The cabin, p.1
The Cabin, page 1
The Cabin
An Almost True Crime Story
Greta Boris
Copyright © 2025 by Greta Boris
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Parts of this book were previously published as The Peril of Pride.
Cover Design by ambient studios
Print ISBN 978-1-957529-35-6
Ebook ISBN 978-1-957529-36-3
Library of Congress Control Number 2024942814
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locations, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental. Brand names are the property of respective companies; author and publisher hold no claim.
Contents
Part I
season seven; intro
Part II
season seven; episode one
7.1.2
7.1.3
7.1.4
7.1.5
7.1.6
Part III
season seven; episode two
7.2.2
7.2.3
7.2.4
7.2.5
7.2.6
7.2.7
Part IV
season seven; episode three
7.3.2
7.3.3
7.3.4
7.3.5
7.3.6
Part V
season seven; episode four
7.4.2
7.4.3
7.4.4
7.4.5
7.4.6
Part VI
season seven; episode five
7.5.2
7.5.3
7.5.4
7.5.5
Part VII
season seven; episode six
7.6.2
7.6.3
7.6.4
7.6.5
7.6.6
7.6.7
Part VIII
season seven; episode seven
7.7.2
7.7.3
7.7.4
7.7.5
7.7.6
If you enjoyed this book…
Also by Greta Boris
Part One
MURDERS UNDER THE SUN
SEASON SEVEN; INTRO
* * *
MOLLY: Welcome to Murders Under the Sun, a podcast that explores a series of unusual crimes that have occurred in sunny Southern California.
I’m Molly Shure, your host. For the past five years I’ve worked as a journalist at a local news outlet. Stories of murder and mayhem come across my desk weekly, if not daily. However, one day last March, I noticed something startling.
There seemed to be a connection between several crimes that transpired over a five-year period—seven crimes to be precise. What connected them? Location for one. They all took place within a twenty-mile radius of each other, but that alone wasn’t significant.
The thing that pinged in my brain was that many of the people at the center of these crimes knew each other. Not the criminals, which would be an obvious thread, but the victims. I know, I know, six degrees of separation. Didn’t I already say the crimes took place in a twenty-mile radius? But we’re not talking six degrees here. It’s more like one degree.
You’ll see if you stick with me for all seven seasons of the show, the crimes circle back around. The people you meet in the first season play a role in Season Seven’s story.
Am I imagining things? Is the connection real? Is there one mastermind behind the crimes? Or are they linked by some kind of social, psychological or even spiritual force? I’m afraid that’s something you’ll have to decide for yourself.
Each season, I’ll do a deep dive into just one of these stories. You’ll hear from the people who were victimized, and listen to transcripts of journal entries, memoirs, and letters from others who were involved—sometimes the criminals themselves—and behind the scenes information you can’t get anywhere else.
So, get out your sunglasses. We’re pulling back the curtains and letting the light shine on some of Orange County’s darkest mysteries.
Part Two
MURDERS UNDER THE SUN
SEASON SEVEN; EPISODE ONE
MOLLY: I can’t believe we’re on the final season of the podcast, people. It’s been a journey. A journey that ends with bang.
The Cabin might be the most chilling crime of the entire podcast series. The juxtaposition of Christmas vacation with a home invasion is just so unsettling. When life should be at its warmest, happiest, and most Hallmark-y, fear comes knocking at the door. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let me set the scene.
As I said at the end of last season, this story circles all the way back to where we began. Gwen, our original victim-victor, will play a part, as will Abby, my assistant on the show and the hero of Season Three. Even REK, our first villain, shows up in this season. Our main characters however, are Fiona and her husband Devon. If you remember, Fiona Randall owned the house on Cliff Drive where the murders began.
In episode one, Devon and his young son Caleb head into the San Bernardino Mountains to the small vacation town of Big Bear to play in the snow. Fiona plans to follow them a few days later so they can celebrate the holidays together in a traditional winter setting.
For the first time in this podcast series, I’ll be moving back and forth between two testimonials. Since the action happens in two separate locations for much of the story, it was necessary to interview both Devon and Fiona. I’ll start each of their sections by announcing their name but will hold my comments until the usual breaks.
As always, I’ve done my best to turn their words into a narrative form designed to help you, the listener, enter into their experiences almost as if you were living them yourself. You might not thank me for that this time, however. The story gets pretty gnarly in places.
I will also be reading entries from a third person. The diary, which was found by the police, was entered into evidence in the court case. This made it part of the public record once the trial ended.
