Chapter Nine
Ghosts on Paper
Cal pushed open the front door just as the sun was dying behind the tree line, throwing the living room into amber light. He hadn’t been home in three nights. Maybe four. Time blurred when you slept on a cot and drank cold coffee for dinner.
Mona was the first to see him. She froze mid-step, eyes wide, then sprinted across the room and latched onto his legs like she was afraid he’d vanish if she let go. Cal bent down, scooped her up, and hugged her tight, breathing in the smell of crayons and shampoo like it was the first clean breath he’d had all week.
Kila stood in the kitchen doorway, stunned. She didn’t speak right away, just watched the two of them as if she wasn’t sure this was real. The pause stretched long enough for something unspoken to pass between her and Cal. Something they both carried but never named. Her eyes began to water, and she gave a small nod, voice low and uneven.
“Let me fix your plate,” she said, already turning toward the kitchen, as if motion would keep everything from falling apart.
They sat at the table together, an almost forgotten ritual. Mona chattered endlessly, telling her father everything she’d done in the days he’d been gone—school stories, a dream she’d had, how her favorite crayon broke and she was still sad about it. Cal listened, letting her words wash over him like something he’d been starving for.
Then Mona went quiet for a moment, eyes down on her plate. She glanced up at him, voice smaller now, sheepish. “Daddy… are you gonna be here for breakfast?” Her little eyes pleaded for him to say yes.
It crushed Cal’s heart. He reached over, squeezed her tiny hand, but couldn’t make the promise she wanted. He looked at Kila, searching for an answer that wouldn’t hurt, but none came. Kila turned away on the verge of tears, her jaw tight, hands gripping her napkin as if it might keep her steady.
Finally, she drew in a shaky breath and spoke softly. “Finish up, Mona. Bedtime soon.”
Mona wrinkled her nose, muttering, “Bedtime… bad word,” before reluctantly picking up her fork and finishing her dinner.
Cal just sat there, wishing he could be the man they needed him to be. His eyes drifted toward the door, thinking of the cabin, the cold cot, the quiet nights where demons breathed louder than the wind. He wanted to say yes to Mona, to promise breakfast and mornings together, but some promises he didn’t trust himself to keep. The weight of what he’d done, what he’d seen, kept a wall between him and this table.
Kila cleared her throat, voice softer this time. “Coffee on the porch? It’s cooled off a bit.” Cal nodded silently.
As she took Mona’s hand, Kila stopped beside Cal, studying his face closely. “You look tired,” she murmured, her free hand resting gently against his chest. “Work? Or the other thing?” Her fingers lingered for a heartbeat before she pulled them back, the question hanging unanswered in the air.
She forced a small smile and straightened. “I’ll be right back. Our monster won’t go quietly.” Mona stomped away in protest, repeating, “Bedtime, bad word. Bad word.”
Kila glanced over her shoulder at Cal, a faint smirk cutting through the sadness. “I wonder where she gets that from?” she said lightly, before leading their daughter upstairs, Mona still muttering as they disappeared down the hall.
Cal stepped out onto the porch and lowered himself into his grandfather’s rocking chair. The old wood creaked under his weight, a sound tied to memories older than his badge. His grandfather had built it the year Cal’s father was born, and he and his father reworked it together when he was a teenager. It was the only place that ever felt steady when the world refused to stop shifting.
He pulled out his full-sized journal, the kind with thick pages that could hold the weight of his thoughts. The little notebooks the other deputies carried never cut it. There was always too much rattling in his head, too many ghosts needing to be set free on paper.
He clicked his pen, stared out into the darkening yard, and began to write:
Why the hell was Ezra Jennings back? How does he tie into all of this? If he does, how? If Ezra Jennings is back, no good will come from it. That mess between the Jennings and the Greers was supposed to die down when Ezra left. It did. There was always tension, but that’s just Ashwood. What the hell is Ezra up to now?
He set the pen down for a moment and rubbed the back of his neck. Naomi and Ezra are up to something. I can feel it in my bones. He needed to figure out who the woman from the tulip field was. He wondered how the doc—Dr. Coleman, the county M.E., was coming along with the autopsy. And he needed to pry loose everything those city cops knew. They always came in acting like they were the only ones with a brain, like intellect was something you had to leave at the city limits.
Then a darker thought slid in, one he didn’t like: What if the tulip field wasn’t the first? What if someone is trying to draw me out, make me remember what I buried years ago? The chill of that idea crawled along his spine.
“Cal,” Kila interrupted his thoughts, her voice soft but firm. He looked over and met her gaze.
“When are you coming home?” she asked. “If you have any chance of figuring things out, you need to be home where we can love on you. Make you feel that whatever you’re carrying, you don’t have to carry it alone.” She reached over and rubbed his arm. That simple gesture had always soothed him better than anything. He had thought he lost her once—that the bad stuff had ruined everything they’d built.
