Chapter 6 Evan
The call came on a Thursday evening.
I was in my apartment, half-watching a documentary and half-answering emails, when my phone lit up with my father’s name.
“Ashley,” Brandon said the moment I picked up.
His voice was wrong. Thin. Tired. Careful in a way that made my stomach tighten.
“What happened?” I asked.
There was a long pause on the other end.
“I need you to come home this weekend.”
My fingers tightened around the phone. “Why.”
Another pause. Heavier this time.
“I need to tell you something,” he said. “And I need you to hear it from me before you hear it from anyone else.”
I waited.
“There’s a boy,” he said. “He’s seven.”
I still said nothing, so he continued.
“He’s my son,” Brandon added. “Elena’s.”
The words didn’t shock me. I had known.
“Elena went missing three weeks ago,” he said. “The police are searching for her. Her sister lives across the country …”
Now that did shock me.
“You cheated again,” I said quietly.
“I know,” he whispered. “I know. I swore I wouldn’t become that man again. I swore it. And I still did.”
Silence stretched between us.
“I should have told you sooner,” he said. “I was ashamed. And I hate myself for it.”
I didn’t know what to say, and he seemed to take that as permission to keep talking.
“I brought him home,” he said. “I don’t want him growing up thinking he was unwanted. I will claim him publicly. And I want you to meet him. I want him to know his sisters.”
“Please,” he continued. “You don’t have to forgive me. I just want him to know he has family.”
I exhaled slowly.
“I’ll come,” I said.
I flew to Riverton on Friday evening.
Brandon met me at the airport himself. He looked older than the last time I had seen him, not just tired, but worn down in a way guilt tends to carve into a person.
We walked to the car without much conversation. The drive started the same way, the silence stretching between us.
“He’s shy,” Brandon said eventually, eyes fixed on the road. “He’s polite. Quiet…”
I knew that kind of child.
The kind who learned early that being small and silent made adults less volatile. The kind who watched everything and said nothing. The kind who tried to take up as little space as possible because the world had already proven it could be unpredictable.
The house felt unchanged when we arrived. It smelled of polished wood and expensive candles, the same carefully curated version of warmth it had always presented to the world.
The boy stood near the staircase when Brandon called him.
“Evan,” he said gently. “Come here.”
Evan stepped forward slowly. He was small for his age, with dark hair and serious eyes. His hands were folded in front of him, as if he were waiting to be judged.
“This is your sister,” Brandon said.
Evan looked at me, then lowered his gaze.
“Hello,” he said quietly.
My chest tightened.
“Hi,” I replied softly. “I’m Ashley.”
He gave a hesitant smile, uncertain but sincere.
Marissa watched from the doorway.
Her smile never reached her eyes. Her posture was rigid, controlled. She did not greet me. Her attention never left the boy.
Evan glanced toward her automatically before looking back at me. The movement was subtle, but I recognized it immediately.
Fear.
Apple was nowhere in sight.
Brandon cleared his throat. “Evan will be staying here for now, until we know what happened to Elena.”
Marissa’s fingers tightened against the doorframe.
The boy stayed close to Brandon's side, not touching him, but clearly orbiting him like he was the only safe object in the room.
I crouched slightly in front of him, keeping my movements slow, non-threatening.
“Do you like school?” I asked.
“Yes,” he answered.
“What’s your favorite subject?”
“Math.”
I smiled. “Good choice. I’m good with numbers too.”
That made him look up, just a flicker at first, like he wasn’t sure he’d heard me right.
“Really?” he asked, barely above a whisper.
“Really,” I said. “Numbers make sense. They follow rules.”
He considered that, his brows drawing together in a way that told me he understood more than a seven-year-old should.
“I like when things add up,” he said. “When they fit.”
“I do too,” I replied.
Dinner was uncomfortable.
Brandon tried too hard to keep the conversation alive. Marissa spoke as little as possible. Evan ate quietly, asking permission before touching anything, thanking everyone for every small thing.
When Brandon stepped away to take a call, Marissa finally turned to me.
Her voice dropped instantly.
“Did you report Apple to the police?”
I noticed Evan stiffen at the shift in her tone.
“Yes,” I said calmly.
“This family is already bleeding, Ashley. We don’t need you making it worse.”
“I stopped identity theft,” I replied. “That’s all.”
“Apple isn’t here because of you,” she snapped. “And Nick told her if she comes back here, he will ruin her.”
“That sounds like consequences,” I said.
Her mouth tightened.
“You think you’ve won,” she whispered. “Brandon brings home a bastard, Apple is under investigation, and you sit there like none of it touches you.”
I tilted my head slightly.
“You know,” I said casually, “it’s not like it was twenty-six years ago.”
She froze, confused.
“There are cameras everywhere now. DNA databases. Financial records. Missing people don’t simply disappear anymore.”
I let the words settle before adding,
“I’m sure they’ll find Elena.”
Something flickered in her eyes. Her jaw hardened.
“It won’t be another unsolved story,” I added quietly. “Not like Ines.”
Marissa said nothing. Brandon returned and the moment dissolved.
I looked at Evan again. The careful way he held himself. The way he checked Marissa’s face before speaking. The way he tried to be invisible.
I couldn’t let her shape him.
Later that night I went to Evan’s room.
He was sitting on the floor with a small notebook, coloring carefully inside uneven lines, his tongue pressed lightly to the corner of his mouth in concentration.
He looked up when he noticed me, shoulders tensing for a split second before he recognized me.
“Hi,” he said softly, almost like a question.
I stepped inside and leaned against the doorframe so he wouldn’t feel crowded. “Hi.”
He hesitated, then lifted the notebook a little. “Do you want to see?”
“I do,” I said, moving closer but still giving him space.
He turned the notebook toward me. A crooked house. A tree that leaned too much to one side. And a small figure standing slightly apart from everything else.
“Who’s that?” I asked gently.
He hesitated, then answered softly, “Me.”
My heart broke quietly. I lowered myself onto the floor beside him.
“You’re not alone anymore,” I said, my voice low.
He studied my face for a long moment, like he was trying to calculate the truth of it, whether I was someone who said things to sound kind, or someone who meant them.
“You’ll visit again?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “And you can visit me too, if you want.”
He nodded slowly, holding the notebook a little closer to his chest, as if the drawing had suddenly become something important, something he didn’t want to lose.
I stayed in the guest room, my first night here since leaving at eighteen.
I lay awake staring at the ceiling, the familiar shadows of the house stretching across the walls like memories I didn’t ask for.
I had planned Marissa’s downfall carefully. Slowly. Strategically. Piece by piece. I had intended to let time do half the work for me.
But then I had seen Evan.
The way he measured every word, the way his shoulders tightened when Marissa spoke, the way he waited for permission to exist.
I exhaled slowly.
No.
I couldn’t let her poison another child.
My timeline shifted in that moment. What I had planned to unfold over years could no longer be stretched that thin. It had to accelerate.
And Elena… Elena had not simply vanished. Women didn’t disappear when they had children waiting for them.
I already knew who to contact.
Amy.
I rolled onto my side, phone in my hand, and typed:
“I need everything you can find on Elena Brooks. Timeline. Digital traces. Financial records. Anything that doesn’t fit.”
Then I added:
“I think Marissa knows more than she’s saying.”
I stared at the screen for a second before locking it.
Amy would find Elena.
Or she would find what happened to her.