Every Step You Take: A Psychological Thriller

by Avery Lane

  But now, without Evan, on the cusp of a new life, maybe it was time for Riley to reevaluate her relationship with her mother. Maybe it was a step she was supposed to take at this juncture.

  “So, um…Mom,” Riley began. Everyone looked up, as if they were all so surprised that she was voluntarily starting a conversation with Judy. The hopefulness in Judy’s eyes made Riley nauseous. “Gabriel said that you guys moved upstate to be closer to Margaret.”

  “That’s right,” Judy said with a stiff smile. She definitely wasn’t used to talking to Riley about this topic.

  “We’re very close,” Margaret said with a nod. “It was hard to be so far apart after years of living so close together. And Robert and Teddy had gotten close too, so it just made sense that we were all nearby. And even more so when we had children. So we could care for each other. It takes a village, you know.”

  “Right…” Judy trailed off. Riley could tell this wasn’t a topic she wanted to discuss. But she just wasn’t sure why. Maybe the mention of her father. Judy never liked talking about her husband beyond referring to him as some ever-present angel. Stories about him in life were limited. The same ones were repeated over and over again.

  “I taught your father how to braid your hair,” Margaret said, looking square at Riley. “Fishtails. Judy didn’t know how to do fishtails and you liked those. But you were too young to do them yourself.” Riley frowned, shooting an apologetic look towards Judy. She knew she had gotten Margaret started on a dangerously sensitive topic. Hearing confused, made-up stories about Robert was exactly what would send Judy into one of her tizzies. And she was long overdue.

  “Margaret,” Judy said gently, putting a hand over hers. “Robert never met Riley.”

  Margaret stared into space for a moment.

  In the tense silence, Riley hung her head. Her feeble attempt at bonding with her mother had gone horribly awry. Why couldn’t they talk about…something innocent? Like flowers or knitting? Or work, even? What on earth was Riley thinking with this topic? She had so quickly ruined what would’ve been a lovely evening for her and Gabriel and their mothers.

  “Yes,” Margaret blinked. “I know that. How sad that you never met him. He would’ve loved you.”

  “Of course he would’ve,” Judy said, shaking her head. She shot Riley a sad look, as if she was the one sorry for all this. Judy kept a firm hand on Margaret’s. Perhaps too firm. Riley could see Margaret’s crepey skin reddening under Judy’s touch.

  “Mom,” she said, glancing down at Margaret’s hand to alert her.

  “Oh!” Judy said, retreating as if she had touched a hot stove. Margaret didn’t seem to notice. Neither did Gabriel.

  “This…” Gabriel cleared his throat. He had been the only one eating this whole time. “This pie is as good as I remembered. Remind me – which one of you came up with the recipe?”

  Margaret and Judy immediately dissolved into giggles. There must have been some sort of inside joke here. Why was Gabriel such a natural at this? Why did he know how to talk to them when Riley was so bad at it?

  “It was a team effort!” Margaret declared.

  “No!” Judy argued. “It was my recipe.”

  “But I improved it!” The two women tittered, grasping each other’s hands happily. It was like peace had been instantly restored.

  Gabriel reached a hand underneath the table to take Riley’s. He gave her a comforting little squeeze, as if to acknowledge her attempt. Even though it failed. Riley sighed, feeling just a bit relieved.

  The doorbell rang, interrupting Judy and Margaret’s schoolgirl giggles.

  “Who’s that?” Judy asked. “Are you expecting someone?”

  Gabriel shot Riley a quick glance, as if to tell her to keep still and stay quiet. They had discussed their plan of action should Evan decide to find her there. Gabriel would answer the door, Riley would stay close to Margaret and call 911.

  But the moment Gabriel opened the door, Riley knew it wasn’t Evan. She could hear the crackle of police radios, the stiff sound of shifting canvas, the heavy clomps of thick rubber soles.

  “Is Riley Fisher-Wolf here?” a gruff male voice asked. Riley’s heart stopped at the sound of her full name. At the fact that she knew something was very, very wrong. She rushed to the door, ignoring Judy and Margaret’s concerned questioning to find herself looking at two uniformed policemen, one thin, one husky.

  “I’m Riley,” she said.

  “And your husband is Evan Wolf?” the husky policeman asked.

  “Yes…”

  “Mrs. Wolf,” he greeted. “I’m Officer Mayweather. May we come inside?” Riley looked up at Gabriel. He nodded.

  Gabriel closed the door behind the policemen as they stood awkwardly in the foyer. Judy and Margaret were huddled nearby now.

  Officer Mayweather drew in a deep breath.

  “Everyone’s family?” he asked, indicating the group.

  “Yes.”

  “Mrs. Wolf,” he repeated, looking at her with a stern expression. “We believe your husband was involved in an altercation earlier this evening. Ma’am, I’m sorry to inform you that he has died.”

  28

  Officer Mayweather had informed Riley that Evan had been out drinking at a bar in Crown Heights when he had gotten into an argument with someone there. The bartender claimed it was over something petty – sports maybe. He wasn’t sure. Surveillance footage showed that Evan was later jumped a couple blocks outside the bar, by two men they suspected were the people Evan had gotten into the disagreement with. There was what appeared to be a bit of a fist fight before Evan was knocked down, hitting his head hard on the concrete pavement.

