The Case of Jonathan Dillon

© 2020 by Billie Dean Shoemate III

Published by Asylum817 Productions

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to anyone living or dead, is purely coincidental. Any attempt to plagiarize, redistribute, abridge or quote this work without the author’s permission is strictly prohibited, and will result in legal action.

Cover art by Billie Dean Shoemate III

asylum817.com

Novels by Billie Dean  Shoemate  III

FICTION

Villain

Hourglass

The Shaman

Lot 150

Vendetta: Villain II

Oblivion: Villain III

A Madman’s Jury

The Zombie Letters

Asylum817 Presents: Macbeth

Shadowchaser

Kindred Spirits (with Ruthie Amos Colley)

Villain IV

Villain V

NON-FICTION

The American Soapbox: A Thesis of Modern Living

COLLECTIONS

In the Willows

Skies of Madness

EBOOK EXCLUSIVES

The Blessing

The Closet Man

We Can See

Shadowchaser II: The Ring of Lucifer

Flies

Houdini

The Sixth Week of Jeremy Miller

All of Billie’s books are available through Amazon.com

THE CASE OF JONATHAN DILLON

It started the night of the fire.

As a divorce and personal injury lawyer, I’ve seen some things, let me tell you. What happened the night of the fire and the events after it, stick out in my mind and refuse to go away. Feels like some kind of waking nightmare. During the day, I just chalk it up to one of those things that happen. One of those strange occurrences that occur in our world from time to time, when conditions are just right. Anomalous things in the working order of the machine. They are by no means supernatural, but when one considers how many small things of an untold, uncountable amount make up this universe and make it work . . . sometimes odd things are bound to happen. At night, though, I remember things in more detail. My mind wanders and assures me of the fact that some things may not be of this world. Like I said, a ludicrous assumption during the day, but when the lights are out, I think that my soul knows better.

Rebecca and Jonathan came into my office together to talk about how to go about a divorce. Already an interesting one. Usually doesn’t happen that way. I’m not saying it never has, but in all my years doing this, I can only count on one hand the couples getting divorced; walking into the building together. They were sincerely inquisitive about how the process went and with no children, I told them it would be relatively cheap and easy. That was until they came back a couple weeks later with the information I asked them for. It was all the usual stuff. Household income information, lists of all assets, owned properties and bills the couple shared. Turns out Mister and Mrs. Dillon were quite wealthy. They were wealthy of their own right, too. Jonathan was a mobile app developer. He made smartphone apps ranging from budget planners and custom operating systems to some games even I had on my phone. The guy was a heavyweight. Some of the games he developed sold in the millions. I won’t name any here, but if you’ve owned a smartphone since Google Plus came to be the go-to place for apps, you’ve played at least a couple of his games.

Rebecca worked in real estate. In Los Angeles, there is no shortage of real estate in the upper middle-class areas to sell to the public with the money, but way too many real estate agents to go around. It was a cutthroat business from what I hear, but Mrs. Dillon was as fierce as they come. She clawed her way to the top and made quite a name for herself. Even sold a couple houses on Mulholland. Not too shabby. If you drive anywhere in LA long enough, you’ll see a billboard with her picture on it.

This made things a little trickier, especially with no prenup. Neither of them had any financial significance when they were first married and even after the money came into their lives, who owned what and what happens to their estate should they split was never considered. Just one of those couples that thought they would beat the statistics and be married forever. Admirable, but I am a firm believer in the prenuptial agreement, especially for the well-off. Even after marriage, anything on paper divvying up what goes to whom, even if it holds no water in a courtroom is something I strongly consider. They showed up a few more times, always together. Always cordial with each other and me. Neither of them wanted anything from the other. It was a breath of fresh air, actually. I loved taking on clients like that. I didn’t have to work with another attorney wanting to take over the world, needing to own the goddamn moon and every rock on it. No vicious war between the soon-to-be ex couple, arguing over petty stuff like children fighting over Legos. I wish every case was like that one. Not what happened after their last visit, but the case itself.