The writer of the diary isn’t a nice man, as you’ll soon see. However, in typical Murders Under the Sun fashion, we won’t know his identity until Fiona and Devon do, although you may make an educated guess.
We’ll begin with one of his entries. What happens in this account sets our wild ride in motion.
I hit the second roof hard and rolled across the concrete. A flash of orange disappeared over the next ledge. I glanced around me, saw no one, and followed the flash. One more roof top, this one only large enough to create a rain shelter over the San Bernardino County Correctional Facility’s side door. From there we could lower ourselves to the parking lot without the help of bedsheets, which was a good thing because we were out of them. We’d left the last one tied to a pipe.
When I dropped to the ground, adrenaline shot through my veins like meth. It was cold, for Southern California anyway. It couldn’t have been much over forty, but I was sweating. I crab walked across the parking lot toward the street, dodging from car to car.
It was like a dream, a very familiar dream. One I’d imagined, planned, obsessed over, then finally given up on years ago. But then came the virus. For most of the world, the disease totally sucked. For me, it had its advantages.
I slid into the shadows next to the man I’d thrown my lot in with, for better or for worse. ”This one?” I jerked my chin to the car we leaned against.
“Not here. Don’t want to take a cop’s car.” Chuck gasped out the words. Swimming upstream through ductwork then rappelling down the laddered rooftops was strenuous, but he seemed to being having more trouble recovering than he should. He had the virus, but he’d been hiding it from the guards so our plan wouldn’t be derailed.
“Where then?”
Chuck had traded cigarettes for a cell phone while we were inside. He stared at it now. “There’s a gym a mile and a half away. It opens at five.”
“How do we get there?” I plucked at my orange jumpsuit. Not exactly camouflage material.
“Quickly,” he said, and led me to a culvert that ran next to a muddy creek bed.
We didn’t see anybody, but it was at least three-quarters of a mile before I stopped sweating. Then the chills started. I’d been alternating between sweating and shivering for two days. I wondered if I had the virus too.
I jogged ahead to keep warm, but I couldn’t keep it up for long. I’d run around the yard in circles, and on the basketball court, but running straight, running to get somewhere, that was hard. Especially now. My spirit was willing, but my flesh was weak, as my Mom’s boyfriend, Hal, used to say before he beat me.
“There it is,” Chuck hissed. Sure enough, a sign for California Body Works glowed in the distance.
“What time is it?” I was thinking out loud, didn’t realize I’d said it.
“Let me check my Rolex.” Chuck made a big show out of pushing up his sleeve and staring at his bare arm. “Oh, darn. I must have left it on the yacht.”
I slapped his back, and he staggered forward. “Probably 4:30, 4:45, something like that,” he said. “I’ll check the phone after we find a good spot.”
We posted up between a stand of bushes and a metal fence on the side of the parking lot and waited for the cars to come. It was a slow trickl e at first, but before the sun rose, there were a good twenty cars in the lot.
Chuck couldn’t stay still. His leg was shaking in time with a song in his head, and I had to stop him from launching himself at every vehicle that pulled in. He kept saying he wanted to be on the road before the cell doors opened and the guards noticed we weren’t in the grub line. There was wisdom in that, but I was waiting for the perfect car.
Our disagreement caused a couple of tense minutes before the Honda Civic rolled in. The color was indistinct in the dim light of the streetlamps, dark blue or gray maybe. The paint was oxidized on the roof and the front hood, and there were dings on three out of four door panels. It was perfect; so was the driver.
He squeezed his bulk into the charcoal-gray morning and stretched. He had a tangle of brown hair that looked like it hadn’t been cut or combed since the world shut down. He definitely wasn’t an athlete, or a fitness junkie, probably a computer nerd getting an early start on his New Year’s resolution.
He opened the hatchback, rummaged around, pulled out a towel, slammed the hatch down and headed for the gym. I counted to five hundred to make sure he hadn’t forgotten anything, then scooted to the driver’s side of the Honda and opened the door. Computer nerd hadn’t bothered to lock it. He was probably hoping someone would take it off his hands. I was happy to oblige.
Chuck appeared at my side with a piece of tin he’d liberated from the dumpster at the end of the lot, thinking we’d have to break in.
I grinned at him. “Patience pays, my man.”
I slid into the driver’s seat. Chuck got in the back. Hot-wiring new cars is almost impossible, but this wasn’t a new car. We pulled out of the lot in under five minutes.
“Jackpot,” Chuck said as I turned onto a side street. I didn’t plan to hit the freeway until I had to. They always watch the freeway.
“What?” I asked.
“This guy left a gym bag full of clothes.”