  The two men escaped and were still at large.

  At Evan’s funeral, everyone talked about how uncharacteristic it was for Evan to be physical, let alone violent. They acted as if he was purely a victim in this. And though he was the one who lost his life, Riley knew an Evan that no one else did. Riley knew he was definitely the instigator.

  But Riley couldn’t say that.

  Not now. Not ever.

  Now, she was forced to be the mourning widow. A widow who secretly couldn’t feel as sad as she thought she should under the circumstances.

  She had tried to force out some tears in the presence of his friends and family, just to look normal, but all she could muster were tears of anger.

  She was angry at Evan for putting her in this position but angry for him and for those who loved him as well. She was angry that he had to die in such a senseless way. But most of all, she was angry that he had managed in death to put her in yet another awful situation.

  He died with their names still bound together.

  He made her his widow when she only ever wanted to be a divorcee.

  Moving back into her apartment didn’t feel as morbid as she had expected. Everything was just about the same as she had left it before Evan had driven her out.

  His parents had come in to help her pack up his things and Riley had the pleasure of awkwardly navigating a conversation that revealed they had never learned the full details of her separation from his son. They were worried for how she was handling his death, not knowing that Riley had moved on from a life with Evan well before all this happened.

  It took weeks to fend off all the condolences, mostly through email since none of Evan’s friends had her new number. If they called or texted, she wouldn’t know. The last email she opened was from a mere acquaintance of Evan’s – the girlfriend of an old college friend who thrived on spreading gossip. She had decided to dutifully “inform” Riley that Evan’s family somehow blamed her for his death. Considering how he likely portrayed their split to his parents, they had come to the conclusion that his devastation drove him to drink, which drove him to his aggressors, which drove him to his death.

  Riley shut the email, knowing that was the last one about Evan that she would open.

  After cleaning the apartment of Evan’s half of the stuff and coming across a very
old expired box of condoms, Riley realized something.

  She hadn’t taken her birth control in some time. In the insanity that had been her life these past few weeks, she hadn’t bothered, especially since she was no longer sexually active.

  In the stress of it all, she hadn’t kept track of anything regarding her personal health and it was only when she sat down on her bed and opened her non-work calendar that she realized her period was two weeks late.

  She knew this was typical of women dealing with stress and that combined with the fact that she had inadvertently stopped her pills meant that her period was about to be out of whack. Riley figured she should just start up the pills again for consistency’s sake, but realized that she hadn’t even seen them in some time.

  For now, it was better that it was delayed. Her period was just another force to be reckoned with among the crap load of things that had piled up for her to handle.

  Though event planning was Riley’s forte, she had never planned a funeral and planning a funeral had been draining. Not just emotionally, but physically. There was so much involved, so many people to inform. And considering the traumatic, unexpected nature of Evan’s death, it was all the more difficult to let people know.

  And putting her life on hold for that week meant a backlog of work that she needed to deal with as soon as she got back to the office. There was no real time for stress relief of any sort and now that she was living alone again, she lacked the comfort of knowing she’d return home to Gabriel and Margaret – something she had gotten used to.

  Gabriel had insisted she continued to stay with them, but Riley thought it was best to spare them of the mess she was now. They had already done so much for her and she wasn’t about to add to their existing burdens.

  Besides, she was embarrassed by the fact that she brought them nothing but stress and mayhem. And because she was already so stressed on her own, she didn’t need the additional stress of waiting for yet another awful thing to happen. And she definitely didn’t want Gabriel to witness any more of it.

  Riley hoped he’d understand the distance she needed now. She hoped there’d still be a chance for them when she was ready to rejoin the world.

  Simply thinking of her period had apparently summoned it.

  Somewhere in the middle of preparing her dinner of boxed mac and cheese, Riley could feel those familiar cramps. She was down to one tampon and it was just one of many household items that she hadn’t restocked since her life went to shit.

  There was something comforting in the mundane nature of deciding on what size box of tampons she wanted. Riley had narrowed her choices to the 18 and the 36 pack. She picked up both boxes, weighing them between her hands as if she were a scale, not worried about looking silly in the near-empty pharmacy she stood in.

  Riley reveled in the simple task, allowing herself to pretend that this was just another normal day. She thought about all these simple, eventless days that awaited her in the future – perhaps a year from now – where she would have the pleasure of running errands with nothing to worry about, nothing to fear. She’d remind herself then how lucky she was that life had settled into a routine again. She’d recall how awful these days were and note how lucky she was to come out of it alive. There would never again be a day where Riley would mope about being bored or be upset over the humdrum routine she had fallen into. She knew now how great a humdrum routine could be.

  She let her eyes wander around the twenty-four hour Duane Reade, wondering if there was anything else she needed. She loved shopping when no one else was around, as if the quietness helped her remember all the things she needed to buy on that list she never bothered to put together. Toothpaste maybe. Toilet paper? Paper towels?

  But as she did, she caught sight of the surveillance camera’s image of her in a mounted television a couple aisles down. From the overhead shot, Riley looked more tired than ever. The bags under her eyes were so pronounced that she could make them out even from a distance.

