Chapter 38 Avery
AVERY
I was still turning over the possibilities when I left Lena’s house two hours later. I’d met her gram, a small, vibrant woman with graying hair and Lena’s eyes, and had submitted to a Korean feast that made me groan with pleasure.
By the time I’d finally tapped out, I’d felt like I needed to unsnap the top button of my shorts.
It was twilight when I started heading home, and I glanced at Mrs. Diaz’s house and saw that Dane’s car was gone. I wondered if Beck and Noah knew that he volunteered at Harmony House, then decided they probably didn’t.
Dane clearly kept to himself.
I picked up my pace when I realized the shadows were encroaching quickly now that the sun was sinking below the horizon. I hadn’t intended to be at Lena’s so long — thank you, Mrs. Kim — and night was falling quickly in Blackwell Hollow, the streetlamps already glowing atop their black iron posts.
I thought about the Harold quandary as I walked. I understood why Lena wanted me to take my suspicions to Sheriff Crowe, but I wasn’t ready to do it yet. I needed to confirm the initials belonged to Harold first, have something solid I could take to Sheriff Crowe when I brought her the slides.
Besides, there was zero evidence of a psycho killer on the loose. Harold had been targeted.
I didn’t bother using my map to get back to Main Street. Blackwell Hollow wasn’t that big and I knew the general direction I was heading. Except by the time my brain cleared from my rumination about Harold and Sheriff Crowe, I realized I had no idea where I was.
I walked more slowly and looked around. I was still in a residential neighborhood, but this one looked more run-down. I didn’t remember passing through it on my way to Lena’s, which meant I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere.
I pulled out my phone. It was embarrassing to have to use a map to get home in such a small town, but here we were.
It took me a few seconds of looking at the map to realize where I’d gone wrong. Now I was farther from Main than when I’d started. It would actually be faster to take residential streets back to Foxglove Lane.
I walked to the corner, made a right, and glanced back at my map to make sure I was on track.
And that was when the hair rose on the back of my neck.
It was a familiar sensation: the same feeling I’d had at the cemetery and in the gardens behind Aunt Evelyn’s house.
Except this time there was something else: footsteps behind me.
I glanced back and saw a black-clad figure round the corner behind me, the hood on their black sweatshirt pulled up around their face.
It was definitely a man — and a younger one, I thought — but I couldn’t make out any of his features.
I trained my eyes forward and walked faster, listening for the sound of the footsteps, praying they would fall off as the man behind me turned onto another street or walked up the walkway of one of the surrounding houses.
They didn’t. He moved faster too, closing the distance between us.
My heart thudded in my chest, adrenaline flooding my body, and my brain frantically sifted through its fight-or-flight fog looking for possibilities: confront the person behind me and hope for the best, use my phone to call someone…
Or run.
In the end it didn’t feel like a choice. I slipped my phone in my bag and ran.
And then I knew I hadn’t imagined the man was following me because he ran too, our footsteps slapping the pavement in time with one another as I made my way past houses with peeling paint and overgrown lawns, their porches dark.
Night had fallen, and I tried to remember the route I’d seen on my maps app, the route that would take me home.
I just needed to get back to the pink Victorian where Beck would be in the kitchen and Noah would be coming in from the garden and Dane would be staring at his computer trying to pretend he was a giant asshole.
Then I would be safe.
The man’s footsteps were falling faster than mine, his pace quicker, and I heard him closing the distance between us, getting closer… closer. The urge to ditch my bag was overwhelming but I didn’t dare to slow down even long enough to do that.
I thought about Harold. Had he known someone was following him in the gardens? Had he seen the man who had killed him? And was it this same man chasing me through the back streets of Blackwell Hollow?
I hit a corner and read the sign as I ran past: Larkspur Lane.
I thought I recognized it from the map I’d pulled up on my phone, and I hung a left, praying I was right.
And then, up ahead, I spotted the mailbox that matched Aunt Evelyn’s house.
My house.
I pumped my legs faster, turning into the driveway and racing for the porch, not daring to look back to see if the man had stopped following.
Racing up the porch stairs, I fumbled with the front door and pushed into the house, practically falling on the floor before Dane, stepping off the staircase, caught me in his arms.
“What the…?”