Evelyn, After: A Novel

by Victoria Helen Stone

  The rooms at the spa were expensive, but she wouldn’t shy away from that either. Gary loved expensive places, so he couldn’t deny her that. The spa was ten miles from the art festival, and she assumed Noah would be staying somewhere more modest, but she could rent a car.

  Rent a car. Book a room. Buy a flight. Have an affair.

  Would she do it?

  The doorknob rattled behind her. Evelyn didn’t even startle; she only glanced over her shoulder in annoyance.

  “Evelyn?” Gary asked.

  When she didn’t answer, he knocked softly. If he didn’t know how to use manners with her anymore, she’d teach him. “Yes?”

  “Can I come in?”

  Could he? She turned back to the painting with a scowl. She didn’t want him seeing her work. Didn’t want his careless disregard anywhere near her paintings. Not anymore.

  She set down her brush and palette, then slid the easel around to face the far wall. When she unlocked the door, she stood in the way so he wouldn’t come in, but he gestured past her as if asking permission. Churlishness not being her natural state, Evelyn rolled her eyes and stepped aside.

  “What are you up to in here?”

  “Setting up easels.”

  He glanced at the freshly marked palette but didn’t press her. The smell of the oil paints must be obvious in the small room. She was clearly doing more than setting up.

  “You put a lock on the door?”

  “I wanted privacy.”

  “Well . . . it’s good to see you getting back to painting.”

  She didn’t know how that could be true when he’d literally never brought it up in eighteen years, but she let the lie go and waited to see why he’d interrupted her.

  “I think I’ll turn in early,” he said.

  “Okay.”

  “I guess you’re not taking the sleeping pills anymore?”

  “No. I don’t need them.”

  “That’s good. Really great.”

  “Yes. It’s great.”

  He tucked his hands into his pockets and rocked back on his heels. For some reason, the sight of him wearing loafers in the house suddenly infuriated her. Who wore shoes all the time? Why couldn’t he just relax, for godssake?

  “I took a look at that list of therapists,” he said casually, as if they were talking about a trip to the movies. “You’re right. We need to go. It will be good for us. I think your first choice is fine. That woman. Smith?”

  Boy, he’d really put a lot of thought and research into it. He could almost pretend to care. “It’s Schmidt,” she muttered.

  “Right. She looks good.”

  She stared at him. After giving him the list of therapists weeks ago, she’d waited anxiously, asked him to hurry and choose someone so she could call about an appointment. It had felt urgent then. Lifesaving. And he’d ignored it. He’d scowled when she pressed him. Told her he’d get to it as soon as he could, but he was busy, obviously. So busy.

  Now he was standing here like some stupid lost puppy bringing her an offering. She hated him.

  He cleared his throat. “Maybe you could call her? I’ll have to check my schedule, of course.”

  “I’ll get to it when I can.”

  “All right. Probably Wednesday mornings are best.”

  “Wonderful.”

  He stood there for a few more awkward moments, waiting for what, she couldn’t imagine. When she crossed her arms, he finally moved toward the door. “Good night, Evelyn.”

  Evelyn suddenly made her decision. She didn’t need to think anymore. “I’m going away next weekend. To a spa.”

  “A spa?”

  “Yes. In California.”

  “Do you even go to spas?” He looked completely dumbfounded.

  “No, which makes me think it’s time.”

  Gary shook his head. “Okay. Is Sharon going too?”

  “No. Just me.” Technically true. She would be traveling alone.

  They stared at each other past the threshold of the door until he nodded. “I’m sure it will be wonderful.”

  “Oh, I’d imagine so.” She closed the door and locked it with a sharp snick.

  Once his footsteps moved away, Evelyn picked up her phone and typed a simple message to Noah. I’ll book my ticket tonight.

  Then she turned the easel back around and rolled her shoulders. The Monterey cliffs took shape quickly. Her first painting of her new life. She was finished with it by midnight. She’d let it dry for a couple of days and then take it to Noah.