Until the fire, anyway.

In the small hours one morning, I got a call from Jonathan. He sounded beyond tired, his breathing harsh and raspy. He told me that he needed to see me as soon as possible and asked me if my office was open on Saturdays. “Not usually,” I told him. “I can pop in for a little bit if you need me, though.” I already stressed to them that since I was working on their case together, it was imperative that they both show up together or I’d have nothing to say. Both parties needed to be present, no matter what was being discussed. Just the nature of the thing. I didn’t want what would end up being a smooth proceeding to get mucked up by having a meeting with one of the clients without the other present. If the wife got pissed enough, she could use that against him. And me. After a conflict of interest is declared in court or even suspected, there goes my client’s chance of getting anything he or she wants. My reputation would go down the shitter, too. I have a good one. Even now. Even after all that’s happened. No amount of breaking even the smallest bit of client-council trust is worth losing that.

Jonathan tried to reply to me in that husky, almost dazed tone, and broke out in a terrible coughing fit. He wasn’t a smoker (I know because I offered him a cigar during one of our meetings and he politely declined, saying he was a born-again straight edge), but that hack he had on the phone sounded like a man who was downing three packs of coffin nails a day. No joke. I could hear him swallow hard, collect himself, and as I looked at my alarm clock to see that it was three in the morning, a feeling of deep unease crept over me.

“Jonathan, what’s going on, where are you?”

“Bay General Hospital. There . . .” another hacking cough, followed by a pained grunt. “Sorry. There’s been a fire at the house. We were sleeping in the guest bedrooms and . . . oh, my God . . . Rebecca . . .”

“Oh my god,” I whispered, leaping out of bed and immediately rummaging through my closet to find a pair of jeans. I wouldn’t do this for most of, possibly any, of my clients. That couple, though. They seemed like such nice people. My heart broke for them. Over the course of that four weeks leading up to the divorce, I took a liking to them. Mostly, it was the sound of Jonathan’s voice on the phone. I’m a divorce and personal injury attorney, ok? Nobody ever needs one, let alone calls or visits one on a good day. I normally talk to people on just about the worst days of their lives and I have never heard a tone like the one Jonathan Dillon had in his voice that morning. It frightened me. I mean, really frightened me. My mind was rattled and thinking the absolute worst.

Jonathan told me that I didn’t have to come by; that he had endured some major smoke inhalation, but he would be released by the weekend. I came anyway. I don’t know how fast I drove to that hospital. All I know is that I got from A to B in Los Angeles in record time. When I got to the hospital, I asked where his room was and took the elevator to his floor. His door was half-shut when I walked in and gave the door a soft knock. “Come on in.” His voice echoed out of the small room, sounding like a much different man. When I laid eyes on him, he was a different man. He was wearing a hospital gown and sitting straight up in the bed, all manner of hoses and wires hooked up to him. A saline IV was hanging above him, slowly dripping next to a machine that beeped to his heartbeat a hair too fast. His face was pale and his skin dirty; smeared with black marks like soot. Some of the hair was missing from his temples, as well as one of his arms. One of his eyebrows was missing, as well. As comical as it looks when a person is without eyebrows, my heart broke for the man. And all the while, standing there looking at him, my thoughts went to the lovely and polite young woman who accompanied him at our meetings. The woman he was divorcing.

She’d died in the fire. Jonathan, barely able to keep it together, told me what had happened while they slept. In between horrible hacking fits and sobs that came bubbling to the surface beyond his control and composure, he told me that the smoke alarm woke him up. He said his wife was a heavy sleeper and wouldn’t have heard it. She was sleeping in the guest bedroom downstairs. West wing of the home. Not noticing any smells or smoke anywhere, Mister Dillon walked downstairs to see that the whole west wing was covered in flames. It was inaccessible. “The fire was all over the place. All around the front door and moving around the windows. I couldn’t get out. I ran back upstairs and threw myself through a bathroom window. I slid out onto the roof and got out. By the time I called the fire department and they arrived, the house was engulfed. Rebecca wasn’t anywhere. Jesus, Jimmy, she was still inside, man . . .”

