Summer Flash Burn

by Unger, Erin;

  I helped her up, and we continued through the thick undergrowth of the forest. What I had noticed before was a small trail to my right, which wasn’t as overgrown. “See that trail over there? It’d be a much easier walk if we take it and don’t fight with all these brambles.”

  “I guess. I kind of like struggling through the underbrush though.”

  Was she joking again?

  When the mound came into view, we paused and stared at it with new eyes. Its perfect symmetry was unmistakable. Why hadn’t I noticed before?

  Shauna strode around it. “I bet the view is better from the other side.”

  A shriek jolted me out of my reverie. Not the sound of an upset bird but something that raised the hairs on my arms. “Shauna? Is there another snake over there?”

  She didn’t respond.

  I went from peaceful rest to rib cage aching from the thrust of my heart against it. I flew around the burial site, stopped, and dropped my water bottle. Oh please God, please God, please.

  Someone held a gun to Shauna’s head.

  The man turned.

  “Francis Bache.” God help us, please.

  “And just when I thought you were gone, the case solved, which I saw on the news, here you are again.” Francis Bache held Shauna’s thick, long hair in a tight grasp, her head twisted at a funny angle to the side. Her eyes implored me not to move any closer. “You know, I had no intention of killing another person. I put all that behind me. But now I have no choice.” Francis’s gaze fell to the ground a few feet from Shauna.

  As if in slow motion, I lowered my eyes to the same spot. A skull and fragments of bone lay in a heap, somewhat wrapped in an old blanket, freshly dug up. Were they fake? I looked a little harder at them. “I don't understand.” Yet the blackened dirt that clung to the pieces emphasized the reality of what lay in front of us. “Who—”

  Francis held a gun loosely in his hand. He waved it, careless of where he pointed it. “She was a real problem,” he glared at me, “like you.”

  God, I need you like I’ve never needed you before. What do I do? My limbs shook.

  I took a mental assessment of everything on my person. No gun. No knife. This was supposed to be a peaceful walk to a possible historical landmark. Did Shauna have her gun or a knife? I tried to scan for its outline. There was no way the guy would have not taken it from her already.

  Then I stopped, suspended in time for a moment. What did Francis mean by she? Was he referring to the skeleton?

  Francis yanked Shauna’s head, but she held in a yelp and scowled at him with deep furrowed brows. “Stop moving.”

  To me, he said, “I knew it was only a matter time before your father caught me back here.” He pointed at his temple with the gun. “It was so stupid to sell him the map, I know, but the discrepancy of where the mound was located fooled everyone. It was believed to be two properties down, but my calculations proved otherwise. I never thought he’d figure it out, too. And I needed the cash.

  “And your dad was always at the shop, which made it hard to get back here without being seen…until that last night.”

  His words stung me to the core. “You? How…? Let me guess, you planted the murder weapon and blood-stained items at Tony’s little building.”

  The man quirked a sadistic smile my way. “Easy target. I knew he worked with Gary sometimes.”

  My blood curdled. “You started the fire at my house too, didn’t you?”

  “I had to get rid of the map, but you weren’t supposed to be home to put it out.”

  He must’ve returned later and stolen it from the living room. My breaths began to come in short spurts that I couldn’t steady.

  Thrusting Shauna to the ground, Francis pointed the gun back at her. “Stay. Right. There.” He shook his head and went for me. “It was hard enough when Queenie and her gang came on the property to make plans, but at least they never suspected a mound back here. And then Newen threatened to turn me in to the police.”

  Shauna moved a fraction of an inch. I held as still as possible, my eyes trained on the gun, but I watched her in my periphery. Then I took in the area. Beside the skeletal remains were a couple of wooden boxes with something in them. “What was back here that you’d have to murder—” But before the whole sentence was out I remembered what we’d read on Jillian’s tablet. Artifacts. And lots of them. Probably almost priceless ones buried with the dead. “You’ve decimated hallowed ground to the Monacans.”

  Again, Shauna twitched a little. Her eyes were trained on a branch a few feet away from her foot.

  Then Francis jammed the gun back against her temple. “I couldn’t bury your father back here like I did your mother. It was too much of a risk.”