  And it was then that she realized that she wasn’t the only one shopping in the Duane Reade. There was a person on the other side of the shelf where she stood now.

  Even under the fluorescent glow of the drug store, the person remained a dark, looming figure – as if it absorbed all light. It reminded her of the shadow across the street. The threatening silhouette that had followed her home after her first date with Gabriel. The way Evan looked that day in her office.

  Riley held her breath.

  She hadn’t even heard any sounds coming from the other aisle. She was sure she was the only one shopping. Could this be some sort of…optical illusion? The figure didn’t move. Just stood there like Riley’s shadow.

  With the boxes of tampons in hand, Riley inched over to the end of the shelf, determined to catch a better glimpse of this figure. For all she knew, the camera had caught something that wasn’t even there. Perhaps a fly that was sitting on the lens or something.

  She kept an eye on the surveillance camera as she moved just out of frame.

  Riley took a deep breath, rounding the end cap so that she could look down the aisle where the figure stood.

  Just as she did, the figure turned away from her.

  Oh my God, he’s actually there, Riley thought, her heart stopping.

  She could see clearly it was a man now, tall, dressed in a black trench coat and a black hat and scarf like some sort of cartoon spy. He was racing away from her now, making a beeline for the front door.

  “Hey!” she yelled. Riley dropped the boxes of tampons, running into the streets and after the man. He was real. He’s there. He was following me. There’s no question.

  But who was he? And why was he following her?

  Evan was dead.

  So it wasn’t Evan.

  Evan was dead.

  So any person he hired would be off his payroll.

  Evan was dead. Evan was dead. Evan was dead.

  Which meant that whoever this guy was had nothing to do with him.

  29

  She lost him not even two blocks from the drug store.

  Riley wasn’t sure what she would’ve done even if she had caught up with him.

  She made her way back to Duane Reade when she felt confident that the man had gone far enough off in the opposite direction of her building.

  Back in her apartment, Riley restocked her bathroom cupboard with the 36 count of tampons she had returned to buy. There was at least enough for another few months. But the apartment’s lease expired in two. And without Evan’s name on it, Riley would have to apply again on her own if she wanted to stay.

  Or she’d have to figure out what to do next. Where she’d go.

  Because clearly, where she lived was compromised.

  Riley shut off all the lights in her apartment, standing in the dark as she decided to work off a hunch.

  The man in the drug store was the man that had been following her this whole time. The man in the drug store was the shadow. The man in the drug store was the looming, hunched over figure in the empty construction site across the street.

  He was definitely following her. She wasn’t crazy. He wasn’t Evan like she had thought. But she knew of his existence now. She could follow him right back. She could get down to the bottom of this once and for all.

  Riley crept over to the window, her iPhone open to the video recording function. She knew he would eventually make his way back there, stationed in the window across from hers, watching her every move.

  And she was going to find out who he was.

  She crouched, peering out the crack at the window where she had once seen him and the flash of what she knew now to be his camera.

  She waited.

  And waited.

  But there was nothing. Not even after her eyes had adjusted to the dark did she see any hint of someone there.

  Of course not, Riley thought. She had almost caught him earlier. Why would he put himself in yet another compromising situation? No spy was so stupid to make that m
istake twice in one night.

  But what if I go out? Maybe that would trigger something. If someone was following her, they would want to know where she was going.

  Maybe she just needed to be a lure.

  Riley chose a nice cocktail bar in Cobble Hill.

  If she was going to go out alone on this mission, she might as well enjoy herself.

  It was 10pm on a Thursday and the dark, wooden space was peppered with couples whispering over fancy drinks, picking at the bar food that sat between them.

  The hostess led her to an empty table, mercifully next to another table that only hosted one, single person instead of the couples that swarmed the place.

  To her surprise, it was someone she knew.

  “Brighton?” Riley said, squinting at the hunched over figure by the fireplace. He had gotten prime real estate for someone without a date.

  Brighton looked up. He was wearing his thick-framed glasses, dressed in his uniform of a plaid shirt and jeans. He seemed shocked to see her.

  “Riley, oh my God,” he breathed. He stood up, scooping her body into his arms and hugging her so tight that her feet almost left the ground. “I’m so sorry about Evan. I’m sorry we didn’t make it the funeral. I know you guys weren’t together anymore, but what a horrible thing for you to go through.”

  It was horrible, alright. But it now felt like just one of many horrible things. Her life managed to make something as traumatic as her husband’s sudden death seem like the least pressing issue.

  “Thank you for the flowers,” Riley said. “I meant to text, but things have been…hectic.” He and Sierra and sent her a beautiful bouquet of pink peonies after they learned about Evan. It felt strange that everyone was suddenly helping her mourn a man who spent the last weeks of his life posing a constant threat to Riley’s safety and security.

  “Do you want to join me?” he asked.

  “Um, sure,” Riley replied. She took the seat across from him, feeling the warmth of the fireplace making its way to her exposed shins. She looked around the room, looking for anyone new who had entered who resembled her stalker. But no one new had come in at all. “Where’s Sierra tonight?”