The ride back to Pine Hollow felt longer than it ever had, the landscape unchanged but Wade’s mind reordering everything he’d seen. He wanted the poster to be wrong. He wanted Evelyn’s quiet voice, her flinch at sudden sounds, her careful gratitude, to mean something solid. But the paper existed, and paper could get men killed.
When he arrived, he found Evelyn sitting on the porch wrapped in a quilt, her hair brushed neatly with Mrs. Pruitt’s help. The sight hit him in a strange place, because she looked almost ordinary now, like she belonged in the world again instead of clinging to it.
She smiled when she saw him, and the simple warmth of it made Wade feel guilty before he’d said a word. “You’re looking better,” he observed, tying Juniper to the rail.
“Fresh air helps,” Evelyn replied. “Mrs. Pruitt says I’m stubborn enough to heal.”
Wade pulled the folded poster from his pocket, unfolded it, and held it out. “Then you can be stubborn enough to explain this.”
Color drained from her face. Her hands gripped the arms of the chair as if she might try to run despite the pain. “Where did you get that?”
“Town board,” Wade said, sitting beside her, leaving enough space that she didn’t feel cornered. “I don’t know what you’ve been running from, Evelyn, but I need the truth. I found you half-dead in the dirt. That doesn’t match the picture of a murderer, but I’m not blind.”
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