Deathscape by Dana Marton

at this stage. Still, it would be better to get rid of those paintings out there. Not only as a symbolic act, the representation of hope that this part of her life was now over—she’d saved a man—but also because she didn’t want Maddie to accidentally find them once her daughter moved back home.
    Since the ground was frozen, she couldn’t bury the canvases. Ice covered the reservoir, so she couldn’t dump them into the water, even if she could make herself go near the place. Taking them somewhere far away and leaving them in a Dumpster seemed too risky.
    That left burning, the only solution she could think of. But she hadn’t dared burn them while the police and the FBI were still coming by.
    She glanced toward the hemlocks again. All seemed serene in the yard. She had to fight her fears, not give in to the overwhelming anxiety that sometimes kept her housebound for weeks. She wanted her daughter back, which meant she needed to reclaim her life, starting now.
    She could do it if she did it little by little, just as it had been taken from her. She could start with reclaiming her small backyard. She would go out there and do what she needed to do. She refused to worry every time a breeze moved a bush.
    The temperature hovered on the freezing point, but no wind blew. She grabbed paint thinner for accelerant and padded down the stairs, swiping a box of matches from the kitchen counter where she’d been burning a scented candle earlier.
    Boots, scarf, coat, hat, gloves.
    Cold air hit her in the face as she stepped outside, making her draw a quick breath. Snow covered the landscape, an endless stretch of white. Up ahead, the town plow was hustling down the road. Eddie waved and turned into her driveway. The big plow pretty much cleared everything on the way in, stopping a foot or so from her car. That patch she’d have to do herself.
    After she got a new shovel. The handle of the old one broke recently, which meant a trip to the hardware store. She didn’t want to think about that right now. Hey, maybe they wouldn’t get any more snow this winter.
    “ Thank you, Eddie, I really appreciate it,” she called up to him. “Good to see the big plow fixed.”
    “ Gave me plenty of trouble. Need a crane to take this damn thing apart. But, hey, at least there weren’t any screws left over when I put it back together.”
    He drove the big plow in the winter and did whatever else needed to be done around the town hall the rest of the year. The fifty-something town handyman was the perfect guy for the job, a loner like her. When the town called, he went. He could fix a roof or fill a pothole and did it all with a smile.
    “ Everything okay?” Eddie called down from his high perch. “I see the police are gone.”
    “ Thank God.”
    “ They found anything?”
    “ I don’t think so. Not that they share with me.” But they looked just as gloomy leaving as they had coming.
    “ Mind if I come by in a couple of days to grab some wood?”
    He had a woodstove in his workshop, and Ashley let him walk through her property and drag out whatever fallen timber he could find, chop it up and haul it away—the least she could do for him for keeping her driveway clean all winter.
    “ Anytime you want.”
    He gave a wave of thanks and backed the plow out of the driveway, getting back to work.
    She waited until he was gone before she went around the house. The air was absolutely frigid, but at least no wind was blowing. She glanced toward the hemlocks as she opened the garage door. No movement back there now. Could have been a bird earlier.
    To her right, floor-to-ceiling shelving held some old art supplies and sketches. Her gaze caught on a charcoal sketch of the spring landscape she’d made when she’d first moved here. And it hit her how much like the drawing her life had become, a shadow image of what she’d once been, all her colors reduced to shades of gray.
    She was going to change that. For herself and for Maddie.
    She