Burnt Out ...Part 5 …Staring Down My Demons

I was hiding away, shrinking back, retreating.

I could say I was recovering, but that would the lie I told myself to cover up avoidance.

Yeah, Sarah's murder was horrific and of course, there was grief, but it's one thing to endure it and quite another to deny it.

I was living in bad faith and needed to do something for her―catch her killer, not put bedroom slippers on my pain.

I spent two hours in the city, grabbing necessities from my apartment and then left. I had enough to sustain me for a couple of months and whatever else I might need, I'd buy.

I wasn't going to return until I caught her killer, assuming the latest forensics were right. I had already wasted too much time and let the trail go cold, but if The Destroyer was back, then so was I.

I still found it hard to believe he'd resurface but Cyril was a good cop and I trusted his judgment...but I needed to see evidence before I could completely buy in...

But once I did, there'd be no turning back this time, of that, I was certain.

It was a week before Canadian Thanksgiving and already the trees that lined the escarpment were beginning to turn colour. Traffic on the highway was light because I was heading away from the city, much like the day I last saw Sarah.

I intended to make a side trip to the quarry where a sniper ended her life―and not just hers, but mine. After that day I knew I was never going to be the same.

I needed to go back alone and revisit the scene again. I wasn't in search of answers―it felt more like visiting a grave. As macabre as that sounds, I thought it necessary for her to hear it from me.

Yeah, that also sounds deranged, but hell, the girl visits me in my sleep and implores me to do something. So, I've finally surrendered. She can hear it from my lips in a place where I'm sure her spirit still persists.

I turn off the highway onto a concession road and fifteen minutes later my SUV is bouncing and jouncing over the rutted road I've tried so hard to block from memory.

I reach a grey, weathered fence and park where we stopped when it all came to an end. Everything looks the same. The same wooden boardwalk over the marsh, the same cliffs towering over me.

It's deceptively beautiful and peaceful here. The trees have already turned colour―Sarah would love that.

I automatically open the glove compartment and retrieve my gun. My instincts click in. I'm out in the open. I scan the cliffs in search of anyone or anything.

But nothing's remarkable, just feather grass rolling in waves toward rocky cliffs and trees too numberless to count, orange, red and yellow showing off exotic colours.

Oh, and need I add? Above me a turkey vulture, circling in the gun-metal sky, looking for its prey just as I am looking for clues to mine.