I told you it wouldn’t last a month and I was right.’
Evie placed her fork down carefully by the side of her plate.
‘I mean, what was that man thinking? Designer dresses in a place like Riverview? Those price tags! And they’re all still sitting in there, hanging on the rails. I had a look through the window the other day. He just cleared off out of town without so much as a day’s notice. What was his name again? Victor. Here one day, gone the next. If you ask me, there was always something very suspicious about him.’ She lowered her voice, ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all a front for some kind of money-laundering operation.’
Evie looked down at the tabletop, her fingers digging sharply into her thighs. She knew her mother was angling, trying to get her to talk. The co-incidence of Victor disappearing from town on the exact same night that Evie had run off with Lucas had had the whole town buzzing with the scandal, rumours flying around like migrating birds. To her credit, her mother hadn’t mentioned a word of it to her face, but Evie’s hearing was good – better than good, it was supersonic these days – and she’d overheard people talking at school as well as on the street. There were some pretty good stories going around. According to a woman she’d overheard in the drugstore, Evie (referred to only as that Tremain girl) had stolen all the cash from the boutique and then gone on the run with the good-looking boy who worked on Janet Del Rey’s ranch.
She’d also heard Kaitlyn Rivers whispering to someone in the cafeteria line at school, saying that she (referred to this time as that skank) and Victor had been having an affair and that Lucas had walked in on them, so they’d done away with him and buried his body in the woods. Unfortunately Evie had only managed to fuel that last rumour by slamming Kaitlyn against the wall and daring her to say it one more time to her face.
‘So, what do you think?’
‘Huh?’ Evie looked up, startled.
Her mother shook her head in exasperation. ‘I was asking about Joe’s offer to give you your old job back. I don’t want you to feel like you need to work. Now Mrs Lewington’s back lodging with us and the insurance company have finally paid out we’re doing fine, and this year is your senior year. But it might be good for you – you know, to be out there, meeting people, seeing your friends again …’
‘I don’t know,’ Evie mumbled into her potatoes.
Her mother frowned, then decided to drop it. She got up from the table and walked to the fridge. ‘Oh, I bumped into Jocelyn today by the way,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘She was asking about you.’
Evie paused with a forkful of peas halfway to her mouth. ‘Really?’ she asked, wondering what on earth Jocelyn was still doing in town. There was no reason for her to still be in Riverview. Evie didn’t need protection anymore. She was trained. She had her full Hunter powers now that she’d killed her first unhuman. Not that any of that mattered because there weren’t any more monsters to kill. But beyond all that, she thought she’d made it pretty damn clear to Jocelyn just how much she disliked her. Jocelyn had lied to her all along – she had known that Victor had murdered her biological parents and had said nothing. And rather than protecting Evie as she had sworn to do, she had let Victor use her.
Evie stood up suddenly, pushing her plate aside. She needed to get out, breathe fresh air. Being scrutinised all the time, like she was a bug on a Petri dish, was more than she could bear.
‘Where are you going?’ her mother asked, looking up at her in surprise.
‘For a walk,’ Evie mumbled, heading for the back door.
‘But you’ve hardly touched your dinner,’ her mother said to her back.
‘I’m not hungry,’ Evie answered.
Her mother called something after her but Evie didn’t hear it, or rather she chose not to. She promised herself that when this was all over she would find a way to apologise for everything, but until then she just couldn’t find the words.
She opened the door and walked out onto the veranda, feeling the instant relief that being outside and away from people brought her.
The orchard was growing murky, the trees dissolving into darkness and shadows.