling.

  “Those women were jezebels, harlots, all of them. They weakened him with their short skirts and seductive ways. They brought it upon themselves.”

  Adam shook his head in an attempt to clear it as he searched for words, but none would come.

  He blinked rapidly, thinking he must have fallen asleep in the chair. This must have been a nightmare. It couldn't be real. He just needed to wake up.

  “Your brother repented his sins like a good Christian man. Don't you dare look down on him, not when you've been too busy lusting after a whore to do your job and find his murderer. I could have been killed because of your incompetence!”

  “Did Zeke kill Rachel Wood?” Adam accepted that he wasn't dreaming, he'd just been blind to the fact that his family was really messed up.

  Doris narrowed her eyes, twisting her mouth into a snarl. “She was an unwed, pregnant whore. She should have been stoned instead of strangled.”

  Adam's mouth dropped open, shocked by the vehemence in his mother's tone, the callous way she spoke of the young woman's death. This was the woman who had bandaged his knees and baked him cookies when he was a child, had dried his eyes when he cried and kissed his forehead when he went to bed at night…and she was cold as ice.

  “You know who killed Zeke, don't you?”

  “I do now. The little tramp attacked me, blamed me for what happened to her sister, as though the slut wasn't responsible for her own death.” Doris humphed, patting her curls into place.

  “Riley Wood.”

  “You know what you have to do, Adam. She's leading the authorities right to the truth. You can't let her do that.”

  “What exactly are you saying?” His blood chilled in his veins.

  “Put an end to it. Protect your family name.”

  He studied the stone-face she wore, the fierce determination in her cold, uncaring eyes. The woman bore the look of a hardened killer.

  “You're crazy.”

  “No, I'm a good mother. I protected Zeke just as I've always protected you.”

  “Protected me from what?”

  “Whores,” Doris yelled. “That was the downfall for both of you. Zeke had it worse, I'll admit, but you were no better. If I hadn't stepped in, your whole life would have been over before it had a chance to begin.”

  “What are you talking about?” Adam stepped forward, his blood chilled. “How could you have had anything to do with what happened between me and Brynn?'

  “She tried to contact you, to throw that bastard child on you. I made sure she knew that would never happen.”

  “She tried to reach m
e after she left?” Adam’s heart slammed against his ribcage. She’d tried to reach him, she’d been willing to come back to him.

  “Of course, she did.” Doris rolled her eyes, gave a disgusted laugh. “You were a sucker for her, but I made sure she couldn't reach you. There are no bastards in my family.”

  “A bastard? That child knew who his father was, and, if Brynn needed my help in raising her son—” The niggling feeling that had struck Adam when he'd seen Nathaniel in the woods hit him full force, nearly stealing his breath.

  It all made sense now. The blond hair, the build, the walk…Brynn's refusal to allow them to meet.

  “Brynn wasn't pregnant with Cal's child when she left here, and, once she realized the truth, she tried to contact me, to make things right.” He looked at his mother, his blood rushing in his ears as his fingers curled. Keeping them from wrapping around her neck proved a tough task.

  “She tried to contact you to throw that abomination on you.”

  “That's your grandson you're talking about,” Adam growled. “Doesn't that mean anything to you?”

  “That illegitimate piece of trash is not a part of this family,” Doris growled back. “If you have any sense in your head, boy, you will see that. That woman is evil and will only bring bad things upon our family.”

  “Um, am I interrupting?”

  Adam turned to see Sheriff Clarkson standing in the doorway, looking curiously between him and his mother.

  “No, I was just leaving.” Adam reeled from everything he'd learned in the last few minutes.

  “You need to arrest Riley Wood for the arsons and for my brother's murder.” He glanced back at his mother before adding, “Zeke killed Rachel.”

  The last thing he heard before stepping out of the hospital room was his mother's cry of outrage.

  ~~~

  Brynn washed out her mug and put it in the drying rack. The warm tea hadn't done anything to sooth her nerves.

  Thanks to the lost love and missing friends searches she'd acquired through her website, her stash of money grew. With the money she was getting helping Adam with the arson case, she would soon have enough to afford a small apartment somewhere for her and Nathaniel.