You'll Think of Me by Wendi Zwaduk

breath.
    Cade ambled down the stairs to the basement and towards Melanie’s dark room. Apparently she wasn’t coming by to retrieve the contents until later or until she found some muscle to help her move the equipment. Maybe some of her pictures still adorned the walls. Even the smell of her photographic chemicals would offer him comfort right now.
    Once he opened the door, he yanked the cord and sent dim red light splashing across the room. He blinked a few times to let his eyes adjust to the low light. The scent of her chemicals wasn’t prevalent. The tubs looked clean, so she probably hadn’t worked in a while.
    The images on the walls—kids on sleds, snow on the park benches, birds, dancers—knocked him for a loop. She’d begun taking pictures to occupy her time when he left for his various deployments and had developed into a high-quality photographer.
    He shuffled across the room, careful not to bump anything, and touched the first photograph pinned into the corkboard—Melanie holding the remote for her camera and staring at something off in the distance. The wind caught her sheer blouse and moulded it across her breasts. Turgid nipples beckoned for his touch. A Mona Lisa smile tugged the corners of her mouth. The slight furrow of her brows and the despondent expression in her eyes gave her emotions away. Did he cause that the sadness? A red X covered the print. Why didn’t she like it? She looked gorgeous and sensual.
    From the next image, Rhett smiled like a loon. Typical. Rhett couldn’t stand in front of a camera without making some stupid face or meaningless gesture. Cade shook his head and moved to the next print.
    “Melanie, I forgot how talented you are.” He considered the lighthouse print with yellows and reds painted into the background of the stark image. “You make everything look beautiful and come down too hard on yourself.” Cade sighed and turned to leave. Being in her inner sanctum only deepened his sadness. “You let me take advantage of you sexually, but dammit, you were there. You’ve always been there.”
    No more kidding around and no more stalling. He needed to talk to her. Climbing into his battered truck, Cade headed across town to Melanie’s new house. At the city limit sign, flashing lights flickered behind him. Two fire trucks rushed past his truck. He pulled off onto the gravel to allow the sheriff’s car and the ambulance wide berth. He shivered. The sirens reminded him of the warning alarms on the base. He scanned the landscape for smoke and fought the coil of tension in his belly. As he manoeuvred back onto the road, he hoped the person needing the rescue was okay.
    Cornstalks rushed past him in a hunter green blur. The farms dotting the area barely registered in his field of vision. Cade gripped the steering wheel, nails digging into the faux leather cover. A bead of sweat trickled down the side of his face as he made the hard right onto Harwick Road. He knew exactly where her rental house was—fifth building on the left.
    Cade hit the brakes and screeched to a stop, rocks from his skid crashed against the other vehicles with thumps and clunks he heard over the crowd.
    What the fuck? Where’s Melanie ? He searched the small crowd. Three or four older people stood thirty feet away watching the flames, but no one looked remotely like Melanie. The smell of sulphur and gasoline permeated the air. “Where is she? Oh, God. Melanie!”
    Instead of the tiny yellow ranch house, all he saw was black smoke blotting out the moon. Flames licked the roof of the porch and shot out of the windows, sending shattered glass crashing to the ground and bathing the fire fighters in the lethal shards. Exposed beams burned in the shape of a sinister grid where the shingles used to be. The birdbath and naked angel on either side of the stone walkway lay in pieces. The chunks of the former statuary scattered throughout the trampled flowerbeds.
    Cade felt paralysed. He wanted to jump in and