Hard Press: The Evie Black Files

by Adam Nicholls

  “That’s better.” The man let go entirely and stepped back.

  Evie, legs trembling and lip doing very much the same, slowly rotated her body. When she saw who had grabbed her and dragged her into this eerie back alley, she didn’t know whether to feel relieved or alarmed. “Troy?”

  “I thought this was easier.” Artificial light from a nearby window lit up one side of his face. He had a deadpan look in his eye… and it wasn’t a look you could trust.

  “What’s easier? What the hell are you doing here?”

  “This—” He looked around, holding out a hand as if to demonstrate the environment. “—is easier than the expense of dating. There are no rules, we don’t have to pretend we’re people we’re not. We can just fuck, then go our separate ways.”

  At first, Evie thought he was joking. But when he unhooked his belt and stepped forward, his intentions seemed a little more sinister. “I’m not going to have sex with you, Troy,” she said calmly. She tried to move past him. His hand shot up at lightning speed and shoved her to the ground like she was a piece of trash.

  “Just shut up and let’s get this over with.”

  Evie’s heart was pounding. Time seemed to slow down. The fall she had taken hurt only her knees, but the garbage she had landed in hurt her pride. One thing she swore, though, was that another man would never touch her without her permission.

  She shot out an arm, clutching a discarded bottle. As soon as it was in her grip, she swung around and smashed it on the side of a dumpster. The clash startled them both, it seemed, but now she had a weapon.

  “Trying to fight me?” Troy asked, as if amused.

  Evie held out the broken bottle, the shards aimed at him. “Not trying. Touch me and I’ll cut your dick off.” She climbed to her feet and backed away slowly, certain he was going to attack. Sure, she had a weapon, but she wasn’t entirely sure that she could fight him off.

  “You’d better put that down,” he said, the carefree tone gone from his voice. “You promised me a chance, Evie. Now give it to me, or pay the price.”

  Before she had time to say anything in her defense, he ran at her. Although frozen with fear for a couple of seconds, her feet suddenly began to move. Evie turned, running for the end of the alley they had entered only a minute ago.

  And then a stumble.

  Her foot hit a snag in the cobblestone. Evie crashed to the ground, the bottle sprawling out in front of her. Before she could collect herself, her hair was pulled back tight, and she could hear the zipper of Troy’s pants come undone.

  “Hold still,” he said through gritted teeth.

  Evie wanted to cry. She couldn’t—wouldn’t. This wasn’t her first rodeo, and she knew that giving him the satisfaction of her tears was the fastest way to being beaten. All she could do was give up and let whatever happen, happen.

  All she could think now, through a crowd of thoughts, was whether the sirens she could hear were real. If this was her imagination playing tricks on her, then it was a cruel joke.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Within an hour, Evie was back in her apartment, trying to make sense of all the statements. The alleyway incident—which had pissed her off on every personal level—had been pushed aside. Although she was grateful that Sarah Slightman had called the police after seeing a lurker (and that they had found her before any real damage could be done), she had to focus on her work. Besides, Troy had been arrested before he’d managed to do anything serious, so it wasn’t as though justice hadn’t been served.

  Flicking through the paperwork, Evie sighed and tossed a handful of sheets aside. There was nothing conclusive to Calvin Durant’s case. At least not to vindicate him. Finding any evidence that John Matthews was the real killer was totally impossible. The entire case was, by all accounts, an utter disaster.

  On the desk in front of her, the phone lit up and jerked across the wood. It was Conan Reed, and Evie didn’t hesitate to answer. “Hey, Conan.”

  “Don’t ‘Hey, Conan’ me. What’s all this about Troy?”

  Evie paused. “What do you mean?”

  “He used his one phone call to call me from the police station, and now I have to sort out another mess. It just seems a little convenient that he should be arrested while you’re looking for a job.”

  “Wait,” Evie snapped. She couldn’t stop herself now and shouldn’t have had to. “This feels an awful lot like an accusation. Is that what this is?”

