Winter's Child by Christine D. Shuck

Author:Christine D. Shuck [Shuck, Christine D.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2022-04-24T16:00:00+00:00

15. The Journal

- Vincent -

September 18th, 2019 - Brisbane, Australia

I walk away from Royal Brisbane and Women’s Hospital, my memories are filled with Eli’s birth four years ago. And not just that. Justine and I came here just seven short months ago to pick up our newborns, Jarrah and Jedda. That was before Justine asked for a trial separation, one that grew to include a divorce petition. There is something about seeing Nicky’s newborn that moves something primal in me: the need to fix what I broke in my marriage, to reconnect with Justine, and be present for my children. God knows I have tried. Sometimes it seemed like the harder I try, the more Justine pulls away. Whatever she wants, it isn’t me.

I push Justine out of my mind. I need to see the crime scene, or what is left of it. A twenty-minute drive and I arrive at the Staunton house. It is still smoking, and I can see Trevor Stevens, an investigator for the fire department, poking about.

He looks up and waves me over. “Vincent! You working this case?”

“I am. Good to see you back in action.” Trevor was investigating a fire nearly a year earlier when a section of ground had caved in. We had learned later that the sole occupant of the house was a conspiracy nut. The Aussies didn’t have as many of them as the U.S. did, but they still ran into the type down under. The guy had used a sledgehammer to break through the floor of his large walk-in closet and then burrowed under the ground, creating a tunnel to his fallout shelter. This had collapsed when the house caught fire and the firefighters turned thousands of gallons of water loose, much of it swamping the already unstable tunnel. Trevor had fallen over six feet, broken his femur in two places, and been hospitalized for a week. Months of rehab later, and here he was, back on the job, moving slower, but hell, he was upright.

“Thanks, mate. How’s your latest set of ankle biters?”

I laugh. “The twins? Growing fast. So what do you know so far?”

Trevor scratches his nose and looks over his shoulder at the smoking ruin. “It started in the garage and looks and smells like petrol for an accelerant. Likely the can they used to fill the mower. It was on its side.”

Half of the house is a blackened ruin, whereas the other half is smoke damaged. I nod toward the stairs, gaze up to the second level that includes the bedrooms. “Okay to go up?”

Trevor nods. “Stick to the right-hand side and don’t go toward the larger master bedroom near the back. It’s unstable.”

No great surprise there. It sits directly over the garage and kitchen, whereas the two smaller bedrooms over the front half of the house look as if they were barely affected. The reek of smoke fills my nostrils as I make my way up the stairs and into what turns out not to be a child’s bedroom but is instead Nicky and her husband Jhon’s room.

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