“Besides,” Kila added, a little sharper now, “that cabin of yours isn’t fit for any creature on God’s earth. Sardines, crackers, and pinto beans, really? I’m supposed to put up with that? No sir, I’ve had enough. You will be here for breakfast, and you’re gonna give me the loving we both need. Now finish your coffee before it gets cold.”
Cal looked down at his mug, then back at her, a small flicker of warmth breaking through the storm in his chest. For the first time in days, he thought maybe—just maybe—he could come home.
Cal rubbed his eyes and opened the folder on his lap, flipping past fresh reports and old clippings that smelled like dust and smoke. He wasn’t sure which ghosts were worse—the ones on paper or the ones in his head.
Casefile Insert: Preliminary Observations – Dr. Nia Carter
Sheriff,
This girl wasn’t killed where you found her. That tulip field was just the final stop on her bad day tour. I’d bet a week’s coffee money she spent hours—maybe a full day—on ice before someone dropped her off like yesterday’s groceries.
Here’s what stands out:
- Time of Death: 24–36 hours before discovery. Too well-preserved for the timeline you gave me. Nature doesn’t work that fast. People with freezers do.
- Condition: Ligature marks on wrists and ankles, faint but there. She was restrained, probably alive for most of it. No visible trauma suggests a fight, which is unsettling. Either she trusted whoever did this or was too scared to try.
- Foreign Particulates: Tulip pollen mixed with ash under her nails. Ash doesn’t blow in with the morning breeze, Sheriff. Someone wanted her hands to tell a story.
- Transport: Soles of her shoes clean as a sermon. Clothes too dry for the frost. Urban dust on the jacket, diesel soot, tire particulates—she came from the city, not our quiet little corner.
- Trace scent: Expensive cologne on the jacket—city brand. If Ezra Jennings still wears the same stuff he did back in the day, you might have a lead.
Personal note? Whoever staged this scene did it with care. Too much care. Felt like they wanted her found—and wanted you to find her.
– Dr. Nia Carter
(P.S. The smell of tulips and freezer burn is one combo I could live without.)
Casefile Insert: Detective Ramirez – Briefing Memo
To: Lt. Maddox, City Homicide Division
From: Detective A. Ramirez
Subject: Ashwood County Investigation – Early Impressions
Lt.,
We’ve been here less than a week, and this place already stinks of secrets. The girl in the tulip field isn’t local. Everything about her—from the city dust on her clothes to the way she was preserved—says she was brought here for a reason. Dr. Carter’s observations back that up: refrigeration, careful staging, deliberate placement. This wasn’t a killing of opportunity. It was a message.
Locals claim Clem Ford hasn’t been near the Ashwell property in years, yet fresh tracks matching his old truck were found less than a mile from the tulip field. Somebody’s lying, and it’s not the mud.
I can’t shake the feeling this is tied to old business in Ashwood. Ezra Jennings, the fire at Ashwell Farm—names keep circling like vultures. But every time we push, doors slam shut. Even Sheriff Danner looks like he’s guarding a vault in his own head.
Somebody here knows why this body ended up in their backyard. They’re more scared of the truth than they are of us.
– Det. Ramirez
Casefile Insert: Unverified Local Account – Ashwood Gazette Archive
Headline: Ashwell Blaze Leaves One Dead, Infant Missing
Date: 18 years ago, archived clipping from Ashwood Gazette
Eyewitnesses recall the fire that consumed the Ashwell property as “unnatural,” spreading too fast for the dry conditions. Trial records were sealed after Ezekiel Ashwell’s death. One infant was listed as missing, presumed dead, though no remains were recovered. Names mentioned in rumors include Clem Ford as a witness, though testimony details were never made public.
Margin note found on this clipping, handwriting unknown:
“Ezekiel didn’t leave alone. He’s still out there.”
Rumors persist that the fire was deliberate, a cover for something far worse, and that the missing child’s fate was quietly buried along with the truth of that night.
Closing Beat – Danner’s Journal
Cal closed the folder slowly, the weight of it heavier than paper had any right to be. The night around him was quiet, too quiet for Ashwood. He stared out into the yard, the porch light throwing long shadows that felt like they were listening.
If this girl were a message, it was one written in blood and silence. Ezra back in town, Naomi circling, the Ashwell fire still smoldering in the county’s memory—it all tied together somehow. He just couldn’t see the thread yet.
Then a floorboard creaked out by the fence line. Too heavy for a fox, too deliberate for the wind. By the time he stood to check, there was nothing there but quiet grass and a feeling that someone had been watching.
He reached for his coffee, now cold, and muttered to himself, “Some ghosts don’t stay buried, do they?”
From upstairs, the faint sound of Mona’s laughter in her sleep drifted down, cutting through the dark like a promise he wasn’t sure he could keep.
Keep Following the Trail
Ashwood County doesn’t forget. Neither should you.
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