  Conan breathed audibly into the phone. “It just feels like—”

  “I know what you’re thinking, and I don’t appreciate it.” Evie could feel her face flush a hot red. “Your precious Troy has been arrested for attempted rape. Never mind that I’ve not yet decided whether to press charges or that he would have gotten away with it if a stranger hadn’t called the cops. And I’m fine, by the way. Thanks for fucking aski—”

  “Whoa, whoa. Okay. I’m sorry. You just… A lot of people cry rape these days. Usually it’s a plea for attention. It’s hard to separate those from the real cases, is all I’m saying.”

  What an absolute pig, Evie thought, cringing at his sickening take on society. “Well, you’re saying it to the wrong person. Troy is a disgusting creep, and he’ll be lucky to get away with this. Is there another reason you called? It’s getting late and I have work to do.”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted to say: that you don’t have work to do.”

  Evie felt her heart stop, if only for half a second. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry, Evie. For as long as Troy Bukowski has been an employee here, I can’t have you sitting across from him. Even if you shake hands and make up, this is a bad foundation to build a professional relationship on. I really am—”

  Evie ended the call right there and slammed her phone down on the desk. Huffing, she swept her papers to one side, creating a white tornado of wasted time. She wanted to scream, hit someone maybe. Perhaps even march down to Vision Magazine, slap Conan Reed and grill him in front of everyone. But as satisfying as these things would be, none of them would get her job back.

  It was over for her, and nothing had hurt her more.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Take the plea deal,” said attorney-at-law Sam Fitzgerald. Sam was a dumpy man, considered dwarf-like by many. Others compared him to Danny DeVito, mostly on account of his husky voice and the waddle he gave when he walked.

  Calvin’s head hung low. “But if I’m not actually guilty?”

  “Listen to me.” Sam looked over his shoulder at the small window in the steel door as if to make sure no one was eavesdropping, then leaned in closer. “You were found at the scene with the murder weapon in your hand. You’re going to be found guilty, whether you plead it or not. I’m begging you, Mr. Durant, not just as your attorney but also as just one man to another—you have to accept. It’s the only sensible option.”

  “What about my medical exams?” Calvin watched carefully for a change of expression, but all he saw in Sam Fitzgerald was an attentive and sympathetic stare. “My blackouts are now proven by medical diagnosis. It’s on paper, goddamnit.”

  “It only proves that you weren’t aware.”

  “Aware of what?”

  “For all they know”—Sam pointed a thumb over his shoulder—“you killed your family but just didn’t know you were doing it. With that in mind, the medical exams don’t prove shit.”

  Calvin Durant took that blow with all the pride he could muster. It wasn’t easy to have his attorney—the person who held his fate in his hands—tell him that he was out of options. There was the reporter, too, but even that was looking bleak. Calvin suddenly found deep regret in keeping information from her. It was obvious he had lost her confidence.

  “What?” said Sam, looking at him with worried skepticism.

  “There’s a reporter.”

  Sam rolled his eyes. “This again.”

  “I trust her, Sam. I really do.”

  “But I don’t. Why hire me if you
don’t want to listen to what I’m saying?” He got out of his chair, collected his briefcase, and patted Calvin on the shoulder. “Drop this whole journalist thing. It’s going to end in tears for everyone.”

  “I’m still not taking the deal,” Calvin said stubbornly, folding his arms.

  “Then it’s your ass.”

  And just like that, Calvin Durant was alone again, without a friend in the world.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  A whole day had slowly passed, and Evie found herself at war with her own mind. Officially unemployed, she wondered if it was even worth continuing with the case. Everything pointed at Calvin Durant being guilty, even if she wanted to believe that he wasn’t.

  Thankfully, she wasn’t entirely alone this evening. Desperate to avoid the ear-bashing that came with venting to her brother, Evie was sprawled out with the phone held in front of her face on the dusty preowned couch she’d found abandoned on the street a couple weeks earlier.