  The words turned my blood to ice. What? I flinched then looked back at the skull with dirt in the eye sockets, and my stomach threatened to heave. “But…”

  “Yeah, you thought she ran off, and I wasn’t about to do anything to change everybody’s opinion on it. Truth is, she’d done her own bit of excavating over here, and when she discovered this really was a burial mound she was going to go to the Monacan chief. Something about her heritage. I had to stop her.”

  My mother was part Monacan? Dad had never exposed that fact. All the rage of a volcano threatened to erupt out of me. I balled my fists, all my muscles flexing into tight awareness on the verge of explosion. But what about the gun at Shauna’s head?

  Francis Bache was a small man. How’d he manage to stab Dad? Then again, I saw a ferocity in the older man’s eyes. Something deep and black and frightening like a Jack-in-the-box ready to spring.

  “This is pretty fitting, don’t you think? For you, your girlfriend, and your mom to all be buried together back here. I was going to move her, but no worries, I’ll come and get you another day. Queenie’s gonna figure out what this place is eventually.”

  He grabbed Shauna’s arm and began to drag her toward a hole past the skeleton. The gun was aimed on me now.

  I began to pray with everything in me. I couldn’t save Shauna alone. I was helpless, and God was the only One capable of getting us out of the situation. Then I dared to take a step.

  “I would rethink your move if I was you. I do a lot of reenacting with the Uppland Civil War militia, and I can take you down before your next breath. You wouldn’t want your girlfriend to see it, would you?”

  I stiffened.

  There was something on the ground that Shauna kept eyeing. I tried to look at it without Francis noticing. Holding my body as still as possible, I sighted the shovel Francis must have used to dig up the skeleton and the artifacts, but it was on the far side of the hole. A bucket full of dirt rested feet away.

  But the cock of the gun sent prickles of awareness again. It was now or never.

  Shauna put her hand up to protect her head, and Francis jerked it away. But it was enough of a distraction to make him look at her for a second.

  I lunged for the bucket, grasping the handle. Two words jolted through my mind. Help, God. I swung it so hard and fast it made contact against Francis’s head without spilling the dirt.

  The man tumbled forward. A shriek pierced Shauna’s lips as she began to fall backward with him into the pit where Francis had been digging.

  I reached for her, and our fingers interlocked as I yanked her out of the way onto the ground beside the hole.

  “The gun.”

  Francis didn’t move a muscle as we reached in the hole and fumbled to get the gun out of his loose grasp, but I got to it first.

  Every muscle remained taut as I pressed the barrell so hard against Francis’s temple that it began to dimple his skin.

  But Shauna began to talk in a soft voice, “Don’t do it. He should spend the rest of his life in jail, not you.”

  But I pressed the gun even harder as every breath thundered past my lips. Francis’s head pressed into the loose soil a little. A bead of sweat dropped onto the unconscious man’s shirt.

  She continued to try to cajole
me. “I could tell you all the great things they say in movies but the truth is I need you around. And if you do this you’ll be in jail the rest of your life. We’ll never be together.”

  “But my mom. Dad…”

  She touched my arm so lightly I wasn’t sure if I imagined it. I pulled back a fraction but continued to stare down the gun’s barrel at Francis.

  “Don’t make me hurt you, Christopher.” Her tone held an edge of steel now.

  Blinking, I slowly pulled the gun away from the man’s head. Anguish flavored every one of my words, “This man took everything from me.”

  “God’s justice is so much worse than anything we can do to him.”

  I crumbled onto the ground and dropped the gun. I couldn’t even remember when I’d cried last. Men didn’t cry, but tears poured down my face anyway.

  Shauna cradled my head in her lap.

  When the murderer began to stir, Shauna picked up the gun and held him at bay. “Christopher, I need your cell phone. He took mine.”

  When I saw Francis’s hand tremble at the top of the hole, I jumped up and wiped my arm across my face.

  “Don’t move!” Shauna yelled.

  It took me a moment to remember where I had put my phone. I grabbed it out of one of my cargo pockets and handed it to her. “I’ve got this.”

  Her gaze never left Francis.

  Slowing the heavy breaths that racked my body, I tried to pull it together. Why had I let myself react to everything I’d just learned? But when I looked to the skeleton, I almost lost it again. I took a deep breath, exhaled, and then repeated it twice more. Even my stomach threatened to release its contents.