I suppose it was at this point that I noticed Jonathan was lying. I’d been to their home before. I used that bathroom. I knew what window he jumped out of. A portion of the roof hung right below it, making a little platform of space one story down. It would be a hell of a fall, but nothing that would break any bones if you landed right. Probably give you a sprained ankle. If you threw yourself out of the window, though, you’d miss that section of roof completely. That particular fall would be a different story. That thin, single-paned window would shatter in larger pieces. Those old windows do. It would have sliced him to ribbons. He had not one cut on him. The only injuries he sustained were burns and inhalation of the smoke. That fall would have guaranteed broken an arm or a leg, especially if he tossed himself out of that window. The fire was downstairs, by the way he told it. He had more than enough time to smash that window, walk out onto the roof and lower himself down. Anyone else would say that his mind was frantic at that point, which would be an astute assumption, but I’m a lawyer. I pick apart lies for a living. It is an awfully snobbish and pessimistic thing to say, but I knew he was lying.

Jonathan seemed to sense this and when I gave him that look when he told me about the window, he put up his hand as if to stop the look dead in its tracks before it reached him. “I’ll talk to you about this later. I can’t right now. I just lost my wife.”

“How do you know? Maybe she got out, Jon. Maybe the firemen got her out, you never know.” He said nothing to that. Just nodded with a queer look on his face. His brow scrunched and his Adam’s apple bouncing up and down . . . that same bounce I had seen a million times before. That bounce of forced crying. Pushing the tears out of your eyes when you just cannot make them come. This kind of thing was new to him. A detective would eat him alive. He’d crack in a heartbeat and I knew it. Jonathan was a businessman. A technology man. Plain and simple. A man of money. He weighed probably a hundred and thirty soaking wet. He wasn’t a tough man. Not being mean. Just telling the truth. Just like Heath Ledger says in that Batman movie. I know the squealers when I see them.

Not just legally, but morally, I knew what I had to do. It was more than a hunch. I knew the man was lying. He’d set that fire and killed his wife mere weeks before the divorce. Even though a divorce was in place, nothing had been officially filed yet. Neither of them had any family aside from relatives distant enough to not be merited anything estate-wise. No children, either. Everything, even amid a divorce proceeding (which I was handling, anyway) was all going to him. The life insurance, the property, even the small horse ranch upstate that Rebecca inherited from her late grandfather.

I comforted Jonathan and told him how sorry I was. That I hoped Rebecca was pulled from the fire. I stuck around with him in silence for a while until he slunk down and fell asleep.

I stood out in that hallway for what felt like millennia. My phone was in my hand, my finger resting on the 9. I had to call the police and tell them what I’d just heard. I had no conscious thought at this point. No voice in my head telling me what to do. I have to admit, the only thought in my head was anger. Anger that this couple, an extremely wealthy one, was going with my firm, which in all fairness is still under the radar compared to the others in this city. I have a good rep, yes, but I own a building with only one floor next to a car dealership. That couple could have gone to anyone and with the amount of money I could make off this thing, as much as they already paid with no trouble, I was downright pissed that it had slipped out of my hands. I could have dragged this case on for another six weeks, maybe even sow the seeds of dissent from the couple. I was planning on it, too. Start picking at them little by little until I had myself a little War of the Roses. Legally, one of them would have to go off and get another attorney, but by then I would have milked so much money out of them, that it would have been beautiful. I had some ideas . . . maybe plant some exotic underwear in Rebecca’s car or got myself another cell phone under a fake name to blow up Jonathan’s phone; posing as the man his wife was fucking. But no. Mister Dillon had to fuck it all up with his damn fire bit.

I walked back into Jonathan’s room and tapped him awake. He sat up quickly, his eyes wide and startled. “Nervous? You woke up expecting to see a cop or something,” I said.