  “Sounds like a bad deal,” Amy, her niece, said through the FaceTime app. She was all of fifteen years old, which wasn’t really old enough to understand the world, but it was better for Evie to pour her heart out to her than nobody at all.

  “No kidding.” Evie was exhausted of talking after having explained her entire situation. “Anyway, I know you have your own things going on. Thank you for listening.”

  “Hold up,” Amy said, looking confused. “You leaving?”

  “Just didn’t want to make you miserable.”

  “But you called for advice, right?”

  Taking advice from a teenager wasn’t really Evie’s thing, but she respected her niece enough to at least hear her out. Sometimes, kids had such a straightforward way of looking at things that it made grown-ups slap themselves for not having seen it earlier. “Yeah.”

  “Then here it is.” Amy cleared her throat. “Continue with what you were doing. If you can’t sell the story to Vision, then take it somewhere else. Even if that falls through, it may turn out that you saved a man’s life.”

  Evie considered this. I guess it would be better not to leave things unfinished. I moved to New York for a fresh start, after all. “Let me ask you something.”

  “Sure.”

  “Based on what I’ve told you, do you think Durant is innocent?”

  “Based on what you’ve told me?” Amy slouched back, blowing out air. “I wouldn’t rule it out, but then again, I haven’t even met the guy. But you obviously think there’s a chance he’s telling the truth. Otherwise you wouldn’t be in this situation, right?”

  Evie snickered. “Right. Thanks, Amy. How did you get so smart?”

  Amy smiled and shrugged. “I get it from my dad, I think.”

  “I think so, too,” Evie agreed. “Say hi to him for me.”

  “Will do.”

  Evie ended the call, then sat up and looked at the disorganized piles of paperwork on the floor. It would take some work, she thought, but if she looked hard enough, she might just find the motivation she needed to continue with the case. The girl has a point, she thought and finally got up off the couch.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  It was nearly midnight the next night, and Evie hadn’t left the apartment. Save for the occasional ten-minute snooze here or there, she hadn’t slept, either. Her attention had been drawn to what was once a bare wall. Now it was what she liked to call her “info-map.”

  It was with a fierce sense of pride that she stood back and admired her handiwork. Even with her eyes in the scrunched-up, sleep-deprived state they were in, she was able to make sense of it. There were red threads (for the more important pieces of information), blue threads (linking photograph to photograph when they were related somehow), and Post-it notes everywhere in between. Others had called her methods obsessive, but it was the perfect way for Evie to document all of the sometimes-tangled threads of a story.

  “So,” she said aloud, “what do all of these people have in common?” She put a finger on the photo of Calvin Durant and followed the threads to each person she’d spent time interviewing. It landed on John Matthews (a simple Post-it, as she’d been unable to find a picture of him). For some reason, she kept coming back to him.

  But then it struck her. Evie took a step back, studying the entirety of the wall to confirm her suspicion, and suddenly it became clear: every single person on the wall knew Calvin Durant, and they each had a problem with him.

  Everyone except his mother.

  “Liars, each and every one of them.” Evie bit her thumbnail, staring at the threads until they all became one big, colorful blur. She had to imagine that they were all lying. No matter how hard it seemed, she had to blank out the statements she’d taken from everyone else and focus only on Judy Durant.

  I’ll have to talk with her again, Evie thought as she groped for her jacket on the hook. Screw the late hour—I’m sure she’ll understand.

  Heading down the stairs of the apartment block at all too dangerous a speed, Evie recalled her previous moments with Judy. She’d been kind, helpful, and probably would be again. There must have been something she’d known about but not thought to say. Evie was certain of it, and she’d be damned if she didn’t find out something.

  As she opened the door at the foot of the stairs leading out onto the dark Brooklyn street, she felt a bizarre sensation. It lasted for all of a second—a clear intuition that she wasn’t alone. And then, before she could make sense of that feeling, she walked right into somebody.

