Desired in Darkness

by Heather Sunseri

  Outside my bedroom, near the kitchen, Gus, a stray cat that had wandered onto my property last year and decided to grace me with her extended presence, meowed loudly while staring at the door.

  My phone began buzzing again. Still partially paralyzed, I stared at it. It was lying upside down, preventing me from seeing the caller.

  A strange scratching noise came from somewhere outside the trailer, and I gripped my comforter with tight fists. I forced my heart rate to slow. Clutching my comforter was not going to keep me alive if there was an intruder here to kill me.

  I rolled over and grabbed the Maglight I kept beside the bed—a formidable club of a weapon in a pinch. With the heavy flashlight in my hand, and the minor comfort of knowing that at least the intruder was no longer inside my trailer, I grabbed my phone. “Hello,” I said in a low, hushed voice.

  “Faith, it’s Penelope.” She sang brightly like she’d been up for hours—and she probably had. “There’s been a fire, sweetie, and they need you there as soon as possible.” Only Penelope Champagne, Paynes Creek’s finest 911 dispatcher, who also doubled as the receptionist for the Paynes Creek PD, could make the announcement of a crime sound like an invitation to breakfast. Faith, honey, you’re invited to Bryn’s Coffeehouse for cinnamon rolls. See you in ten.

  “Okay,” I said, still barely above a whisper, as I climbed out of bed. Penelope didn’t seem to notice I was speaking in a low voice. Something stopped me from telling her about my not-so-romantic candlelit trailer. “I take it there’s more to it than just a fire?” I made my way into the other part of the trailer with the flashlight held over my head, ready to strike. I could take this call and defend myself and my home.

  Gus looked up at me and yawned, then turned back to face the door. She wasn’t usually this interested in people coming and going, except maybe when my brother and his wife or my aunt and uncle stopped by. But Gus wouldn’t dream of hissing or getting loud with Aunt Leah—who often brought her treats—or my sister-in-law. She did sometimes get territorial with Uncle Henry or my brother Finch. She acted more like a guard dog than an ambivalent cat.

  Once I’d confirmed that there was no one in the trailer, I lowered the flashlight. I thought about having Penelope send a uniform out to check things out, but I knew it would be pointless, and everyone at the station already thought I was crazy after the last time I called and said someone had been inside my trailer. They found no sign of forced entry. Nothing was missing. All I could say was that I knew things had been moved around.

  And they had been. My clothes had been rearranged. The knives in my kitchen were in a different drawer. My bed, which had been left unmade that morning, was made, and pillows were arranged differently. And a bouquet of daisies with a yellow satin bow adorned the bed.

  The officers at the station didn’t think I heard the things they said behind my back. They thought I didn’t know they had a betting pool going to see who could get me to go out on a date first—or worse, get me in the sack. Yes, they thought I was certifiable, but the more egocentric ones still viewed me as a puzzle to be solved—a woman with a dark past who needed to be conquered. Not to mention, as I overheard once, they considered me “entirely bangable.” And then there were the rare nice guys, but they all seemed to think they might be able to “fix” me. After all, if Chief Reid saw enough sane and good in me to hire me for my services, I must not be an entirely lost cause. But even the nice guys inevitably found me to be too much work.

  All of that combined to keep me from mentioning the burning candles to Penelope. I knew someone was messing with me, but not who, and for all I knew it could even be one of the police officers. Maybe they’d discovered the significance of the white daisies.

  Or maybe that was just a lucky guess.

  Penelope explained the crime scene I was being called to. “Apparent murder-suicide, but it could also be arson. Chief wants you there to document the scene so they can move the bodies before more press shows up.”

  “Meaning?” I asked.

  “You know the Reynolds girl? The teenager that Mr. Lake, the orchestra teacher, was supposedly having a relationship with? It’s her parents’ home—they’re the two victims. The daughter hasn’t been located. That poor child. They arrested Mr. Lake yesterday for sexual misconduct with a minor, but his attorneys got him out before the ink had dried on his fingerprints.”