“No . . . nasty dream.”

I nodded and grabbed onto Jonathan’s wrist, the one with the medical bracelet on it. I squeezed his wrist hard enough for it to hurt. He looked at me with a confused look that quickly transmuted to anger until he started registering what I was saying. “Eventually a cop will be the one waking you up, wanting to know where the holes in their investigation came from. In my notes, which I will share with police, is that your wife was having second thoughts about this divorce, wasn’t she? Remember that? Her recent attempts at suicide?”

“She wasn’t having . . .” he said and stopped. His eyes darted back and forth, and he lowered his head, letting me continue.

“Second thoughts. She said to you and me in confidence that she didn’t want this to occur. She told you once that she would be civil with you and do what you want with no fight. That you would both go through this together, but she said she was fighting the will to put a bullet in her head. Remember when she said that in my office? You remember that???”

Jonathan slowly nodded, not saying a word.

“Yeah, I remember that too. I also remember her signing a higher commission for me, should this whole thing be taken care of quickly.”

Just nodding from him. No reply. His face was blank. Nearly soulless now.

“So, how did the fire happen, Jonathan? When did you hear your wife calling out to you, telling you to come into her room?”

That’s when he spoke. His voice sounded low and defeated. All the anger inside was gone. A stupid man he was not. A poor planner of these kinds of things, but not stupid. It actually kind of relaxed me knowing he was a bit of a beginner to arson and murder. No subtlety was being lost on him. “Three o-nine.”

“Nope. Earlier. The fire was all over the place at three on the dot. You remember what time she called you, right?”

“Two forty,” he said.

“Good boy. You go to her room and she’s sitting in bed with whatever materials the firefighters and cops will find out caused it. She says she loves you and lights herself up like a pissed off Buddhist monk. Whatever you dosed her with to make her sleep through that smoke alarm . . . better make damn sure there’s an empty bottle of it in her car. Oh, wait . . .” I said, a smile creeping up to my face. “You’re in here. Can’t get to her car. It’s still parked out at the country club, right? Where you two had dinner? You told me just yesterday you left it there because she had a bit too much to drink. Thank God you told me that, Jon. What did you put in her system? What can I write in my notes that she was abusing?”

Jonathan shut up again. He just looked down at the floor, the slightly burned, pale husk of a man now reduced to silence.

“Okay, good luck, then,” I said, walking toward the door.

“Percocet. I gave her Percocet. Unless you’re prescribed it, there’s no way you’re getting it. I could only get one bottle of the stuff and that was nearly impossible.”

“Of course, I can get some. I can get anything. I’m a lawyer, remember?”

I asked where he got the Percocet from. Some lowlife street dealer in San Diego. Good man. At least he did something right. Went to some dipshit in another city. Some street walker with no ties to him. That took care of the biggest hole in my impromptu plan. The last thing I wanted to do that early in the morning was hunt down a dealer and make sure he had enough concrete tied to his ankles to where nothing would come back on Jonathan Dillon. Or me.

Eventually, as suspected, Jonathan was questioned by police shortly after his release and promptly arrested, even when he shared our version of the story. I had this incredible, sinking fear that the little fart would crack and spill the beans, either fingering himself or telling him what my visit was intended for. He didn’t though. Just used his one phone call to summon me. I showed up with everything I needed case-wise and Jonathan Dillon was released. His choke-collar of a leash was metaphorically taken off when Rebecca’s car was found to have enough empty bottles of label-torn Percocet to put Ozzy Osbourne into orbit. That, coupled with my case file, got all the charges against Jonathan Dillon dropped.

I still held onto something, though. Got to cover my end.

The night I visited him; I was recording our entire conversation. If that little rich boy got a wild hair up his ass and ever decided to take me to the can, I’d use that recording to make damn sure we’re both going to be sharing a cell.

