Chapter 4 – "The Shelter Had One Rule: Don't Ask Why. I Broke It in 10 Minutes."
The shelter was a converted house in a residential neighborhood in Henrico. It was old, probably built in the 1950s, with a wraparound porch and a dilapidated fence. The yard was overgrown, but someone had planted flowers in the planters near the front door, and they'd started to bloom.
Evie stood on the porch, clutching the duffel bag the hospital had given her. It contained nothing but a few toiletries and some donated clothes.
The door opened.
A woman stood in the doorway, short and solid with graying hair pulled back in a severe bun. She wore a plain gray dress and sensible shoes, and she looked at Evie the same way she might look at a stray cat that had shown up on her doorstep.
"Detective Thorne called," the woman said. "I'm Miriam. This is a safe place. In here, you don't have to pretend to be anything other than what you are. You don't have to hide. But you do have to follow the rules." She pointed to a sign on the wall. "No drugs, no alcohol, no fighting. Ten o'clock curfew. Morning chores."
Evie nodded. "Thank you."
Miriam stepped aside. "Come in."
The interior was cluttered but clean. A small living room opened onto a cramped kitchen, and Evie could see a staircase leading up to the second floor. A few women sat in the living room, watching a small television. They glanced up when Evie entered, then looked away.
Miriam led Evie to a room at the back of the house. It was small—just a bed, a dresser, and a window that looked out onto the backyard. It smelled like lavender.
"This is yours," Miriam said. "I'm sorry it's not more."
"It's fine."
"The bathroom is down the hall. There are towels in the closet. Lights out at ten."
Evie set her duffel bag on the bed. "Thank you."
Miriam paused at the door. "Your family was rich."
Evie didn't know how to respond to that.
"The detective told me some of it. Your parents, the fire, the locked door." Miriam's eyes narrowed. "I've been running this shelter for fifteen years. I've seen women come in here with nothing but the clothes on their backs. I've seen women who've been beaten, burned, stabbed, and left for dead. I've seen women whose families turned their backs on them because they couldn't deal with the truth."
Evie waited.
"You're one of the lucky ones," Miriam said. "You're still alive. That puts you ahead of a lot of people."
She left without another word.
That night, Evie lay in the narrow bed and stared at the ceiling. The shelter was quiet. She could hear the hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, the occasional creak of footsteps on the stairs. Outside, the wind rustled through the trees.
She couldn't sleep.
Every time she closed her eyes, she was back in the burning room. The smoke was in her lungs, the heat was on her skin, and the locked door was standing between her and everything she'd ever known.
She remembered the keyhole. The blue plastic handle.
She remembered trying to break through the lock with a fireplace poker, her hands blistering, her throat raw from screaming.
She remembered finally breaking through, the explosion of heat and light as the fire rushed into the room behind her, and the smell of burning hair as she stumbled down the hidden stairwell and out into the backyard.
The grass had been wet. She'd rolled in it to put out the flames on her clothes.
And then she'd seen the cars.
Her mother's car was in the driveway.
Her father's car was not.
They had both told the police they'd been asleep. But the neighbors had seen them leave. Had seen them drive away from the house in opposite directions, minutes before the fire started.
Evie sat up in bed.
Someone had locked her in.
Someone had started a fire.
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And her parents had an alibi.
But the alibi was a lie.