  From outside the trailer, I caught the distinct sound of a crackling wood fire. I turned and looked out the back window. A bonfire raged in my fire pit, about forty yards away.

  “Faith? Did you hear me?” Penelope asked. “You ready for the address?”

  The fire was large and beautiful, set by someone who knew what they were doing. Large enough to strike awe without being a danger to spread out of control, and small enough to sit beside it in the Adirondack chairs or on the thick logs surrounding the pit. And this wasn’t the first time in recent weeks that someone had started a fire there.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Text me the address.”

  I hung up and stared out at the fire. Once upon a time I would get lost in the flames of a fire like this. They fascinated me. The way yellow, orange, white, and blue intertwined like silky-smooth hair. But I wasn’t fascinated now. Now my eyes weren’t drawn to the golden blaze, but to the dark figure standing next to it.

  I could just make out the profile of a man. At least I thought it was a man. Tall, pointed nose, baseball cap. A bulky jacket that made him look like he had a beer gut. Or maybe he was just overweight.

  I could only stand there and stare, paralyzed. My heart tightened, and I didn’t breathe for several beats. Gus weaved figure eights through my legs.

  Then the figure turned, and though the fire backlit him, and I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew he was looking straight at me.

  A lump formed in my throat. Even if I wanted to scream, I couldn’t.

  I thought about calling Penelope back. Or my brother. Anyone. Just so that someone could see that I wasn’t crazy.

  Instead, I spun toward the front door. My sudden movement sent Gus sprinting to the back of the trailer. I flew down the steps and raced around the front of the Airstream. I would face this man who was stalking me, taunting me, making me question my sanity even more than usual.

  But I was not to discover the stranger’s identity today. Because by the time I turned the corner and faced the fire pit, the figure had vanished. And all I was left with was a blaze reminiscent of a past impossible to forget—a miniature version of my own slice of hell.

  Chapter 2

  The rope wasn’t long enough to have been used for a hanging.

  That was my first thought as I snapped pictures of the crime scene that morning. But as a forensic photographer, my job was to document, not investigate.

  Penelope had called this an apparent murder-suicide. Apparent. That’s what news reporters liked to call it when they got unsubstantiated “tips” surrounding an investigation. In this case, it was “apparent” that a man had hanged himself, according to Chief Reid. And because the man’s wife was also dead, it was presumed that he must have killed her first.

  And then the entire house had burned down.

  But who or what had started the fire? Did the husband start the fire before killing himself? Or was it accidental? Had they left a candle burning? A pot on the stove?

  I snapped a photo of the charred rope lying loosely against the man’s neck. Looked for more rope, but didn’t find any. This was no hanging, in my opinion.

  The part of this couple’s story that was so heartbreaking involved the teenager they’d left behind: Bella Reynolds, a seventeen-year-old at the center of Paynes Creek’s latest scandal. Days away from being eighteen—not that that would make a relationship with a teacher any less inappropriate. And now, not only had she been emotionally violated, not only was she being gossiped about by just about every bored housewife and teenage kid in town, but she would have to face it all without her parents.

  I knew what th
at was like. Rumors still surrounded the circumstances of my mom’s and her husband’s deaths—rumors and speculation about what had caused my stepbrother Ethan to snap. It was hard to believe that it was only twelve years ago that he was charged, and later convicted, of murdering both my mom and his father before burning down my childhood home with both victims inside.

  So, yeah, I knew what Bella was facing.

  I moved around and snapped a different angle of the rope. I placed a measuring stick alongside the rope in order to give scale.

  Staring at the bodies of Bella’s parents, I vowed not to become personally vested in whatever had happened here. For me, this would be nothing more than another bad day, a convenient distraction. A way to temporarily cloud those memories I could never forget—literally. I suffered from hyperthymesia, which meant I possessed the highly unusual trait of remembering every single day of my life with near one hundred percent clarity. Just another thing about me that made me “strange.” Or, in the eyes of many, mentally ill.