  Even after all that I’d seen as a fireman, I couldn’t look upon the remains of my mother again.

  Wooziness took over the rapid fight or flight reaction that had saved us both. Even when the wail of emergency vehicles bounced off the valley and up the side of the mountain, I remained sitting on the ground right beside Shauna. For the second time, she held my attacker at gunpoint. How ironic that I would have to be saved twice by her. But didn’t God’s word say the weak things would confound the things which are mighty? And in one day, God had brought me to my knees. Now I was the weak one.

  Francis remained in the hole, but he never took his eyes off the gun aimed at him. A small trickle of blood ran down his neck from where the bucket had hit him.

  Ava and Jillian weren’t far behind the police who showed up with guns drawn. A deputy went into immediate action and patted me down while another one handcuffed Francis.

  Hands up in the air, Shauna waited for them to take the gun from her. “I’m Shauna Pratley of Worthington Investigations. If you reach into my right, back pocket you’ll find my badge. This gun belongs to Francis Bache.” She stopped the officer just as he was about to handcuff me as well. “Christopher Newen didn’t do anything wrong. He was attacked like I was.”

  I pointed beside the hole and choked on my words. “And that’s my mother over there.”

  50

  Shauna

  I found my pocket knife mere feet from where the whole horrid mess went down. Too late, of course. Resting against a tree, I studied Christopher who stood in front of me, his eyes hollow. “If the map was wrong about the location of the mound, I don’t know why your dad came back here. Do you think it was because he saw Mr. Bache on this property the night he died? It makes me wonder if his true intention had always been to draw your father here even though he said otherwise. Perhaps Francis thought your mom had shared information about the mound with him and he might someday expose Francis.”

  Christopher put one finger over my lips. “Shh. I don’t want to talk about the case right now, all I want is to hold you.”

  With a smile, I drew him into my arms and hugged him again. “We’ll get through this together.”

  He gave me a little squeeze. “Even though it took something very horrible, I thank God I have faith again.”

  “And He’ll never leave you or forsake you. Don’t forget it.”

  “I won’t. And you can help me if I do.” Christopher pulled back to look into my eyes. “Kiss me.”

  “Ah, now you’re being the bossy one.” After a little snicker, I pressed my lips against his.

  My two partners hiked over to us.

  Ava put a hand on her hip. “Good work you two. Thanks for not dying today.”

  “Ha-ha.” I released Christopher. “Who would’ve guessed that little guy could do so many awful things?”

  With her phone in hand, Jillian skewered me with a glare. “Something weird happened in my SUV. I didn’t figure it out until we were on our way here. My seat…”

  I smacked my palm against my head. Oh, no, I’d forgotten to readjust it. “I took a little joy ride…Sorry…”

  A Devotional Moment

  …to shine on those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace. ~ Luke 1:79

  Peace can be elusive. We crave it, we fight for it, we long to have peace in our souls and in our lives. Ironically, often peace eludes us because we run from the very thing that will bring us peace.

  In Summer Flash Burn, the protagonist is caught in a dilemma. A decision is before her, and she has to work out what is right not only for her, but for those around her. As events unfold, the choice is put off, and with the marching forward of days, her heart is not peaceful because the decision looms. Driven to explore a dark deed, her restless heart must choose if peace will be part of her future.

  Have you ever been caught between choices? Afraid to move in one direction or other for fear of making a mistake or worsening your situation? Indecision always steals peace. But God meant for us to live happy, peaceful lives. Jesus gave us the opportunity to have spiritual peace, to understand that while evil abounds in this world, we can find our rest in Him. With our belief in Him, we can have peace in our hearts. We can find the strength to endure trials, make tough decisions and to rest easy no matter what the circumstance. This is a peace the world cannot give. This peace comes from a relationship with God, and that peace is what sustains us throughout our lives.

  LORD, HELP ME TO ACHIEVE THE PEACE THAT PASSES UNDERSTANDING, WHICH YOU HAVE PROMISED FOR THOSE WHO BELIEVE. HELP ME TO MAKE THE RIGHT DECISIONS IN TIMES OF ADVERSITY, AND HELP ME ALWAYS TO REST IN YOU. IN JESUS’ NAME I PRAY, AMEN.

  Thank you

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