  CHAPTER 20

  BEFORE

  Evelyn chose her outfit very carefully. Lycra leggings made for running that she’d only ever used for walking. A plain black T-shirt topped by a black-and-pink hoodie made with a sweat-wicking fabric. A dark-gray baseball cap with no markings. Running shoes. A water bottle. Sunglasses.

  When she was fully dressed, she raced to the bathroom and threw up.

  This was a dangerous, stupid idea.

  After she retched into the bowl until there was nothing left in her stomach, she rinsed her mouth, washed her hands, and set off with only her keys and license. The license she locked in the glove compartment of the Toyota before she pulled out of the garage.

  It had been five days since the accident, and she was going back to Old Highway 23.

  Trying her best to ignore the panic banging at the inside of her skull, Evelyn followed the route she’d taken to rescue Gary. Thank God it was simply done, or she might not have remembered even that. She’d been in a haze that night. Or she’d been in a haze her whole life. Who could tell at this point?

  Once she made the turn onto Old Highway 23, she had to clutch the steering wheel to keep her hands from trembling. The quaking of her muscles vibrated up into her elbows and then her shoulders, but she drove on. She didn’t stop.

  Everything looked different in the afternoon sun, and she had no sense of where she’d pulled over to tow Gary from the ditch. For miles, the highway was nothing but an asphalt line through woods, paralleled by that earthen drainage ditch. Even at this time of day she passed only three cars as she drove.

  She crested a small hill, and at the bottom of a long, shallow dip in the road, she saw it. The memorial.

  A picture had been posted of it online, but there’d been no need. It looked the same as any other roadside memorial erected hastily by loved ones. She’d seen them her whole life on the sides of freeways. A white wooden cross. Fake pink flowers. A mound of teddy bears. Being so new, Kaylee’s memorial had balloons attached too. Three white balloons that bobbed and dipped in the cool breeze.

  Evelyn drove slowly past it. She couldn’t pull over here. Her parked car would be a glaring memory for anyone who passed. She drove on, watching the cross get smaller in her rearview mirror.

  When she heard a strange buzzing noise, she was consumed with fear for a second or two. Terror flashed through her that her car would break down here and she’d babble out a confession to anyone who stopped to help. She couldn’t be seen here. Couldn’t be remembered.

  But no, it wasn’t her car. When she sucked in a gasping breath, she realized the strange noise was her. An odd, low hum her throat was making in an attempt to soothe her.

  Switching on the radio, she let the commercials mask the sound.

  She’d thought she might pull over when she got to a housing development, but two miles up the road she’d passed only one intersection, James Lane, and there’d been no houses there either. Evelyn doubled back. When she got to James, a road she’d never been on, she turned right. Within a quarter mile, the wooded wetlands continued on the left side of the road, but there were fenced horse pastures on the right, dotted by scattered homes.

  At half a mile, she found the perfect spot. A sign indicated that the wetlands were a protected open space. A small brown square pointed the way to a trailhead. Evelyn turned left onto a dirt road that cut through the forest.

  The parking area was really just a circle of rutted dirt, so Evelyn pulled a
s close to the trees as she could and turned off the car. The engine ticked itself cool. Her breath rasped. Her heart thumped, the pulse beating hard in every part of her body.

  “Okay. No big deal. You’re out for a run. Or a walk. You’re out for a walk.” If she tried to run, her heart would explode and they’d find her body in the woods near Kaylee Brigham’s death site. Surely that would lead back to her husband.

  Then again, what would Evelyn care at that point? She’d be comfortably deceased.

  When she finally emerged from the car, she saw there were two narrow trails heading into the woods. One looked as if it set off in the direction of the highway, so she headed for that one, only checking over her shoulder twice to see if anyone was watching as she ducked into the woods.

  A few seconds in, she felt as if she were entirely cut off from the world. There was no traffic noise here. No sign of houses or streetlights or power lines. There was the packed-dirt trail, the tumbling green of the woods, and the occasional pockets of cattails and opaque water.