It was nearly a month after his short-lived incarceration that I saw him again. He called me, left a quick, monotone message to meet him out at Rebecca’s stables. Their little summer home. He talked on the phone like he was a POW or some shit, whispering through the cracks in the walls quiet enough for Charlie to walk past him unnoticed. It is hardly worth mentioning the tone of his voice on the messenger, but I just found it humorous. There was nothing whatsoever linking him or me to anything. The life insurance paid out, everything went to him and I’d already retained all my fees, but he was still talking like the fucking NSA was listening in on us.

It took about four hours to get to their summer cottage. It was normally a six-hour drive if you take the normal roads, but if one knows the state highways and back roads that run under California like twisting veins, you can get anywhere in a hurry.

When I arrived, the front door was hanging open. I could see Jonathan in there, sitting on a leather sofa, staring at a framed painting on the wall above the TV. I went to walk in but stopped when I saw the look on his face. I’d never seen that look on a person before. There was a look of horror on the man’s face. He looked scared out of his mind. His mouth hung open, half-trance and half-disbelief. When a spot of the floor creaked as I gently stepped inside, he broke his stare and stood right up, walking toward me with his hand out. He shook it unlike he had ever done previously. His palm was clammy, and his once firm shake now weak.

“What’s the matter, Jon? You alright?”

“Yeah,” he said, his voice quiet. “I was just . . . her painting.”

“What about the painting, Jon?” He didn’t say anything for a minute. Just looked behind him and at the painting. He stared, transfixed on it until I whispered his name again. His shoulders shuddered when I did so, as if I snapped him back into reality. “You’re gonna think I’m insane.”

“No offense, but I can’t think you’re any more insane than I already think you are.”

He shot his gaze toward me. Not quite a look of anger, but a look of surprise. Yes, I actually said it, asshole. I’m a money-grubbing bastard and I came here to get MY cut. I know what I am, and I know what you are. I call ‘em like I see ‘em. “Nothing. I thought I saw it move.”

The picture was nothing special. Just a wet-on-wet 15x11 of the cottage I was standing in. A simple, two-bedroom white house out in wine country. The horse stables were off in the distance. It looked to be sometime in the summer, where the cloudless sky was a brilliant baby blue. The hint of the sun’s rays poked through just beyond the border of the frame. At the center of the picture, right in front of the house, was an auburn-colored horse on its hind legs. Its long mane flowed majestically in the breeze inside the painted world; its front legs high in the air. It was nothing to write home about. Not even particularly painted very well, but it was still better than anything I could come up with. The person who made this one had a couple of years under the belt, at least. Not enough to take over hosting The Joy of Painting, nothing that would hang in a gallery, but I will give it this. It’s a conversation piece and it made a fine addition to the home, given its surroundings. The horse at the center was beautiful. Strange, though. It had blue eyes. Nearly the same color of the sky itself. The closer I looked; the artist actually did use the same shade of blue for the eyes.

“Listen, I forgot to thank you,” Jonathan said, putting a small manila envelope in my hand. I think to this day it was funny how he said that. Just I forgot to thank you. I would have said, hey, man thanks for helping me off the bitch. I couldn’t stand her and all I wanted was that money, anyway, as if he actually voiced it, he would explode or some shit. Perhaps he didn’t really trust me. Who could blame him? After all, I was recording this conversation, too. Cell phones are amazing things.

The heavy envelope, just at a quick glance, was filled with enough cash to keep my kids (if I chose to ever have them) through Ivy League college. I won’t say how many zeroes I wrote down after I counted it, but it was enough to where I didn’t have to worry about slow months at the office for the rest of my life.

We didn’t say anything else to each other until he walked me outside. As I was getting into my car, a horse trotted out from behind the stable building and walked right towards us. It stopped at the edge of the house, curiously but cautiously eyeballing us. “That one of yours?” I said.

“Not one of mine. I sold all the horses.”

“Whose is it, then?”

