Inside Evil

Chapter 4 - Part II

*Inside Evil and its sequels are available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords and iBooks*

Roberta closed the door with a sigh of relief. DC Frans had not further embellished on his final words, seemingly realising that he’d been foolish to express such an opinion in the first place. Roberta had tried several times to initiate a further conversation but was simply met with, “I’ve said too much already, put it out of your mind Miss Arlington. You’ve been very helpful, no need to worry.” But, Roberta was worried. She was anxious, fatigued, and constantly struggling with a headache. Ever since Vanessa had died she felt demoralised about life, about her job, about her direction. She was losing her ambition; not that she’d had much in the first place.

She had always been quite happy teaching at the school and living in the back-of-beyond. There was something about Ridgewood’s bubble-like environment that she enjoyed, found comforting even. Though comforted was far from how she felt at the present moment in time.

Roberta staggered back into the living room and looked around the chaos that met her eye. The detective had the right to look agitated, the place was foul. The table had a relative army of mugs clustered at one end where Sam sat to research and tap away at his laptop. The books that he’d also been allowed to borrow from the shop were haphazardly strewn around the table completing the untidy ambiance. There were pizza boxes, complete with cat nibbled slices, at the foot of both the sofa and armchair. And, having not cleaned in two weeks, there were significant amounts of cat fur wafting around in the corners of the room like tumbleweed. The muddy paw prints leading from the cat flap in the French doors to the comfort of the seating, didn’t help either. They ended abruptly as the wooden floor met the ribbon rug, the sudden streaks of clashing colour hiding all but the darkest of dirt.

“What we gonna do huh?” Roberta sighed, slumping down onto the sofa and pulling the black and white tomcat onto her lap. He struggled for a moment, not wanting to cuddle on anything but his own terms. He settled momentarily before Roberta released her grip, at which point he leapt off and made for the kitchen. Seems he doesn’t want to hang out with me either, Roberta thought.

She’d been looking forward to Sam staying. The initial phone call had been a little uneasy, mostly because Roberta was more than happy living on her own. She had very little family, with her parents dead and her sister emigrating to South Africa after marrying a skipper. Ridgewood was the last place she’d thought of ending up, but with a lack of private teaching positions open to her, it had been her last resort. And so, here she had ended up.

Once in the bubble between the trees, this tiny town had become her home and she really didn’t have many thoughts of those outside of the area. So, it had come as a great surprise when a face from the past had messaged her, pleading to bed down for a couple of nights until he found somewhere to stay. Nobody actually came to Ridgewood for visits, and there was a dearth of hostels or hotels. So, Roberta ended up with a houseguest. Not that it affected her at all she realised now, he was never there. He crept in towards midnight, doing his best to avoid cursing as he knocked his head against the low porch, by which time Roberta was already in bed. She dragged her sorry state out of bed early to get to work on time, and never saw her friend at all in the mornings. No, Sam’s stay was not how she’d envisioned it at all Roberta thought as she gazed up at the dining table covered in his things.

Rubbing her tired eyes, Roberta’s mind couldn’t help but wander back to Vanessa. It happened a lot. She’d be thinking about groceries, about marking, even about sex, and somehow, however intangible her thought process was, she’d end up with the image of grey skin, blonde hair and the grimaced look that had been etched into the girl’s face. Something about that night made her uneasy, lurked at the back of her mind. It was as though she was trying to remember a thought, and though it was present, it constantly evaded her grasp.

The chronological events simply didn’t tie up correctly. She wasn’t lying, so could Vanessa’s roommate Emily be covering something up? Had she left earlier than anyone was letting on and could therefore have died hours before? But even that didn’t make sense. The caretaker would have been down the corridor shutting off lights, closing up the school. And, it hadn’t been that many hours since the throng of students would have made it impossible for Vanessa to have died in that corridor.

Had she been moved there? Died earlier? Roberta couldn’t see how and why this would be the case. The shoe thing troubled her too. It was, of course, a mere coincidence that the heels on both women’s left shoes had broken. In the same way that Roberta must have fallen oddly, Vanessa’s heel must have already been damaged. When Roberta tried to fix her beloved cream open toed pumps, she had noticed that the rubber sole on the heel was scorched and had all but disintegrated. It was all too odd for words.

Vanessa’s ghostly face flashed before her eyes again, causing her to shudder. How she was supposed to forget this figure and move on with life, Roberta simply did not know.

*I will be posting one or two scenes a week as the story builds. However, if you can't wait that long, Inside Evil is available on Amazon, Kobo, B&N, Smashwords and iBooks.

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