What remains

Chapter 3

Sep 03, 2025

Killashandra, Ireland—Saturday

The house was quiet as Fletcher dropped his satchel on the kitchen table. The leather bulged at the seams, stuffed with every note and file he could carry, plus a few texts on forensic methods he still hadn’t cracked.

Maybe enough work to last a week. After that….he had no idea.

He filled a glass at the sink. The late afternoon sun left the kitchen corners already in shadow. He didn’t bother reaching for the light switch. No need. What was there to see?

Once, this place had been alive, the center of his world. This is where he’d spent evenings with Leah leaning into his shoulder, her laugh scattering across the room, her hair smelling faintly of lavender and rain. They’d made ridiculous plans, half-joking, half-serious: a shop on the coast, her brown bread and knitted scarves on one side, his fishing lures and tall tales on the other.

Utter nonsense. And yet, it had been everything.

Now that life was gone, taken by a wet road and a car coming too fast, too close, pushing Leah into a spin she couldn’t pull out of. He knew the story by heart; he’d given it to other families a hundred times, spoken in a careful voice meant to soothe.

It never did.

The other driver never came forward. No witnesses, no garage records. Eleven months on, her file still sat open on his desk. He’d closed dozens like it for other widowers, parents, children. Each time, he’d told them they might never have answers. Now he was the one left with nothing but an open file, and no one to deliver practiced words back to him.

No witnesses… except Leah.

She had wandered a field after the crash, searching for someone to help, unsure of what had happened. She told him later she only understood when she saw her body pulled from the wreck. She’d tried to speak to officers she recognized, but none of them heard her.

Only Max, the old German Shepherd riding along these days as a mascot, had sensed her. He’d whined pitifully, eyes following her every move. When she’d reached to touch his head, he barked and barked, as though warning her away from something too big to face. Fletcher had brought Max a treat the next week, brushing his rough coat in thanks. The dog had borne witness when no one else could, and for that small thing Fletcher was grateful.

In those first weeks, Leah was almost corporeal to him. He had curled around her the night of the accident, sobbing into the warmth of a body the world insisted was gone. He could almost hear his old voice in the back of his mind: sometimes the love doesn’t go, even when the body does. He’d handed that line to grieving families as if it meant something.

Now the words sat in his mouth like sand. What comfort had they ever given?

But as summer faded, so did she. At first she could rattle curtains, knock a glass sideways, slam a door when her mother suggested Fletcher ought to return certain family heirlooms. That had been an interesting day.

Then the touches softened. A brush against his cheek. A hand at his shoulder, lighter each week. Finally, she slipped into dreams only. Sometimes they were sharp, vivid, undeniably her. Other times the images became slippery and blurred, scenes collapsing onto each other until he couldn’t tell if she was there at all.

And then, weeks of silence.

Just as he thought they were done, she had returned again. Brighter. Different. As if she’d crossed somewhere and come back changed. He didn’t understand it. Neither did she.

Now, staring into the dark corners of the kitchen, Fletcher tightened his hand around the glass. He could feel it. The thread between them had frayed too far. She was slipping from him for good this time.

His eyes landed on the blue-and-yellow dishware, the cheerful curtains she’d sewn, her favorite sweater still hanging by the back door. Even her gardening gloves sat waiting for her return, still smudged with dirt, exactly where she’d left them.

He had given up so much already: the smell of her hair after a walk down the lane, the weight of her pressed against him in the night, her silver laughter across a crowded room. Even the taste of her terrible coffee, God, he would give anything to tease her about that one more time.

The glass left his hand before he knew it, exploding against the refrigerator. Shards pinged off tile and steel.

He dropped into the chair, head in his hands.

Why her? Why was he still here when everything he wanted was gone? The dreams had been scraps, but he’d managed to live on them.

This hollow silence offered nothing.

He stood abruptly, nearly toppling the chair, and went to the pantry. His hand found the gun at the back of the shelf. Cold. Heavy. Waiting.

It had been loaded for eleven months. He’d told himself the Church’s line, hammered in since childhood. He didn’t believe it, not for a second. Still, it clung like rot: that he might lose Leah forever. He could hear the other script too, the one he’d spoken to others: hold on, stay with us, you’ll make it through this. Words he’d once believed. Words that now felt like lies.

Don’t.

The voice was a whisper in his head.

“Leah?” His own voice cracked.

Don’t.

He sagged against the wall. “Mum? Leah? I can’t do this anymore. I can’t.”

No answer came. Only silence.

He lifted the gun.

The world erupted.

A chorus of weeping voices crashed around him, one becoming two, two becoming hundreds, until the sound battered him from every direction. Leah’s cry was there, and his mother’s, and others he didn’t know, all keening in terrible harmony. The clocks joined in, their chimes frantic and uneven. The cell phone on the counter buzzed and rang, screen flashing white in the dim room.

The noise pressed him to his knees. The gun clattered to the floor.

The air itself seemed to vibrate, shaking the cabinets, rattling the light fixture overhead. Pressure built in his skull, hammering behind his eyes until his vision blurred. The taste of iron rose sharp at the back of his throat.

And then…silence.

Only the phone continued, its vibration rattling against the countertop.

He rose shakily and crossed to it. A message flashed on the screen.

It was John: Meghan made your fav stew. Don’t be daft. Get over here.

Fletcher’s gaze slid to the gun on the floor. He bent, picked it up carefully, returned it to the shelf. Then he swept the broken glass into the bin, each scrape of the broom loud in the quiet house.

His stomach growled. Meghan’s stew. He had nothing here. Nothing to keep him. He thought of all the times he’d urged others to take the smallest tether they could find, whether a neighbor’s kindness, a child’s need, or a hot meal.

Tonight his tether was stew. Thin, but enough.

He pulled on his coat.

Outside, on the steps, a package sat waiting. Must have been there when he came in earlier, arms full of case files. He picked it up without looking, tossed it onto the passenger seat, and slid behind the wheel.

He didn’t care what it was.

He didn’t care about much at all.

Read Chapter four