  The man whose chest she’d stormed into gripped her firmly on the shoulders. Evie looked up. Recognizing him immediately, her heart pumped so fast that the gap between beats was undetectable.

  “Hey, Evie,” Troy said, his hair a clumped mess, his eyes mere shadows in the night. He tightened his grip, keeping her in place. “I was hoping you’d be here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  On that same night, only minutes before it rolled into Tuesday, Calvin knelt beside the bed in his cell. For the first time in his thirty-seven years of life, he was praying.

  “Dear Lord,” he began, not quite knowing how these things were supposed to be done. “Please allow fate to take its course in the fairest way it can. I don’t know for sure if I have sinned, but I beg your forgiveness if I have.” He paused then, staring at the crumpled bedsheet and thinking for a moment that he might have remembered something. As it turned out, he was wrong. “If someone else is responsible for this horrible, horrible thing, please bring it to light.”

  It went on and on like that, with the most common word being please. Calvin knew that if ever there was a time for begging, this was it. The next morning, he would stand trial for first-degree murder, and Evie Black was yet to get in touch.

  Maybe I deserve this, he told himself as he dusted off his knees and spread out across the uncomfortable bed. If I really am a killer, I deserve life in prison. I deserve a horrible bed with springs poking through, much like this one. And then another thought—a more disturbing one, but no less real than the others: Maybe I deserve to die.

  He probably couldn’t commit suicide—he didn’t have the balls for it—but a life sentence would be punishment enough. And if it turned out that he was found guilty? Well then, Calvin would have to accept that as the truth and learn to live with it… or die with it.

  Suicide was common in prison, and Calvin was quite happy to become a part of that statistic. If it meant that there was a Heaven, and if he could get in, then he could reunite with his family. Even if only for a moment, just to say goodbye. Surely God would allow that to even the most vile of men?

  For the rest of that night, Calvin didn’t get a moment of sleep. All he could think about, over and over, was that now was the perfect time to start believing in God.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Troy kept her still, not letting her move. No matter how hard she struggled against him, he was too strong. Worse yet, they were completely alone out here, where nobody would hear her screams, where nobody coul
d—

  “Evie, stop. Calm down,” Troy commanded. “Stop moving!”

  Finally, she stopped, panting hard and too terrified to even look at him.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” he said, this time in a calmer tone of voice. “I’m going to let go of you now, okay? Just… hear me out.” His hands came off her shoulders, leaving cool patches where his sweaty palms had been.

  Evie took a slow step back, shaking, and looked up at him. As if it hadn’t been surprising enough to see him released from the police station so soon, now there was something else to shock her: Troy Bukowski had a tear glistening in his eye.

  “Believe it or not, I wanted to make amends.”

  “Troy, you—”

  “Please, just listen.” He took a deep breath, folding his arms and avoiding eye contact. Evie guessed that he wasn’t used to making apologies. “What I did to you was inexcusable. I just got so carried away and I… Well, there’s no excuse.”

  “No, there’s not.” Evie pulled the strap of her purse up her shoulder. She was coming around to believing that maybe he wasn’t here to cause trouble. Maybe those tears were real.

  “I’m so, so sorry,” Troy went on, crying harder now. “I’m so ashamed of myself for this whole thing. My wife despises me, and I don’t blame her.”

  Jesus, he’s married?

  “Anyway, I’ve said what I came here to say. If you can’t find it within yourself to forgive me, then I totally understand. I just thought I would come by. And, uh…” His hand went to the back of his neck, as if to scratch an itch. “I’ve resigned from Vision.”

  “Resigned? But why?”

  “Moving on, I guess. Thinking of a fresh start. So, my spot is available if you want it. Take care of yourself, Coffee Girl.” Troy began to step forward, arms open for an embrace. But when Evie recoiled, he seemed to think better of it. He turned on his heel and walked off into the distance.