Chapter 6
Evie glanced at the clock on her bedside table. It was almost four am and still dark out. She climbed out of bed and started pulling on her clothes. Grabbing a sweater from the back of her chair she crossed to the door, pausing before she opened it to listen for the sound of her mum’s breathing. It was slow and steady. She was fast asleep. Evie tuned into Mrs Lewington at the other end of the hallway and heard the phlegm-filled rattle that signified the old lady was also out for the count.
Only then did she inch open her bedroom door and creep out into the hall, tiptoeing towards the top of the stairs, hoping not to wake Lobo. She made it to the kitchen and dropped to her knees, a finger pressed to her lips as Lobo padded his way to the dog flap and peered warily through at her.
She unlocked the door and stepped out onto the veranda.
‘Hey boy, good boy,’ she whispered, crouching to give the dog a pat. She slipped her sneakers on and then, with one last check that she had the key Jocelyn had given her in her pocket, she started jogging.
She couldn’t risk taking her truck – the sound of the engine turning over would wake up her mum. But that meant that she would have to run the two miles into town.
It took her six and a half minutes. She checked her watch as she turned the corner onto Main Street and couldn’t help but smile to herself. She was getting faster as well as stronger – all her abilities improving, not just her hearing. She did a quick calculation. She needed to be back before six am, before her mother could wake up and notice she wasn’t in bed, which didn’t leave her much time.
The streets were deserted at this hour. One or two cars had cruised past her, their headlights alerting her from a distance, giving her time to duck and hide behind bushes. She didn’t want to be seen. The rumour mill was already going wild with stories of her misadventures. Being seen out at the crack of dawn prowling the streets would only create more drama for the knitting circle to get their needles into.
She had been avoiding this part of town for the last two months, and when she stepped into the alleyway that ran parallel to Main Street she remembered why. Waxy yellow lights illuminated the narrow garbage-strewn entrance and created golden circles every twenty metres or so, which the shadows lapped at. Evie hesitated, her heartbeat racing even faster than when she’d been running. She willed herself to calm down and put one foot in front of the other. There was nothing left here. Shula and the others weren’t about to leap out from behind the trash containers and attack her. They were all dead. With her own eyes she’d seen them die and vanish back to whatever realm they came from.
Taking a deep breath, she slinked past the spot where Shula’s body had lain and skirted the area where Risper had died. Then she upped her pace and started sprinting.
The back door to the boutique had a sign on it warning trespassers that they would be shot. Evie pulled out the key Jocelyn had given her and inserted it into the lock.
She wasn’t sure what she was expecting to find but a wave of disappointment almost knocked her to her knees the instant she stepped inside. The room was completely empty. The walls had been stripped bare of their target boards, the tables dismantled, and all the weapons that Victor had once stashed there for training purposes were gone. Evie spun in a circle. The holes in the walls looked like they’d been made by removing picture hooks, and not by tugging out knives that had embedded themselves in the brickwork during target practice.
No one would ever be able to guess that this was the room where Victor had taught her how to kill.
Evie crossed straight to the door on the other side of the room and opened it a crack. The store gave out onto Main Street and the large window at the front meant that, if anyone happened to be walking by, she’d be seen. But it was still early, so she took the risk and darted inside. The clothing rails hadn’t been touched. All the stock she’d carefully hung – the designer offerings that Victor had used as a ploy to stop anyone from coming in while she was training – was still there, hanging mournfully, gathering dust. She glanced at the rails only quickly. She had no interest anymore in clothes. She couldn’t believe she ever had. The free clothes that Victor had given her now felt like blood money – tainted.
She strode towards the cash desk. The till sat gaping open. It looked like all the takings had been pilfered but Evie knew that there had never been any takings to begin with. No one in Riverview could afford a dress that cost more than their monthly paycheck. She pulled out the drawer beneath the till and her pulse quickened. There was a stash of papers inside. She snatched them and ducked quickly down behind the counter just as a car’s headlights swept like a searchlight beam through the store.
She scanned the papers quickly, using the light from her phone: bills, junk mail, an old copy of The New Yorker still in its cellophane wrapper, and at the very bottom of the pile an envelope with an LA postmark on it. Evie ripped it open. Inside was some kind of rental agreement with Victor’s name stamped across the top.
And there, at the very bottom in fine print, was an address.