careful. Always careful.
I’ve been camping in these mountains for twenty years.
Always fucking careful.
“You there?” he says.
I gulp. “Yes. I’m here.”
“Apparently a hiker or camper or someone left some embers. It was probably an accident, but there’s no doubt. That’s how the fire began.”
“Do you have the exact location?” I ask robotically, not sure if I actually want to know.
“I can give you GPS coordinates. Sure.”
I say nothing.
“Mr. Steel? You want those coordinates?”
“Text them to me please.” Again in robot tone.
“Will do.”
“Are charges being filed?”
“I doubt it. I’m sure there were lots of campers in the area. How would we narrow it down? Besides, these things are usually accidental.”
“Yes,” I echo. “Accidental. No one wants to burn down a forest.”
“Not usually, and there’s nothing to be done now.”
“Thank you for the information. I’ll relay it to my family.”
“Thank you. Have a good day, Mr. Steel. And we’re all very sorry for the damage to your property.”
I end the call, and within a minute, my phone dings with a text.
Cellular service is spotty in the mountains, especially off the established trails. Still, I keep as accurate a record as I can when I’m out alone. Just in case I have to tell someone where to find me. I may not have the exact coordinates of where I was the night before the fire began, but I’ll find something close in my record.
I pull up the text from Ramsey.
It doesn’t really matter what the coordinates say. I was in that area at that time, and during that time, I saw no one else. Not a one.
I was alone.
Which was what I wanted at the time.
I don’t need to read the text to find out what I already know.
That fire… That fire that destroyed my Syrah vines.
It was started by a camper.
By me.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Ashley
I wake to the buzzing of my phone on the night table.
What time is it? It’s light outside, but I have no idea. I grab the phone without looking to see who it is. “Hello?” I say frantically.
“Ashley.”
My mother. Her voice is…colorless.
This is not a good sign.
“Mom,” I say. “How’s Dennis?”
“I can’t believe it.”
“What? What happened?” My heart beats ridiculously fast.
“He’s…gone, Ash. He…didn’t make it.”
“Wait, wait, wait…” Her words make no sense. Again the words disassemble into colored letters above me. Then the color dissipates into a dull gray.
“It was a stroke, but they caught it early. They…”
“What?” I say into the phone.
“Something about his heart. The stroke. I don’t know, exactly.”
“Mom, my God. His heart? I don’t understand.”
“A heart attack. At his age. A stroke. At his age. He’s in such good shape.”
Her words are colorless still. Without expression. She’s in shock. Numb.
“How?” I ask. “How did this happen?”
Already I know the question is moot. My mother is in shock. She won’t be able to answer me.
“Mom, I’ll be right there, okay? I just need to get some clothes on.”
“Okay, Ashley. Thank you.”
“Just stay at the hospital. You shouldn’t be alone. I’ll be right there.” I stumble out of bed and trip over my evening bag from last night. I fall to the floor, banging my knee. “Ow!” Pain shoots through me, but I don’t care. I pull on the first comfortable clothes I find. Jeans and a sweatshirt. Sneakers and socks.
“Dale!” I scream as I leave the bedroom. “Dale, where are you?”
No response. I hurry to the kitchen and let Penny in. I feed her a small portion of kibble, in case Dale didn’t feed her earlier, and refresh her water.
“I’ve got to go, girl,” I say, petting her head. “I hate leaving you alone so much, but I have to get to the hospital. Where’s your daddy?”
I pet her again and head out quickly to the car I borrowed from the Steels. I plug the hospital address into my map app and go.
“We’re running tests,” the doctor tells me as I stand next to my mother in the hospital chapel. “But from what I can tell so far, Dennis’s blood pressure was extremely high, and so was his cholesterol.”
“He never said anything about that,” Mom says absently.
“He most likely didn’t know. There’s no record in his insurance database of him having a physical in the last ten years, or seeing a doctor for any reason. Not unusual for a healthy man of thirty-three. Hypertension and high cholesterol are usually asymptomatic.”
“Did that cause the stroke?” I ask.
“No one knows the exact cause of a stroke,” the doctor says, “but Dennis’s extreme hypertension was probably a factor.”
“And the heart attack?”