  She’d always thought of forests as quiet, but it wasn’t quiet here. Tree branches clicked above her in the breeze, and everywhere frogs and crickets sang and screeched. A fly occasionally buzzed too close to her ear. Evelyn brushed it away as a trickle of sweat itched its way down her scalp. It was only fifty-five degrees. She wasn’t warm; she was terrified.

  She’d planned to jog along the road and pass idly by the site of the accident, but this was better. She doubted anyone would pass her on these trails, but if they did, she’d be a woman who didn’t even know Highway 23 was on the other side of this open space. Just a suburban mom out here getting in shape, like hundreds of others before her.

  The trail felt like it went on forever. The slant of the afternoon sun didn’t penetrate the woods, and the light got dimmer and dimmer. She eased off her sunglasses and slipped them into her pocket. When it felt like she should be nearing the highway, she opened the GPS map on her phone and zoomed in.

  If it was accurate, she wasn’t too far away, but the trail was going straight north now, no longer cutting toward the road.

  She moved more slowly, looking for a likely spot. It took another five minutes, but she finally found a ridge of a low hill that she hoped could help her avoid water. Easing aside the branches of a sprawling bush, she headed into the woods.

  She had to pick her way slowly through the underbrush, and her leggings were covered with burrs before she’d even gone ten feet. But it was dry. A few minutes later, the dimness of the woods gave way to brighter light, and she could see blue sky ahead. When she spotted blacktop through the trees, she stopped.

  She couldn’t possibly have estimated the location of the memorial with any precision, so she’d have to make herself visible now. She could stay hidden in the woods and walk parallel to the road, but there’d be no point when she didn’t even know if she was too far north or south.

  After shaking out her numb hands and catching her breath, Evelyn slipped her sunglasses back on and walked toward the highway. At the edge of the trees she hung back, waiting for the sound of cars, but it seemed she was alone for now. She walked to the ditch, then looked left and right.

  It was there. Not too far away. About a hundred feet north of her. She stepped into a jog, adrenaline giving an assist for the quick trip. After leaping over the ditch, she ran the last dozen feet on the gravel shoulder.

  She’d thought she would just get a look at the spot and jog on past, but she couldn’t make herself do it. Four feet from the cross, she stopped in her tracks and stared. Even if someone saw her, stopping at a memorial was a normal reaction. Anyone would be sympathetic or at least curious. It wasn’t suspicious. It didn’t mark her.

  This was where it had happened. Right here. Her husband and his lover had driven on this asphalt and run over Kaylee Brigham. Gary had gotten out of the car and looked at the girl lying on the ground. He may have even walked in this exact spot where Evelyn stood.

  The road itself was too dark to show any bloodstains. There must have been some. Gary had said she’d suffered an obvious skull fracture. Evelyn stepped forward, the gravel crunching beneath her feet as she studied the dirt. Kaylee had been found on the shoulder, according to the news. But wherever the poor child had lain, Evelyn could find no evidence of it.

  Looking around, she took in the looming branches of the trees above and the green, slimy water in the ditch, and she hoped Kaylee had been knocked immediately unconscious. She would have been scared lying here in the dark, alone and cold in the forest, the hard pebbles of the highway digging into her skin. Hopefully she hadn’t known. Hopefully she hadn’t hurt.

  When the faint sound of a car reached her ears, Evelyn leaped into motion, resuming her jog north. She kept her head down, her ears straining for a sign that anything was wrong, but the car seemed to keep a steady speed. It didn’t slow to check her out or, God forbid, pull over because it was a police officer with a few questions about whether she jogged here often and what she—

  The car zoomed past, a harmless green sedan. Evelyn immediately leaped over the ditch and sprinted into the woods. It wasn’t until she’d crashed through the bushes that she realized how stupid she’d been. If the driver had glanced in the mirror, he’d have seen her fleeing toward the trees. Why hadn’t she just kept jogging?

  “Dumb, dumb,” she muttered to herself, pushing the heel of her hand into her temple. She’d panicked. Run without thinking.

  Was that what Gary and Juliette had done? She couldn’t believe they’d left that girl there, but it must have all been confusing and terrifying and so unexpected. Could Evelyn know without a doubt that she wouldn’t have done the same?