  I once attended a high school reunion. I joined in conversations with people I’d known most of my life. But when I shared crystal clear memories of trivial conversations with classmates, or recalled precisely what they were wearing on days in the distant past, I got strange looks. People don’t like to be reminded of everything that ever happened. Especially the bad or embarrassing stuff. The past is supposed to fade—or better yet, be misremembered.

  For that reason, I’d always tried to keep it a secret that I had hyperthymesia. A few people knew, but not many. Better to just let the rest go on thinking I was weird.

  Some people don’t mind weird.

  Bundled in a thick down coat and covered in protective gear to keep my DNA out of the crime scene, I looked around. It was just after sunrise, and the autumn air had turned colder overnight, made worse by thick clouds that promised to keep the sun from breaking through. The stench of smoke from the burning of wood, plastic, and human flesh drifted up from the soot and ashes and penetrated my face mask. There wasn’t much left of the house. Or of its furnishings. Just blackened debris that someone would try to sort through later for any kind of salvageable photos and other valuables. Between the fire, smoke, and water damage from the firemen, there wouldn’t be much to salvage.

  There wasn’t much to salvage from the two bodies, either. The larger one, assumed to be the husband, was propped against what was left of a wall. The other, presumably the wife, lay three feet away, next to a metal chair, her face burned beyond recognition.

  “That poor child,” Penelope had said in a rich Kentucky accent when she called me back as I drove toward the crime scene. “To be the center of so much gossip, and now this. Losing both of her parents.” I imagined Penelope shaking her head and closing her eyes in prayer as she spoke to me. She was that type of woman—the praying type. I was glad she seemed to be on my side. I liked having that positive energy near me, even if I was incapable of returning it.

  But it wasn’t the seventeen-year-old girl I was thinking of now. My mind kept going to that awful night twelve years ago. I remembered that night like it was yesterday. It might as well have been yesterday with my screwed-up hyperthymesiac mind.

  Too similar, I thought. The deaths. The fire. The positions of the bodies.

  Chief Sam Reid sidled up beside me. His hair was thick and gray, and like me, he wore protective clothing to preserve the scene as much as possible. “The daughter hasn’t been located yet,” he said. Then, without giving me time to respond, he asked, “Does this look like a murder-suicide to you?”

  I pushed my hair behind my ears and knelt down next to the wife’s body while I pondered the chief’s question. I snapped close-ups, then walked around to get different angles of the husband, the metal chair, and the rope again.

  The chief was waiting patiently for my answer, so I stood and faced him. “Sir, I don’t think I’m in a position—”

  “Don’t start with me, Faith,” he interrupted. “You’ve been photographing and analyzing crime scenes long enough. You’re like the nurse who knows more than the doctor. You run circles around my patrol officers, so until I hire another detective, you’re the best I got to bounce theories off of.” He crossed his arms and leaned into his heels, staring at me. Frustrated, he added, “Hell, you have a degree in forensic science and your uncle is the fire chief. Tell me what your gut is saying.”

  I removed my mask and breathed in the smoky air mixed with gasoline. “No, sir. I don’t think this looks like a murder-suicide. I think it looks and smells like murder.” I angled my head. “You think this has something to do with their daughter and the school teacher?”

  “I suppose word of the arrest got around already.” He rubbed fingers across his unshaven face.

  “Chief, this is Paynes Creek.”

  The sound of a slamming car door had the chief and me turning toward the driveway. Paynes Creek Fire Chief Henry Nash stepped out of his vehicle. He paused to survey the damage before slipping into his own outerwear and footies.

  “Have you heard from Ethan?” Chief Reid asked.

  I jerked in his direction again. “Why do you ask?”

  “Just wondering if he’s made contact with any of you.”

  “He hasn’t,” I said simply. “Not with me.”

  The coroner’s car and a white van arrived. A barricade was set up down the block, and several uniforms were stationed at the tape to keep people from coming too close to the crime scene, but it was near impossible to keep everyone away. A steady flow of residents huddled together in small packs across the street, sipping their morning coffee and shaking their heads.

