Where would I even begin?
I’d been looking for any excuse not to go into that church, until Evie Roche burst out of it and handed me one. What was I meant to do, pull her back out of the car? Feed her to the media? Worse, hand her back to the Roches?
Yes, Drew. Any of those options.Then maybe a big part of the past I’ve worked so hard to forget wouldn’t be ensconced in the back seat, a wrecking ball in my love life yet again, acting like she has no idea we used to be friends.
I glance at her now in the rearview mirror. She looks atrocious, even with a six-hundred-dollar haircut and some sort of high-end blazer and skirt, courtesy no doubt of the platinum credit card she’s blown to pieces. For someone so put together, the woman is a mess. Fraught. Fiddling with that chocolate blowout with manicured hands. I know that body language. She needs to calm down before she hyperventilates.
Oh, great—and now she’s crying.
“Hey, Versace,” I say. Anxious blue eyes meet mine in the mirror and a nanoscopic part of me loses its cool. The rest of me isn’t so reckless. “Sorry for your loss.”
I’m not sorry Oliver Roche is dead. I just can’t say as much to his widow. I’ve read tabloid reports that she has some kind of amnesia—information leaked by a teenage employee in the hospital cafeteria—but this is pretty intense.
“It’s Evie,” she replies.
I know who she is. I guess I just arrogantly assumed that, after everything we’ve been through, the awareness would be mutual, despite the blow to her head.
“And thanks,” she adds, delivering the words without a shred of emotion. Maybe she’s still in shock from the accident. Maybe she’s become emotionless. Either way, I won’t waste any more time trying to figure out the kind of woman who’d look at Oliver Roche and see marriage material, while remaining so totally oblivious to—
“Who are you?” she asks, cutting off my train of thought in the most ironic place possible.
I can’t believe I have to introduce myself. “I’m Drew.”
“Are you going to write about me?”
“What?”
“You said you’re a journalist.”
“Not the kind you need to worry about.”
“You said photojournalist. Please don’t take pictures of me.”
A mental collage of the hundreds of pictures I’ve already taken of her flashes through my mind. I read up on amnesia the other night. I’m worried if I stampede into our shared history now it will only damage her. I’m not even sure how I’d position the story, given how things ended.
“I’m just trying to give you a lift,” I assure her. The statement isn’t untrue. “I’m sorry about the exploding head emoji.”
I need to bring this nonsensical encounter to a close. But before I can thrash out a solution, the radio cuts to a news break with a reporter outside the funeral.
“It’s like a scene from one of her viral podcasts, as popular true crime commentator Evelyn Roche sensationally vanished today from the funeral of thirty-year-old investment lawyer Oliver Roche, who was killed last week when he lost control of the couple’s car on Macquarie Pass and plunged several meters into a ravine. Speculation is rife after Ms. Roche, who survived the accident, was seen rushing from the church in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, fleeing in a black Range Rover driven by an unidentified man with whom she is rumored to be romantically involved. It adds fuel to the developing scandal around the accident, with sources claiming—”
I jab at the stereo buttons and curse my decision to show up at that man’s funeral.
“I was meant to be a forensic linguist,” Evie explains, and she’s got that right. But it’s a weird part of the news story to unpack. I’d have deconstructed the vastly more problematic insinuation that we’ve got a thing for each other.
“I can’t go home—they’ll be looking for me there,” she says, as she pulls an elastic band out of her bag and shoves her expensive hairdo up as if she’s settling in for a night on the couch watchingThe Bachelor. No, not that.Bridgertonwould be more her style. Then she strips off her blazer. Unbuttons the cuffs of her blouse, rolls up the sleeves, and pulls the shirttails out of her waistband, fanning herself with the fabric.
I switch the AC to max, swivel the vent, and blast cold air into the back seat before she takes anything else off. I’d dropher at the nearest hotel, but she claims she has no money.
“Is there a friend you could call?” I’m dying not to be the one stuck with her. There was a time when I would have done anything for this woman. When she would have phoned me first, even before Bree. But that was before she made it manifestly clear she didn’t want either of us in her life anymore. I refuse to get back on this roller coaster.
“I don’t know who to trust,” she admits.
Surely she has connections these days. Even one of the many thousands of true crime enthusiasts who hang on her every fascinating revelation about psychopaths and mass murderers.
We’re overtaken by a convertible, and I notice the passenger is filming us. Have the paps followed us from the church? I accelerate rapidly, threading through traffic until I lose them, heart pounding. I can’t allow myself to be linked to her.
“Don’t let them find me,” she says, echoing my thoughts. She’s rattled as hell, and I know it’s because of the family. Not the media.