A half hour later, we parked at the end of a cul de sac of seen-better-days homes. I changed into a pair of computer nerd’s black sweatpants and a green T-shirt with a fire-breathing dragon across the chest. Green is my lucky color. The clothes were a little short and a little loose, but they were okay.
Chuck looked comical. Computer nerd’s clothes were three sizes too big on him. He had to thread a bungee cord through the belt loops of the black jeans to keep them up. He’d tucked in an over-washed black T-shirt like it was a button down. If he hadn’t, it probably would’ve reached his knees.
Luck seemed to be with us. It was trash day. I pushed Chuck’s jumpsuit at him and picked up my own. We separated, each targeting a different house. We lifted the lid on the can out front, took out two or three bags, placed our peels inside, put the garbage back on top, and headed to the car.
Chuck held up a twenty he must have found in one of the jeans’ pockets. “There’s a coffee shop next to the freeway entrance. We can switch plates and grab some caffeine before we head south.”
South. I wanted to go south as bad as he did, but I knew he’d bring it up first. Chuck was a monkey mouth. As long as I’d been his cell mate, he’d never stopped talking about Orange County. According to him, the land flowed with milk and honey. Problem was, all the wrong people owned the dairy farms and the bee hives.
“Don’t know if that’s smart just now,” I said.
Chuck’s mouth got skinny. “That was the plan.”
“The plan was to get out. We never said what came next.”
“But I told you—”
“Yeah, I know. You told me lots of things. You told anybody who’d listen lots of things, which makes me think Orange County is exactly where they’ll be looking for us.”
He stopped talking—a minor miracle—until I parked in the coffee shop’s lot. “I’ll get us coffee. You look for plates,” he said then.
That was fine with me. I never mastered the venti, grande, stupidee fancy coffee ordering thing. I just wanted a cup of joe. While he went in, I switched plates with an old Volkswagen on the side of the building, then walked to the front.
The sun hadn’t warmed up the day yet, but there were a couple of millennials sitting at outside tables, tapping on their laptops anyway. I glanced over the shoulder of a black-haired chick and my gaze rested on her screen. Instagram. What a waste of friggin’ time. She was scrolling through selfies, and pics of food, and dogs, and kids, and—
It hit me.
We should check Instagram. People spread their lives out on the internet like my grandma used to hang bedsheets on the line.
Chuck came out with two paper cups. I shook my head. These shops may have fancy names and fancy prices, but they still serve joe in paper cups like everybody else. Before I could take a sip, the black-haired chick stood and ran into the coffee shop. She left her laptop behind.
As I watched her walk away, I thanked my lucky stars—one, two, three times. Then I snagged the machine from her table and walked as quickly as I could to the Honda.
Chuck had to jog to keep up with me, one hand holding up his jeans. “What are you doing? We don’t want to attract attention.”
I didn’t answer him, just slid into the car and started the engine. He got in next to me, and I handed him the computer. “Don’t let the screen go blank. We’ll never get back in.”
He wanted to ask me questions, but a coughing fit stopped him. I drove around the back of the coffee shop, hoping to hang onto the internet connection. He’d stopped coughing by the time we rounded the building but seemed exhausted by the effort.
I parked under a tree and took the laptop from him. It was still logged into Instagram. “Why don’t we see what’s happening in Orange County?”
Chuck growled something I didn’t understand, but he looked as interested as I was when I found the right page. “Check this out.” I flashed the screen at him.
He sucked in a breath.
I poked him in the side with my elbow. “Huh? Huh? Was I right, or was I right?”
“So, what are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking we have a change of plans.”
He chewed his bottom lip. “I don’t know.”
That irritated me. Checking Instagram had been a stroke of genius. “If you want to go someplace else, you can hitchhike.” I tossed the laptop out the car window and started the engine.
“Whatever.” Chuck was too sick to argue, but he cut his eyes at me. They were narrow and hard like a cat’s. I don’t trust cats. My grandma told me sometimes they jump in cribs and suck the life out of babies because they smell milk on their breath. His eyes made me cold all over again.
MOLLY: Two desperate and ill men escape from prison. We know they have a connection to Orange County, where all our prior stories have been set. But it sounds as if they might be headed in another direction.
Let’s leave them for the moment, though, and find out what’s happening in Fiona and Devon’s world.
7.1.2
FIONA
“Did you get his puffy jacket?” Fiona said.
Devon held up a Thomas the Tank Engine suitcase. “I packed everything that was on the list. Want to check?”
She did, but she didn’t want to insult him. “No. I’m sorry. It’s just—”
“The first time you’ll be apart overnight except for our fifth anniversary, and that was only one night.”
