Always Watching

myself coming back into my body then, felt the tears beginning to dry.
    The cat, along with my daughter, was gone. In the days immediately after the fire, there had been so many people around my home, new voices and scents, she’d bolted. We’d left kibble outside for weeks, but she didn’t come back.
    Tammy and I spoke a few times. She’d left her husband and was still struggling with the loss of her sister and parents. It would take a long time for her to heal, but she was strong and making plans for her future. They finally removed Willow’s remains. I imagined the barrel being brought up from the ground, rusted and covered in clods of earth, her bones released from their imprisonment at last. It was hard not to think of her without remembering when Aaron had buried me, the sound of the shovel going into the ground, the dirt hitting the metal, the breath leaving my lungs, knowing that Willow had endured the same fate. But she hadn’t made it out. Sometimes I wondered if that’s when Aaron learned he liked burying women, liked to hear them scream, or if there were others. Willow didn’t have any family, so Robbie and I planned to purchase a plot at the same cemetery as Paul’s. When the police released the remains, we’d hold a service for her.
    And we would plant lavender around her grave.
    *   *   *
    In the middle of May, about a month after the fire, I again started to get the sense that my house was being watched. It was subtle at first. I’d be outside, moving a garbage can, or taking the recycling out, and I’d have the feeling that I wasn’t alone. I’d pause and look around, all my nerve endings alive and ready to run, but never saw anything, so I put it down to stress, or just an overzealous reporter.
    One night I came home from work and was getting out of my car when I noticed a movement to my left. I stared hard at the cemetery, catching sight of a shadow quickly walking away. I ran into my house and called Kevin. He came over and had a look around, but didn’t see anything. I reminded myself I’d been tired and jumpy, that it was likely someone taking an evening stroll.
    A week later, I was in my potting shed when I realized my pruning shears had been moved. I always kept them hanging on the wall, but they were down by one of my bonsai trees, the one I’d been working on recently. I studied the branches. Fear shot through my body. Someone had cut one of them off.

 
    CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT
    The police had a look around and even fingerprinted the shears, but the handle had been dirty, and only my print showed up on the blades. It had to have been me that cut the branch, but I had no recollection of doing it. Kevin and I talked about my increased anxiety and considered the possibility that it was paranoia, a delayed post-traumatic stress reaction. I’d almost been killed, along with my brother, and I was struggling with immense guilt over all the lives that had been lost. I was also trying to accept the fact that my daughter had probably not survived the fire. It had been over a month, and there had been no sightings of her, no calls on any of the posters we put up. I still clung to hope, remembering how adept she was at changing her appearance and disappearing from the world, but this time I feared my daughter had disappeared forever. Even if she was just missing and hadn’t died that terrible day, in the end my daughter was gone. And I needed to find some sort of closure.
    There was a memorial at the scene of the fire. Now that the initial investigation was over and human remains had been removed, there was a metal chain-link fence and an officer guarding the entrance. People had been coming by for weeks, leaving flowers and trinkets outside the fence, lighting candles. I wanted to bring my own gift, and I also asked Sergeant Pallan if I could visit inside the commune site, something they’d allowed a few family members to do. Sergeant Pallan got permission to bring me there. Kevin also came with me.
    I’d never driven by the site before, unable to face it, and I thought I was prepared now, but when we pulled through the gates, and I saw the charred remains of the buildings, I sucked in my breath, like I’d been punched hard in the center of my stomach. I covered my mouth as my eyes filled with tears, shaking my head at the devastating sight, the harsh reality of all those deaths. As we got out of the car, Kevin said, “You sure you want to do this?”
    I nodded, looking