“Lots of horses around these parts. All farmland. Could have gotten loose from one of the other farms around here.” He bent down and patted himself on the thigh. “Come here, baby. That’s it, it’s okay. Come on . . .” he said, his voice gentle. The horse walked right up to him. Right up to us.

An auburn horse with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen.

“Jesus, it looks just like the one in the painting. That’s . . . huh,” I remember saying. Something to that effect, anyway. I was a bit dumbfounded. “Do horses usually have eyes that blue?”

“Not typically. She’s a beauty. Tell you what, ol’ girl. You can stay in the stable tonight, then in the morning we go out and find your owner, whaddaya say?” The way he spoke to the horse was in such a stark contrast to the man I had gotten to know. I thought about how sweetly he spoke to it; gently stroking its mane as he led it to the stable. It struck me . . . I mean really struck me how a man who just murdered someone . . . with my help, could have such a hidden half to him. How he could be so kind to something so innocent. No human being is truly innocent, but the more I thought about his late . . . wife . . . God, saying that word in reference to Jonathan Dillon puts a sour taste in my mouth. She was a sweet woman.

And I was rich.

I didn’t see Jonathan for nearly three months after that. I was in Santa Clarita for work. I was going to be there for a few days and rent a hotel. Just doing some pro bono work for a friend of mine. I’d found myself in Jonathan’s neck of the woods. Whenever I work in that area, I stop by Shooter’s. It’s one of those watering holes that all the young people stay away from. Mostly just farmers, single dads and mill foremen. I headed up there, you know, just to knock a couple back after a stressful day. I saw him the second I walked in. I almost didn’t recognize him. His clothes were muddy and torn. He was skeletal, he was so skinny. The man looked like he hadn’t eaten the whole damn time since I’d last seen him. I walked around the bar, nonchalantly as to get a look at him. His face had become pale and gaunt. He hadn’t shaven. The beard that hung past his chin was twisted and scraggly and what he had been drinking was dripping from it. He sat stone-faced as I took a seat at the other end of the bar. He glanced at me once, but slowly turned his head around. He just sat there. Didn’t say a word to anybody. Just tapped on the bar when he wanted a refill.

After my third sour, he got up and left a twenty on the bar. See, Cliff’s ran that bar since the stone age. I don’t consider myself a regular patron, but I’d gotten to know old Cliff a little bit. When Jonathan left the bar, Cliff reached out, grabbed it and stuffed it into the pocket of the black apron he was wearing.

“Hey, Clifford, you know that guy?” I said, motioning for him. He walked over to me and nodded.

“Uh-huh. Well, kinda. Started coming in a few weeks ago. Nearly every evening. Nice guy, but kinda strange.”

“That’s not the man I worked for.”

“Did some work for him, did ya?”

“You can say that. He looks like hell. You should have seen him a couple months ago. Healthy as all get-out. Clean-shaven, nice clothes . . .”

Cliff’s eyes widened. “Can’t picture him like that!” he said, stifling back a cough. He hacked every time he laughed. Probably smoked for a long time. I’d never seen him light up, but that shit can stick with you for years. “I live by him, you know.”

“You do?”

“Yeah. I drive by his place every morning and every evening. Stays to himself, mostly. Either inside with all the lights on or riding around that horse of his.”

“Horse, huh . . .” I said, trying to sound like I didn’t want to know.

“Yuh. Pretty thing. Dark reddish, she is. People around here say that Jonathan Dillon used to come into town, be all chatty with people. Used to be a nice guy. Clean-cut, like you’re telling me. He just stopped talking to people and spends more and more time with that horse. He used to come here every single day at opening time on the dot. Now, he keeps showing up later and later. I’ve always known him as the bearded, skinny, dirty guy, but he used to talk up a storm to me about this and that. Mundane stuff like the weather. The Cubbies. Stocks and shit. He sounded like he was just goin’ through the motions, talking to me like he had to. Then, after a while, he just stops talking. I tried to get him to, thinking something was bugging him, but he just says nothing now. Poor guy. I think about him sometimes. Probably just lonely. Isolation can do a lot to ya if you don’t have any company.”