  She didn’t want to forgive them. They didn’t deserve her sympathy. Juliette was a monster. She had to be. How could Evelyn even guess at how a monster thought?

  Then again, wasn’t that why she’d come out here? To try to understand? She couldn’t be sure anymore. She was losing her hold on reality. What could she possibly have thought she’d understand from jogging down the side of an empty highway? A road was just a road. There weren’t answers here.

  The light was growing truly dim when she turned and headed back through the woods. Clouds had blown in to cover the sun. She stuffed her sunglasses away and picked her way over fallen trees and little water-filled pits. This wasn’t high ground anymore, and she felt the moist dirt give beneath her shoes with each step. It felt like walking over graves. Like hands would reach up and grab her, the sharp bones poking out through rotting flesh, pleading with her feet to just give in and stop.

  Was Kaylee’s spirit still here? Was it stuck here because of the injustice of it all? Evelyn wasn’t sure if she believed in ghosts, but if they existed, these were the circumstances that must create them. A life cut short. No justice in sight.

  Was Kaylee’s ghost rising up from this soft ground? Was she watching Evelyn? Would she want to protect her or hurt her? Evelyn wanted to do the right thing, but she couldn’t. Would a ghost sense that?

  Something caught at the lace of Evelyn’s right shoe and tried to tug her backward.

  She grunted in shock and reached out to a tree to steady herself. Off balance now, she leaned into the trunk, then wrapped her arms around it. When her foot didn’t come free, she pressed her forehead to the bark and whined, pulling harder at her foot. The frogs and crickets whirred more loudly around her.

  She didn’t deserve this. It wasn’t her fault. She’d done everything right and nothing wrong, and she couldn’t be the one haunted by these ghosts. It hadn’t been her. She couldn’t bring Kaylee back.

  “Help,” she whispered as something tickled the knuckles of her right hand. An ant probably. Or a spider. Or Kaylee Brigham’s hair. “Help me!”

  Her shout echoed against the trees. The forest seemed to take a breath. The bugs stopped their incessant trilling, and the frogs went silent. Evelyn could hear her lungs working now. She could hear the blood rushing through her. Her mind calme
d enough to let her think.

  There were no ghosts here. It was just the woods. Mud and bugs and shadows and twigs.

  “You’re okay,” she whispered. A lie, of course. She was losing her mind. But she lifted her head from the bark and opened her eyes. After shielding her vision for so long, it wasn’t so dim in here. Evelyn blew out a hard breath and lifted her foot up and back. Wiggled it a little. Whatever had caught her let go.

  Evelyn unwrapped her arms. She looked back and couldn’t decide which branch had grabbed her, but there definitely was no hand. The crickets had started up again before she stepped away.

  To tie herself to the real world, Evelyn pulled out her phone and called up the GPS again. It was a comforting, no-nonsense sight after picturing spirits trying to catch her.

  According to the map, Evelyn was exactly where she thought she was, so she pressed forward, staring at the ground beneath her feet, half to avoid tripping and half to remind herself there were no skeletal fingers emerging from the soil.

  As she was trying to find her way past a seemingly impenetrable line of dogwood bushes, a blackbird suddenly startled from the leaves. Then there was a whole flock of them, rising up, their little bodies joining into a comma-shaped cloud high above the trees before they all veered toward the east and disappeared. They reminded her of the birds in her dream the night of the accident. Was it a sign?

  Maybe it was, because when Evelyn dropped her gaze from the patch of sky, she was startled to see something beyond the tall bushes. A wooden shack stood about fifteen feet away, blocking her path.

  Actually, shack was too generous a word. It looked more like an ancient lean-to, plopped in the middle of the woods, held up only by the generosity of the large tree it was angled against.

  She edged around the bushes and approached the dark-gray structure cautiously. Broken windows stared menacingly at her. She circled around the shack, and when she finally found the door, she gasped.

  Striped across the crooked door was a bright banner of yellow plastic. Black letters marched across it: “Police Line. Do Not Cross.”