  Chief Nash ducked under the tape and walked cautiously over to where we stood. “Doesn’t take a genius to determine this was arson, does it? This place reeks of gasoline.” He looked at me. “You okay?”

  I nodded. “Hi, Uncle Henry. I’m fine.” I was sure he knew I was lying. I was certainly not okay. This crime scene hit too close to home.

  Uncle Henry’s thick golden hair and dark complexion always reminded me of my mother. He once told me that his nickname in high school had been “California.” It was he and his wife who took me in after my mom died; I lived with them as I finished up my last year in high school. My brother had wanted to take care of me, but he was finishing up his undergraduate degree at the University of Kentucky and had just been admitted to Auburn University’s veterinarian school. And everyone agreed it was best that he finish college and proceed straight to vet school. I knew everyone hoped I would be off to college in a year, I’d move on from the tragedy, and everything would be okay.

  I did go off to college. The rest of the plan didn’t go so well.

  Chief Reid angled his head, studying me as if he’d only just now realized that this scene might be hard on me.

  The squeal of tires pierced the crisp morning air, followed by a high-pitched scream. I spun to see Bella Reynolds getting out of a red sedan.

  “Well, I guess we’ve found the daughter,” Chief Reid said under his breath. “Who the hell let her through the barricade?”

  The coroner was closest to her, and he stopped her from running through the red caution tape like she’d just finished first in a marathon. Unfortunately for her, I knew the marathon was yet to come. The longest race of her life would be trying to forget the image of the people she loved most being burned to a crisp. Even if she didn’t actually see the bodies, her mind would conjure up the image—and it would haunt her forever.

  She was still screaming hysterically, held by the coroner, as Chief Reid walked over to her. “What happened? Oh, God! Mom! Dad! Nooo!” Her screams turned into sobs.

  It was yet another replay of a horrific moment I’d experienced myself.

  As Chief Reid comforted the girl, I turned to Uncle Henry. “He thinks it’s Ethan, doesn’t he?”

  “Ethan’s name was mentioned when Sam called last night.”

  Ethan had been sentenced to life in prison, but in a shocking turn of ev
ents, he was released less than a month ago. He had put in a request for an appeal of his verdict, based on exculpatory evidence hidden from the public defender during the original trial. And it must have been quite the collection of evidence withheld, because not only was the appeal approved, but the commonwealth’s attorney decided to drop all charges almost immediately thereafter. And then the judge did something completely unprecedented: he sealed the evidence and kept it from being released to the public.

  Uncle Henry sighed. “When he was released, I knew his name would be thrown around in any arson investigations that came up. The public still believes he’s guilty—there’s no reason for them to think otherwise, since the evidence is sealed—and you know he’s on the radar of reporters, too. They all want the story.” He looked down at me. “Do you know where he went after his release?”

  “Me? Why would I know?”

  “The two of you were close once. I thought if he contacted anyone…”

  My body tensed, and a wave of dread and nausea rose from my gut. I quickly changed the subject. “I’ve got enough photos,” I said. “I’ll have the station send copies to you.”

  I started to edge past my uncle, but he grabbed my arm and held firmly, forcing me to look him in the eye.

  “You’re not safe at the farm, Faith. I don’t even care why the prosecutors decided to drop those charges—Ethan is still a dangerous man. And twelve years in the state pen can’t have helped. We don’t know what kind of person he is now.”

  “If Ethan means me harm, I’m not safe anywhere,” I spat. I pulled my arm from my uncle’s grasp. He liked to treat me like I was still a teenager, but I hadn’t been a young girl in a very long time. I knew how to take care of myself. “He should never have been let out.”

  The way I saw it, Ethan’s release was the fault of the fire and police investigators, who must have made some sort of procedural mistake. They should have made sure the evidence was tight all those years ago. But I couldn’t say that to Uncle Henry, because he’d been involved in the investigation. Chief Reid, too. They’d spent a lot of hours collecting evidence and building a timeline that convinced both a jury and me that Ethan was guilty. Which only made me hate Ethan even more.