“I suppose it does. Sure seems to love that horse, though.”

A couple days in Santa Clarita turned out to be seventeen days. Sometimes, even cut-and-dry cases seem to go to shit. Stuff happens. My pro bono work naturally became a little more than I could bite off and chew, but I got it done. Out of curiosity, I went to Shooter’s every night just to see if I could catch Jonathan. He never showed. I even gave Cliff my card and asked him to call me when Jonathan showed up. Never got one call.

It kept me up nights. It really did. Even that last night before I was supposed to go home, I was tossing and turning. I remember thinking that’s it. He’s cracked up. Buckled under it all. I need to go see him. I HAVE to. I need to see if he’s gone loco and will spill the beans on us. If he’s crazy enough to talk . . . I’ll have to deal with that when I get to it. Hopefully the fucker will kill himself so I can sleep at night and not have to worry about him shouting I MURDERED MY WIFE WITH THE HELP OF OUR LAWYER from the tallest building he can find.

I set out there that night. I can’t remember what time it was, but I know it was dark. Midnight kind of dark. I got about a mile from Jon’s house when I noticed the glow. A soft amber hue was glowing over the hilltop a mile away from me like a giant lantern. As I drove closer, I started seeing the flames. The whole house, as well as the horse stable out back was burning top to bottom. Flakes of the home were coming off and sailing into the night, like little glowing suns. Parts were falling from the house in large chunks, setting the grass ablaze.

I pulled into the driveway far enough away from the house and I could feel the heat coming off the building. When I got out of the car, I saw Jonathan on the blue-eyed horse. The horse was running around in circles as he strained to get off of it and let go of the reigns, but he couldn’t. His muscles strained to pull himself free as the horse ran faster, wildly bumping his frail body up and down on the saddle. Jonathan’s shoes were burning, and he kicked them wildly against the horse, trying to put them out. His eyes were wide and afraid; darting back and forth. His bottom lip was missing, and I could see his teeth through the torn flesh that was once his bottom lip. As I neared closer, I could see small, thin strands of flesh between his teeth. He had chewed it off. Most of his lip was hanging from his beard. The horse stopped for a moment, turned around and ran toward the house. That’s when Jonathan began to scream. Such a wild, high-pitched shriek. Something I’ll never get out of my head and when I wake up at night, covered in sweat and clutching at my sheets, I can still hear it in my mind. The horse galloped as fast as it could toward the house, where inside the fire, a glowing area was growing bigger. It was brighter than the fire around it. The light that came out of it was white-hot and even from my distance, it hurt my eyes to look into it. The nearly perfect circle of white opened farther, swelling in size as Jonathan jerked back, trying in vain to pull himself off of the horse.

The horse ran into the light with Jonathan on its back. The second they passed through, it was gone.

I called the police right there from the driveway. At the point they arrived, the place was burned down to the foundation. I didn’t tell them what I saw, and as of now, one year after the event, Jonathan’s body has never been recovered.

I have to quit writing this for now. It’s almost sunset. I’m afraid of sunsets. That amber light with the slightest hint of purple around the clouds was the same color as the fire. Not the color of how fire looks. As I look back to the night the house burned down, I remember so vividly how that fire looked. The colors natural, but unnatural at the same time. Like an artist would paint them.

I put black curtains over all my windows and draw them down the minute the sun starts to set. I can’t stand to see that light anymore. I know if even a bit of that light pokes through or I’m outside when that sun hits the horizon, the light will make me panic. So much so that I want to curl into a ball and scream until it goes away.

I have to stay inside when the sun sets. When it goes away, I’m okay and it’s safe to pull the curtains back up again. To go outside. As its setting, I can hear it outside. I can hear the beating hooves. I can hear it breathing. Right outside my window. Sometimes in the morning, I look out and I can see the fog on the glass from its breath. I can hear it out there right now. Right outside. And somewhere, that white light opening.