I didn’t sleep at all after Denise called.
I sat at my kitchen table until sunrise trying to remember that fire from 2009. Small house outside Branson. Older couple died inside. Denise and I cleaned smoke damage at the property next door a week later.
At first it didn’t seem connected.
Then I remembered Denise stealing a box from the burned house.
Not jewelry. Not money.
Paperwork.
I used to joke she was the nosiest woman alive. She’d open medicine cabinets in million-dollar homes just to see what rich people prescribed themselves.
Around noon the next day, I drove back to the lake house.
Empty.
No cars. No Denise.
But the hallway closet door was wide open now. Inside, the carpet had square marks like furniture had been dragged out fast. I noticed one peppermint candy wrapper shoved into the corner near the baseboard.
Denise.
I was backing out of the driveway when a county utility truck pulled in behind me.
The homeowner got out smiling like nothing happened.
He asked if I forgot something.
I said no.
Then he looked directly at me and said, “Denise gets confused sometimes. You shouldn’t listen to sick people.”
The way he said it made my skin crawl.
That night I finally searched the names from the 2009 fire online.
The dead couple had no children.
But their property, insurance payout, and land rights had all transferred after the fire to the wife’s younger brother.
Same last name as the lake house owner.
I kept scrolling until I found an old archived article with a blurry photo from the scene.
And standing behind the sheriff tape was Denise.
Twenty years younger.
Crying.
Holding a cardboard evidence box against her chest.
Then my phone buzzed with a text from an unknown number.
One address.
No message.
Just an address outside Springfield.
Under it, one sentence:
“He knows I took the files.”